by Paul Finch
He ploughed on, pulling out the iPhone and tapping in a quick number. It gave him a mild jolt to think this might be the last time he’d ever call Gemma. He was tired and stiffening, and the Nice Guys were a lot fitter than him. Plus there were more of them and they were heavily armed. If there was ever a time he needed his former lover to answer the phone, it was now – but yet again it cut straight to voicemail.
‘Gemma … it’s me,’ Heck said, panting as he tripped and struggled through corn husks. ‘Whatever level of Hell you’ve got me consigned to … please hear me out! First of all, don’t believe a word Ben Kane tells you. You may already have worked this out, but in case you haven’t, he’s the Nice Guys’ mole and I can prove it … but of course, first you’ve got to find me. And that won’t be easy, because I’m on Holy Island. That’s right, Lindisfarne … Northumbrian coast. Gemma, the Nice Guys are here too. Not all of them, but most of the ones currently in the UK. I don’t know their total strength … maybe as many as nineteen. Put it this way, they’re team-handed and they’re packing massive firepower. So you’d better bring your mates with you. On the upside, they’re going nowhere for the time being. The tide’s come in and the causeway’s flooded for the next five hours. But all that time I’m stuck here with them. So get a scoot on, eh? Or they’re going to turn me into a colander.’
He was tempted to add a few additional choice thoughts, but barking male voices now drew his attention behind. A small group of Nice Guys were already on his tail. Klausen and five others openly sported firearms as they athletically vaulted the first fence.
‘Gemma … however you feel about me,’ Heck said as he hammered on, ‘and I imagine you’re pretty pissed off at present … and hey, maybe those feelings are mutual! … I’ve never needed you more in my life than I do at this moment. So please get this message soon. Over and out.’
Though Gemma was airborne again, back in the NEAS Eurocopter, she was no longer out of range of the mobile networks, but initially, thanks to being engaged with a series of urgent phone calls to senior officers in various northern forces, she was too busy to pay attention to the unrecognisable number from which some previous caller had just left her a message.
And it wasn’t as if she didn’t have other things to occupy her thoughts.
She only knew PC Jerry Farthing as a uniform from Northumbria. She’d no idea how it was that Farthing now lay in a wood dying from gunshot wounds, unable to tell his office specifically which wood, except that it was off the A1 somewhere north of Alnwick. But the search wasn’t just on for Farthing. It seemed that several firearms-related incidents had recently been reported in the Alnwick district. It hadn’t needed a genius to make a link between Farthing’s garbled message and those other offences, but it had taken a certain DS Barry Grant, based down in Sunderland, to connect Farthing to Operation Thunderclap due to the wounded PC’s former association with Heck. In response to this, Gemma was already headed for the Northeast coast, with several other choppers close behind her, drawn from various forces but mainly containing armed SOCAR personnel who had flown up from the south. Meanwhile, specialist firearms teams from Northumbria and Durham were en route on the ground.
With all this going on, it was nearly ten minutes after she’d first noticed the unidentified number before it struck her that no one of inconsequence knew they could reach her on this line. She hit playback – and listened, at first trying not to flinch from the desperate, breathless voice at the other end, then trying not to show any emotion in front of the pilot.
As soon as the call terminated, she stabbed in another number.
‘Talk to me, Gemma!’ came Tasker’s voice. He was currently headed south from Edinburgh by hire car, by the sounds of it at high speed.
‘It’s Holy Island, Frank!’ she shouted. ‘The Nice Guys are on Holy Island!’
Chapter 36
The eastern shore of Holy Island wasn’t an especially long way from the pubs and cottages of Holy Island village; a third of a mile at most. But long before Heck reached it, the atmosphere of quaint rural community had gone, and he was crossing rough, uncultivated ground. Gulls wheeled raucously overhead, riding the cold wind blasting in from the sea. It was torturous on his leaden limbs and tired joints. He only reached the waterline after stumbling through ranks of age-old dunes thinly capped with tussocky, wiry grass – yet the beach itself was mainly shingle, the dark green waves rumbling up it and retreating again with much sucking and grinding.
He halted, sweat-soaked. Some distance away to his right reared the mound on which sat Lindisfarne Castle, noticeable for its solid outer wall and the flag streaming from its central spire.
‘No more bloody castles,’ he said, turning left.
In that direction, the desolate shoreline stretched on northward, but about fifty yards along there was a row of buildings. Heck slogged towards them, feet crunching in the debris. The bungalow-like outlines gave away their purpose. They were built entirely from wood, and painted in various bright colours. Chalets, holiday lets; five in total. Each had a small, carefully laid garden at the front, and a narrow paved path leading through to the rear, presumably to a larger garden. Of course, on the North Sea coast the off-season came early, and as it was now late September, there was nobody here. The chalets’ front doors were closed, shutters covering their windows. The grass on their lawns and the bushes in their flowerbeds already looked straggly and overgrown.
There might be a hiding place among one of these, except that the Nice Guys could easily put a match to the whole lot. Heck glanced back along the beach. There was no one else there yet, but they couldn’t be far. Tracking a fugitive over open ground ought to be a forte of theirs. They might even be encroaching through the gardens to the rear of these properties right now, fingers on triggers.
Exhausted, he stumbled on.
Just beyond the chalets, he saw what looked like a fisherman’s hut, a ramshackle timber thing perched on props on the waterline. Most of its windows had been broken, presumably by gales and heavy seas, and were plastered from the inside with old newspaper, but a jetty jutted out some sixty yards, at the far end of which there was a mooring with a small motorboat tilting on the tide. As Heck hurried towards it, voices clawed his attention back. Two of his pursuers had appeared at the far end of the chalets, one tall with blond hair.
Heck scrambled forward to the hut, diving to the ground and rolling underneath its propped-up porch, scrabbling through driftwood and weed, and emerging on the other side where he was screened from them. He climbed breathlessly onto the hut’s leeward step, on top of which there was a door. Thrusting his hand through the urine-yellow newsprint covering its central panel, he reached down, yanked the bolt back and stepped inside.
It was musty and damp, and smelled strongly of fish. There appeared to be all kinds of junk in there, but the first thing he really noticed was a set of four large plastic containers arranged in a row along the back of the hut, in a section sheathed with corrugated tin. Each one was filled with liquid. He unscrewed a top and sniffed. It was petrol, presumably for the motorboat. He looked farther. Other gear was heaped higgledy-piggledy: ravels of netting, lobster pots, hooks, lines, barrels and crates, shelves groaning beneath various ocean-faring knickknacks, a heavy oilskin coat and cap hanging from a hook next to the door – but nothing that was obviously a weapon. Then he heard the voices again, much closer – along with a shattering of wood. Heck lifted a sheet of newspaper and peeked out.
Klausen and his men, all five of them now, were prowling the front of the chalets with hunched, angry postures. With a bellow, Klausen launched himself at the second chalet’s front door, splintering it inward. He and another of his men went in; there was much clamour as they tore and smashed everything they found.
The Aussie with the plastered nose did the same with the next building along, while a fourth invaded the one after that, but the remaining two, which included Klausen’s American deputy, bypassed the chalets altogether and came on towards
the fisherman’s hut. They walked slowly but with purpose, their weapons by their sides. Even from this distance, Heck recognised an Armalite rifle in the American’s hand, an L22 carbine wielded by the other. These two alone were packing enough firepower to stop a herd of elephants.
Shaun Cullen didn’t open fire on the dilapidated hut simply for fun. Nor did Alex Mulroony, the bullet-headed Glaswegian by his side. They knew Heckenburg was around here somewhere. The guy wasn’t Rambo; he had to be out on his feet by now. Concealment was his only option, and there were few opportunities for that here.
The L22 and the Armalite spat fire on the ancient building, blowing out planking, glass, sections of window frame. When they’d emptied their clips, the structure remained upright, but only just – hanging together loosely, creaking, the wind whistling through its multiple jagged wounds.
Cullen went up first, kicking at the windward door, the very little of which remained falling from its hinges. Inside, it was knee-deep in wreckage: broken barrels, shattered crates. Shelves had fallen on all sides, spilling seas of bric-a-brac. Dust and splinters swirled. Cullen advanced in, Mulroony following – both surprised to find themselves sloshing to their ankles.
‘The fuck …?’ Mulroony said. ‘That fuel?’
‘Gas,’ Cullen replied.
‘Smells like petrol!’
‘I mean that, fuckhead! Look …’ Cullen twisted to the rear of the interior, where four large plastic drums had ruptured, spilling their contents.
‘Place is swimming,’ Mulroony said.
Cullen peered more closely at the four drums. Slugs had gone through them, but by the looks of it each one had also been sliced down the middle, as though with a knife. ‘What the …?’
The sudden ‘rattlesnake’ hissss might have warned them, had they known where it was coming from. They spun around, guns levelled, but when the brilliant red flare arched in through the leeward window, there was nothing they could do.
The blinding flash would have been seen for miles. An ear-pummelling BOOM followed as the fisherman’s hut was engulfed in a searing holocaust of flame.
Kurt Klausen and the other three Nice Guys watched agog from alongside the row of chalets, barely flinching as burning shrapnel cascaded around them. Only the sight of Heck leaping up into view on the far side of the jetty, and sprinting along it towards the motorboat jerked them into action. They charged forward, checking their weapons, but struggling as Heck had done on the heaped shingle.
The jetty was actually longer than sixty yards; more like eighty. It was also greasy, and Heck was going full belt – yet somehow he kept his balance, his shadow spearing ahead of him, reflected by the inferno at his back. Of the two sodium flares he’d found on the fisherman’s shelves, he still had one left; it was crammed into his pocket next to the company phone. He didn’t know how it would help him, but he was hanging on to it. More useful was the key he’d found in the old oilskin coat. It would be ridiculous if it was the wrong one, but something told him it wouldn’t be.
His rubber soles skated the last five yards as he attempted to stop, and he rocketed down, landing on his back in the boat, which bounced and swayed on the oil-dark waters. He jammed the key into the ignition and turned it. The vessel revved to life, pivoting around as its propeller began chopping. Heck glanced at the mooring rope knotted around a hook at the back end of the boat. He also threw a single glance down the jetty.
And saw something incredible.
A figure in tatters was jerking towards him along the timber footway; blackened and melted all over, smoke hissing off it in gouts. Still limping on its injured left knee.
Heck yanked at the rope to loosen it.
The figure was coming at pace, already halfway along the jetty.
Heck crammed his fingers in to try and widen the knots, but sodden with freezing sea water, the rope was proving difficult.
The terrible shape, now only thirty yards away, audibly slobbered for breath. ‘Motherfucker,’ it gasped. ‘I’ll kill you … motherfucker …’
Heck’s fingernails tore and split as he rent at the rope. With painful slowness, it began to unravel.
The figure was less than a quarter of the jetty away, the woodwork shuddering to its heavy footfalls – so close he could smell its burned flesh.
‘Gotcha!’ Heck shouted as the last knot sprang apart. He unwound the rope from the hook, turned and dived for the wheel, hitting the accelerator, the boat surging away – but the roasted husk that had once been Shaun Cullen had now reached the end of the jetty. With a choked howl, it launched itself into space – landing squarely in the back of the boat.
Chapter 37
Even chargrilled, Shaun Cullen was a frightful opponent.
He was in a hideous state: little of his clothing remained – just scraps of smouldering fabric fused to his crisped, semi-liquid flesh. His hair had gone, as had much of the skin from his face, leaving only a purulent, melted mask stretched on visible bone structure: peg teeth, lidless eyes rolling like golf balls in their orbits. His stench alone could knock most men unconscious, and yet he got back to his feet with incredible ferocity.
Heck attempted to steer the boat away from the jetty, heading south yet far enough from shore to be out of range of the gunmen on the beach, but now he had to leave the wheel to defend himself, because Cullen came at him, howling, arms windmilling.
Heck grabbed the fisherman’s knife with which he’d gutted the petrol drums in the hut, and slashed out, incising a deep wound across Cullen’s left forearm. But the American, with so many nerve-endings destroyed, barely flinched. He struck at Heck with the bloody knot of bone and pus that was his left fist. It caught Heck full on, smearing body fluids across his cheek and mouth. Heck tottered backwards, knocking against the wheel, which turned them sharply to port – so they were now headed away from land into the roaring, rolling surf of the North Sea.
Heck tried to duck out of the way, but Cullen kicked at him. He was still wearing a pair of boots, the scorched hobnailed sole of the left one clamping Heck’s hand to the gunwale with crushing force; the hand jerked open and the knife was lost into the bilge. Charred teeth gnashing, Cullen followed through with a right hand jab; Heck wove away, and though it missed his Adam’s apple, it jolted the left side of his neck.
Heck sagged against the wheel a second time, his consciousness reeling as pain engulfed his head and his shoulder. A backhand chop came down at the other side of his neck, but he had sufficient strength to block this, and then stamp out and down with his left foot, driving his heel onto Cullen’s injured knee.
Some nerves were clearly still functioning: the American gave a choked squeal, and toppled across the boat, which was now buffeting and bouncing on an ever-heavier swell. Heck managed to steady himself, his head still ringing. Cullen lurched towards him, shrieking, leaving himself wide open for the right hook that hammered into his mouth, busting in those many exposed lengths of tooth, jarring him sideways.
Even then, with fresh blood spouting from the blistered hole in his face, Cullen tried to bounce back. Heck caught him with another hook, this time a left, and the American went down heavily, more corpse than man.
Heck staggered back, reaching for the wheel and gazing shoreward.
Holy Island was already little more than a narrow green/brown line on the western horizon. A tiny spark denoted the fire at the head of the jetty. He lugged the wheel around. He was acutely conscious of Klausen and his men’s assault rifles, but he didn’t know how much fuel this boat contained, and the last thing he wanted was to run out a mile from land. But no sooner had they changed direction, waves hitting the vessel side-on, rocking them like a cradle, than Cullen swayed back to his feet, now with a secondary weapon drawn from his left boot.
It was a Desert Eagle, an ultra-powerful pistol. It would have changed the game there and then, had the American’s fleshless fingers not found trouble trying to cock it.
Heck relinquished the wheel again. On the inside of the sta
rboard gunwale, a paddle hung in stirrups. He snatched it and spun around, smacking the pistol, flipping it overboard. Cullen still threw himself forward, and they grappled chest to chest, the paddle crosswise between them. The boat continued rocking, throwing them this way and that, one falling on top of the other, first to starboard and then to port. Heck head-butted Cullen. The bastard head-butted him back. Though Cullen only had fragments of teeth left, he tried to clamp them on Heck’s nose, but Heck drove him back by shoving the point of his elbow into his throat. Cullen gurgled, his exposed eyes finally registering pain. Heck caught him again, this time under the chin, breaking the madman’s hold, and stumbling away.
They were now headed inshore, the landmass approaching at speed. The blazing wreckage at the foot of the jetty was more clearly defined, as was the row of chalets – where Klausen and his men would be waiting.
Heck grabbed at the wheel with one hand, and with the other clung to the paddle. Cullen hung on to the other end – in fact he wrenched at it feverishly, finally tearing it from Heck’s grasp, so that it went spinning over the side. But now, for the first time, Cullen’s strength seemed to be flagging. He hunched there, bloodied, putrid, the air rasping through his lungs. Doggedly, he threw himself at his opponent. Heck broke from the wheel to smash his right fist into the mangled face, and drive his foot as hard as he could into the side of the damaged knee.
When Cullen landed in the bilge this time, it was with a hollow thud – and an air of distinct finality.
