by Nick Oldham
He hoped they would stay deep down in the locker but wasn’t too concerned they would eventually be found, maybe dragged up in a trawl net, but by that time there would be very little remaining of them once the fish had had their fill.
He sat back naked in the fighting chair, having also removed his own blood-soaked clothing, shredded it and then dumped it overboard. He had a few reflective moments, wondering how he felt. Usually revenge was a dull sensation, but this wasn’t. It was good.
Then he looked at the state of the deck.
The next hour was spent returning it to its pristine condition with hard scrubbing and many buckets of sea water, which he knew was good at getting rid of blood. After this he doused himself with buckets of the same, standing naked on the deck.
By this time he had reached the southern tip of Majorca and the uninhabited island of Cabrera where he found anchorage in a quiet cove. Here he had a freshwater shower, sluicing all the salt out of his skin, then hosed the deck down again. It now bore no trace of the terrible fight, unless of course a very skilled and dedicated crime-scene investigator ever got to work on it, in which case he was sure its secrets would be unearthed.
That was never going to happen.
In the morning he ate breakfast off the island, just muesli and black coffee and a couple of paracetamols for his leg wound. It was sore again but it had stayed together during the fight.
Next he put a call through to his friend Paul in Ibiza, telling him the charter party, Mr and Mrs Jackson, had decided that boating wasn’t for them and had left him at Cala de Sant Vicente, electing to make their own way back to their accommodation. Flynn told him he himself had decided to make his way back to Gran Canaria and thanked him for the summer work he had provided.
In fact, he was travelling in the complete opposite direction.
Flynn then called Karl Donaldson.
EIGHTEEN
The Mediterranean weather stayed mostly kind for Flynn over the next few days, for which he was grateful. It allowed him time to reconnect with the boat and also himself.
He found that Maria was probably the best sportfishing boat he had ever skippered or owned. There were many much better, bigger, more expensive boats out there, but Maria was exactly suited to him, handled well and loved being pushed against the sea. Over the course of his journey east he became as one with her, fell in love with her all over again.
He spent a long time contemplating himself, too.
He wasn’t particularly great at introspection but by the end of the journey he knew exactly what he wanted and it wasn’t vastly different to anything he had wanted before – just with a few more roots.
He wanted to be back in Puerto Rico. Years ago, on leaving the cops under that dark cloud, he had scuttled off to Gran Canaria with his tail between his legs and started a new life as a sportfishing skipper. It had become his home. He had friends there, occasional lovers but no permanent home. He wanted that last aspect to change when he eventually returned and intended to look at renting somewhere long term instead of crashing out and depending on the goodwill of others who usually accommodated him.
Then he wanted to rebuild the business. He had no aspirations to make any great profit from sportfishing – indeed, there was no real money to be made, it was all about the lifestyle. All he wanted was to break even, make enough to live on and keep his boat afloat, go to sea six days a week and eat paella and drink lager on the seventh, tan himself the colour of teak and grow as ancient as the old man and the sea. He would keep fishing until he was physically or mentally incapable of doing so.
In terms of companionship, he was undecided.
Women who tagged themselves along with him seemed to come to tragic ends. That alone made him wary of relationships. Not that he really wanted anyone else at the moment. He still had to grieve properly for Maria and he knew it would be a long process, although he was well on the way now that her killers had been brought to justice. As it were.
He didn’t want to rush anything in the love department, although he did think a lot about Molly Cartwright.
So that was it: Gran Canaria, his boat, an apartment, work and maybe some fun.
His journey across from Ibiza was a series of hops: firstly to Cabrera, where he spent the night before nipping to Palma on Majorca to refuel and take on supplies. From there was a longish haul to Sardinia, where he again refuelled and resupplied in Cagliari, spending a night in the harbour. An early departure saw him sail across the Tyrrhenian Sea and into Palermo in Sicily for another refuelling stop, all paid for by Mr and Mrs Jackson. He then crossed to the pretty island of Pantelleria, where he anchored offshore for a day and night before setting off on the short skip across to Malta, the very famous George Cross Island.
He chugged between Dragut Point and Tigné Point and entered Marsamxett Harbour, the natural harbour located to the north of the much larger Grand Harbour, and found the berth he had pre-booked by phone in Lazzaretto Creek by Manoel Island.
It was eight p.m., the fifth day of his journey, as he manoeuvred the boat into the tight berth, connected to the electricity and fresh water supply and slid the gangplank across from the deck to shore.
He was met by Karl Donaldson.
Two other figures lurked behind the American: Rik Dean and Molly Cartwright.
‘All customs, health and immigration procedures catered for,’ Donaldson announced, ‘courtesy of Homeland Security.’
They had rented two spacious but nondescript three-bedroom apartments on Tigné Street, Sliema. Flynn, Donaldson, Rik and Molly were taken there from the quayside in a people carrier driven by one of the guys who had previously driven Flynn from Blackpool to Blackburn a few days earlier. He was now wearing a baseball cap, cool shades, a tight-fitting T-shirt and shorts for the change of climate. He still did not speak.
Flynn was shown to one of the bedrooms which had its own en suite, and although he had managed to get some sleep at sea and keep clean, he found himself in need of a proper shower and a proper bed. The first, he was told, he could have; the latter would have to wait.
With hardly any conversation, he closed the door of his room and stripped off.
The shower was good, the shave great.
When he stepped out, a clean set of clothes had been laid out for him on the double bed and a tray of cold food and hot soup on the dressing table. He had also eaten well on his journey, but the sight of fresh chicken sandwiches and the smell of minestrone soup made him ravenous. He ate heartily, sitting by the open window at the Juliet balcony overlooking the narrow street below.
Only then did he show his face in the living room where Donaldson, Rik and Molly sat chatting softly. Flynn had worked out that these three, plus him, were in this apartment. Donaldson’s assistants occupied the apartment across the hall. He didn’t know how many there were, but he had spotted and nodded at one of the other guys who had abducted him in Blackpool, so there was at least two of them in non-speaking roles.
Not that he was remotely bothered.
Donaldson, Rik and Molly clamped their mouths shut when he entered.
Rik was in the process of pouring whisky and he shook the bottle at Flynn, who nodded a yes and joined them, sitting alongside Molly on the large sofa, taking the half-filled glass that Rik offered.
‘Didn’t expect to see you here,’ Flynn said to Rik. Then, ‘Or you,’ to Molly.
‘You don’t ditch me that easily,’ she said.
Flynn looked at Donaldson. ‘Where are we up to?’
‘Halcyon is due to arrive at midday tomorrow by all accounts. We’ve kept an eye on her progress and all indications are to that effect.’
Flynn nodded.
Donaldson said, ‘We – you and me, that is – need to have a conversation. Maybe not now but certainly first thing in the morning.’
‘OK.’ Flynn knew what that meant: a debrief and maybe a briefing.
‘For now, though, we chill.’
Flynn took a mouthful of his whisky.
It tasted orangey and smoky at the same time.
Twenty minutes later, he needed to hit the sack.
Thirty minutes after that there was a light tap on his door.
He had been sitting up sipping more whisky by the Juliet balcony. A very big part of him had wanted to hear the knock – he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be Donaldson or Rik – but the thirty-minute wait was testing his nerves and his capacity to stay awake. He crossed to the door and opened it.
He was right. Gently, he pulled Molly into the room.
‘The other two are sharing a bedroom. I can hear them bickering like a couple of old queens,’ Molly laughed.
Flynn smiled nervously.
He and Molly were now sitting on chairs either side of the open window, drinks in hand. Conversation had been stilted but not unpleasant. Flynn had been in two minds about her. He had desperately wanted her to be the one knocking, yet at the same time he was conflicted over Maria and did not want to be unfaithful to her memory, especially at this stage in the game when hopefully the winning post was in sight. He could tell Molly was also unsettled.
‘I think possibly they are a couple of queens,’ Flynn said.
‘Wouldn’t that be fantastic?’
They lapsed into silence, listening to the street.
Molly eventually broke it. ‘Karl told me about what happened on the boat. That must have been horrific.’
‘Bit like dealing with a nasty road traffic accident,’ he said. ‘You just do it.’ He raised his chin so Molly could properly see the nasty red wheal across his Adam’s apple made by Matt’s garrotte.
‘Hell!’ she said. ‘How did you …? No, no, I don’t want to know.’ She closed her eyes. ‘What a mess. What’s going to happen, Steve?’
‘A lot depends on Karl, I think. I get the impression he’s running the show now. Just have to suck it and see.’
Molly got it.
‘He’s obviously got the firepower and manpower and the inside track … I just don’t know how it will pan out. I might get sidelined.’
‘If I’m honest, that’s what I’d hope.’
They looked at each other over their whisky glasses.
Flynn tried to form the words as best he could. ‘Look, Molly, I want to be with you. You’ve been on my mind all the time, and to be honest I never really thought I’d see you again, so you being here is great.’ He paused. She watched him. ‘I’m only making assumptions here and I could be well off the mark. You might not feel the same – but my problem is I really haven’t dealt with Maria’s death properly yet and I’ve kinda learned that revenge is only part of the process … Ugh, crikey,’ he said. ‘I’ve run out of words. Making a cock of this, methinks. Sorry.’ He closed his eyes tightly.
He heard Molly move. When he opened his eyes she was kneeling upright in front of him between his legs. She had put her glass down. She embraced him and his arms slid around her body, pulling her tenderly up to him. Her face rested on his chest.
They held each other like that for a long time before separating.
Molly’s bright, sparkling eyes looked into his.
Flynn could actually feel his heart pounding like mad.
She placed the tip of her forefinger on his lips. ‘Your assumptions are correct, Steve Flynn, but let’s just do this one step at a time.’ She kissed his cheek, then rose stiffly to her feet, still with the whiplash injury giving her grief, out of his embrace. She walked to the door and, with one last glance at him, she was gone.
Flynn shook his head, and as he tossed the remains of his whisky down his throat he rebuked himself with the old adage, You wanker, mate, you should never, ever waste an erection.
They met for a light continental breakfast at the French Affaire coffee room on the corner of The Point, Malta’s newest shopping mall overlooking Tigné Point. There was not much talk and Flynn noticed Donaldson’s and Rik’s tetchy exchanges with each other as clearly they had not slept well. He also noticed their occasional knowing looks at himself and Molly.
Flynn couldn’t have cared less.
After breakfast they walked back to the apartment where Donaldson’s three FBI assistants were waiting, all dressed in T-shirts and cargo shorts and wearing dark glasses even indoors. Even their shaved-head haircuts were all the same.
Donaldson talked to one of them out of earshot in the hallway, then both men came into the lounge to join the others. Donaldson looked uncomfortable.
‘At this juncture, I think I need to speak privately to Steve,’ he announced. ‘Only because you two guys …’ he indicated Molly and Rik, ‘… won’t be able to unhear things. I know you’ve come out here to help but I think it would be better for you both to sit this out now.’
Rik and Molly looked stunned.
‘I don’t think so,’ Rik said solidly. ‘I haven’t just come here as an observer.’
‘And I’m not here as totty,’ Molly stated.
Donaldson’s look paused on Molly and he frowned.
‘Look, guys,’ he said, recovering himself, ‘this is a black operation now and I’m not even sure which way it’s going to go, but I do know that things might happen you won’t want to know anything about.’
‘Things have already happened I don’t want to know about,’ Molly pointed out. ‘So why are we here?’
Donaldson went tight-lipped for a moment. Then he shrugged. ‘It wasn’t a great idea in retrospect. It’s not like I’m going to issue you with guns and body armour, is it? This is my trade, it’s what I do, what these guys do.’ He indicated his colleagues.
‘And what about Flynn?’ Molly asked.
Donaldson looked at him. ‘I’m not as bothered about him hearing.’
Flynn gave a ‘whatever’ shrug.
‘We have to be involved,’ Rik said. ‘Even if we don’t pull triggers, don’t treat us like kids. Our chief constable has authorized me and Molly to be here, fully aware of the implications. The truth of the matter is we are as deeply involved as anyone else here. You lost an agent to the Bashkims. I lost a good firearms officer in Mike Guthrie, and don’t forget Jerry Tope and all those other people who took bullets in the head, all part of the constabulary brotherhood.’ He turned to Molly. ‘And Molly was a victim of the hit on the police escort and had to defend herself from the Bashkims, plus Alan Hardiker, for all his faults, did not deserve to be knifed to death.’ He then looked at Flynn and jerked a thumb at him. ‘And this guy got involved through no fault of his own and has had to react all the way. Now we all have the chance to be proactive for once. If taking old man Bashkim out by any means possible is the answer, then so be it, because I know that simply arresting him and putting him before a court is not the answer. I’m a cop, I believe in justice … and I think this is justice. Yeah, OK, you’re not going to give us guns and the final decision on how this all pans out is yours, Karl, but we should be allowed to be in at the kill even if it’s only metaphorically speaking. Molly and I can live with that.’
Rik’s keynote speech hung in the air until Flynn said, ‘I want a gun, though.’
The lounge in the apartment was set up with a laptop computer HD wired to the large-screen TV already in the room.
The chairs and sofa were arranged so everyone could see the screen.
The three FBI agents sat on dining chairs at the back of the room.
Donaldson had the laptop on his knee.
He had put up a photo of Viktor Bashkim’s boat, Halcyon on the screen followed by scanned documents from a sales brochure for the boat, which also gave details of the boat’s layout – useful information for any team who had to board her.
‘Since we last talked, we found out that Viktor paid thirty-five million euros for this boat from a dealer in Istanbul in 2010. It wasn’t called Halcyon then but was renamed by Viktor.’
‘It is a nice boat,’ Rik said.
Donaldson nodded. ‘We hardly knew that Viktor existed until fairly recently, but I have found out that he has been at sea for the last four years s
ince his wife died, a pretty lonely existence surrounded by his crew and the one remaining grandson, Niko.’
‘What do we know about Niko?’ Flynn asked, watching Donaldson carefully.
‘Er, not much, really. Likes his women. Likes his money.’ He sounded cagey to Flynn, who asked, ‘When are you going to tell us who the source is, Karl? Presumably someone on board?’
Blank-faced, Donaldson said, ‘Like I said, that isn’t for sharing, not at this stage. It’s all very delicate, as you can imagine, and his or her safety has to be ensured.’ He went on, ‘So our intel is that Halcyon is currently en route to Malta, confirmed by a booking with the port authority and a snippet from our source. We think Viktor is coming here to collect his dues for all the migrants now mustering in Libya, number confirmed by satellite. The boat is booked in for four days, after which she will sail back across to Greece. Our intention, at this moment – and things might change – is to take Viktor out while he’s here in an operation sanctioned by no one, and should it go wrong then a lot of questions will be asked and a lot of egg will be flying in faces – which is why I did not want you guys to be involved.’
He looked hard at Rik and Molly, who scowled back at him.
‘Anyway, I have a specialist black ops team arriving from the US tonight and when they arrive we’ll start talking dirty.’ He looked around the room. ‘That’s basically it for the moment … any questions?’
‘When is the boat actually due to arrive?’ Molly asked.
‘Sometime after two today.’
‘So we’re kicking our heels for a while,’ Flynn said, looking through narrowed, suspicious eyes at Donaldson.
‘It all seems so surreal,’ Molly said to Flynn. ‘A bit like prepping for D-Day.’
‘It is,’ he agreed. ‘But it gets more and more real once you start putting body armour on. You know that feeling now, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, guess I do … But the thing is, it still feels like a bizarre dream even when the bullets start flying, like you’re in a film or something.’
