Soft Target 05 - Blister

by Conrad Jones

  “Sound, can I pay you for the steroids tomorrow mate?” the young man tried his hand.

  “Yes you can, as long as you don’t want the gear until tomorrow my young friend. I don’t do credit,” Victor slammed the boot closed and glared at the two men.

  “Alright mate, calm down,” the younger man reached into his sports bag and produced a bundle of notes.

  “You’re a cheeky bastard,” Victor said shaking his head as he opened the boot again to get the steroids.

  “Yes, and you’re a fucking no mark Polish gobshite,” the young man pulled a small metal cosh from the holdall while Victor had his back turned. He swung the truncheon and hit Victor at the base of the skull. The big Pole dropped to his knees, stunned by the force of the blow. He maintained his grip on the boot of the Bentley, which kept him upright. The second man grabbed the boot lid and slammed it closed on the back of Victor’s head. Victor fell backward onto the road and cracked his head on the tarmac. The first man reached into the Bentley and lifted out a holdall full of steroids. He looked inside and was impressed with the size of his haul. The young thug stamped on Victor’s genitals and he twisted over onto his front to protect himself as the two men started to kick him viciously. The whole thing had happened so fast that Tank was frozen still in the pick-up. He had to make a decision quickly, help his target or leave him to the mercy of the younger thugs. Tank needed him alive and able to speak. He opened the door and jumped out of the pick-up. The two men saw Tank coming toward them, and there was a look of confusion on their faces. Tank was a big man, much bigger than them, but they didn’t recognise him from the gymnasium. The smaller man stopped kicking Victor and turned to face Tank.

  “If you have got any sense you’ll get back into your truck mate, and don’t get involved.”

  Tank was less than three yards away from the man as he issued the warning and the colour drained from the man’s face when he realised that Tank wasn’t about to stop. The man took a wild swing with his right hand. Tank raised his left forearm and parried the blow without stopping for breath. A left hook was blocked with similar ease. The man had left his face wide open and Tank lunged forward with his head. The butt connected with sickening force and the soft flesh around the nose and top lip were split wide open. Tank grabbed him by the testicles and squeezed hard whilst lifting him up to shoulder height at the same time. He twisted his upper body and slammed the man head first into the pavement. The man crumpled like a bag of dirty washing and Tank turned to face the second man.

  The second man watched mesmerised as Tank tossed his friend aside as if he wasn’t there. There was fear in his eyes and mentally he was already beaten bar the fighting. Tank saw that Victor, who was still on the floor, was moving again. The Pole swung his legs at his attacker, catching him on the back of the knees. The man dropped onto his back and cracked his head on the tarmac. Victor moved like lightening. He lifted his right foot high into the air and slammed it down heel first into his attacker’s face. The force of the blow smashed the back of his head against the floor hard and knocked him unconscious. Victor used the bumper of his car to help him get up off the floor. He rubbed the back of his skull and tried to clear his head, while keeping a wary eye on Tank. A small crowd of onlookers had gathered to watch the fight. Another group of men from the gymnasium were also gathering at the bottom of the stairwell.

  “Thanks for your help,” Victor nodded to Tank and picked up the sports bag full of steroids. He swung a kick into his attacker’s head as an afterthought. The man groaned and rolled over.

  Tank nodded back to him silently and walked back toward his pick-up. He couldn’t risk any further exposure here, there were too many people about. The men from the gym were talking angrily and one of them ran toward the two unconscious locals on the floor. Victor slammed the Bentley into reverse and the tyres screeched as he pulled away from the melee. A big man in a vest and baggy tracksuit bottoms threw a bottle of water at the Bentley as it drove past him at speed. The plastic bottle clipped the windscreen and bounced off. It rattled across the tarmac and landed at Tank’s feet. He crushed it as he climbed into the pick-up. He started the engine and followed Victor Brastz from a distance.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Uri

  Uri pulled the Mercedes away from the dock. He looked up into the bridge of the lightship and he could see his employer Christopher Walsh staring at the camera monitor and smiling. Uri shook his head and wondered how he had ended up working for an eccentric English business-man who was like some type of mad professor and conducted terrible chemical weapon experiments on homeless people. On top of that, he had plans to threaten the 2012 Olympics. At first Uri thought the plan was to highlight a right wing agenda that his boss was loosely connected to, but as time went by the fascist, racist connections became more tenuous every day. Uri was convinced that the plot was about money and not any political motive. Uri had to admit that he didn’t really care as long as he was paid. He had introduced most of the hired guns that were required for the operation, and the majority of them were from Russia and the Eastern Block. There were more people involved, divers, undersea welders and the like; although Christopher had been introduced to them by Uri, the Estonian man had no further dealings with any of them. Christopher dealt with all the technical personnel himself. It wasn’t good for security but Uri had no say in the matter. He would have to deal with people like Gari whenever they stepped out of line, and trust that Christopher knew what he was doing with the other side of the operation.

  Uri had been in the country for ten years now. He had joined the Estonian mafia at the age of nineteen. He was from a small town called Voru, on the borders of Latvia and the Russian federation. Uri was naturally a big man, and he was as tough as nails. He began driving vehicles, which were stolen to order from Britain and Western Europe into Lithuania, across neighbouring Latvia, through his home Estonia, to be sold in Russia. His employers noted that he had a talent for crime, and they lured him to the West to work in their businesses in the United Kingdom. It was working in these businesses where he made many contacts from his homeland and other countries in the East. His role within the Estonians’ organisation had fizzled out as the people that hired him moved on, and several of the senior members were jailed for people trafficking. It was then that he branched out on his own and became a Mr Fix-it. If anyone needed muscle then he could supply it. If they needed a safe cracker or a cat burglar then he could supply them also. Uri used his connections to become an agency for organised crime personnel. The system worked well and the risk to his liberty was low. Uri rarely became involved in the criminal activity that he facilitated, and it became a very lucrative business. However safe and sound his business had been, it was not as lucrative as the position Christopher Walsh had offered him, and so unusually he had become personally involved in this operation.

  Uri needed to remove the Mercedes and Gari’s body from the dockside. He drove through a series of roads, which serviced the quaysides and reached the dock road unhindered. There was no sign of the port authority police. He edged the Mercedes into the traffic and took the main road north out of the city centre. To the north of Liverpool was a Victorian seaside resort called Southport, once the jewel in the crown of the North West’s tourist industry. It was once the home of the rich and wealthy merchants who worked in the port of Liverpool and it was also the holiday destination of millions of tourists every year, but it had fallen into decline decades ago. Now it was a mishmash of rundown boarding houses and derelict businesses. The centrepiece of the resort was a huge kidney shaped boating lake around which a miniature steam engine would pull day-trippers. The waters were now green with algae and littered with shopping trolleys. The majority of the ornate three storey hotels on the promenade, once thriving, were now converted into bedsits and were full of Polish immigrants who worked for peanuts in the dying tourist industry. Uri had a large pool of criminal contacts who lived and worked in the town. He gunned the engine and pushed the Mercede
s faster as he reached a wide dual carriageway, which connected the revitalised city of Liverpool to its smaller decaying neighbour. Uri made a call on his cell phone.

  “Hello.”

  “It’s Uri.”

  “Hello my friend, it’s been a long time,” a Russian voice said sarcastically.

  “It has indeed, at least a week. How’s business?”

  “You know how it is Uri, we duck and we dive. It is getting harder all the time to export our products out of this god forsaken country,” the man laughed as he spoke but it sounded forced. There was suspicion in his voice.

  “Exports always were tricky my friend, that is the reason for the call, I need a Mercedes to disappear,” Uri said.

  “I didn’t think that you were calling to enquire about my health Uri,” the man laughed gruffly. “What model is it?”

  “It’s a black CL500 on a two thousand and eight plate. There is damage to the driver’s window and luggage in the trunk,” Uri explained his problem without alerting any unwelcome listeners that may have been listening. He had to be careful with every phone call that he made, just in case he or his associates were being bugged by the serious crime units.

  “What kind of luggage Uri? It is hard enough moving vehicles as it is, especially Mercedes,” the man became irritated.

  “It’s another load of meat,” Uri answered, referring to the dead body in the boot.

  “Another one, Jesus Christ Uri what have you got yourself into?”

  “It’s a one off contract and it is nearly completed, I need it gone tonight,” Uri remained vague.

  “Okay, but what about the car?”

  “You can keep it. I just need it to disappear,” Uri kept his cool. He knew that the Mercedes would bring a hefty price in the Russia, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Western decadence had overtaken communist ideals a long time ago. Disposing of one dead body was chicken feed in comparison to the return that they would make on the prestige vehicle.

  “You have a deal,” the voice remained gruff and unfriendly.

  “Where should I deliver it to?”

  “When do you need to get rid of it?”

  “I need it taking immediately, I’m on my way now.”

  “Okay, take it to the chop shop at the old funfair. Someone will meet you there.”

  “I’ll be ten minutes,” Uri cut the call off and pressed harder on the accelerator.

  Uri reached the coast road and headed toward the beach where the old Pleasure Beach funfair stood rotting next to the ocean. A massive wooden rollercoaster, which once had carriages thundering up and down a series of precipitous inclines, was now a derelict relic of greater days. Its cracked white paint glowed and made it loom out of the darkness from about a mile away down the deserted promenade. It was now a pile of firewood waiting to be demolished. Uri drove slowly along the beach road. To his right were the twinkling lights of the town across the stagnant boating lake, and to his left was the Irish Sea, which was hidden by the darkness of the night. It was a black void. The Southport coastline is wide and flat. When the tide retreats it leaves miles and miles of wet sand exposed. At its furthest ebb when the tide turns, it is not visible to the human eye from the coast road. Far out at sea tiny lights flickered in the pitch darkness. There were four gas drilling platforms operating in Liverpool Bay and one of the largest ocean wind farms was offshore. These industries required a small armada of boats to maintain and supply them. That was what Uri’s boss Christopher was hoping to use as a smoke screen for his salvage operation. Uri was glad that he would be keeping his feet on dry land during this operation.

  Uri approached the entrance gates of the old fairground. There was a tall wooden archway with metal gates hanging from it. The once vivid paintings of cartoon characters on the arch had long since faded and the coloured wood had cracked and warped. The thick metal gates were blistered with rust and were secured with a padlock and chain which looked out of place as it was relatively new. There was a sign hanging at a lopsided angle warning people to keep out, and that trespassers would be prosecuted. He pulled the Mercedes in front of the gates and waited. The beach road was deserted but for a few cars parked randomly, probably containing courting couples with more urgent things on their minds than the black Mercedes near the Pleasure Beach. Uri saw a narrow beam of torchlight approaching the gate from the opposite side.

  A figure emerged from the gloomy fairground and he reached through the rusted bars and jiggled the padlock around to his side, so that he could unlock it. The chain dropped free, and the gates swung open with a tortured squeal. Uri engaged first gear and drove the Mercedes through the gates into the Pleasure Beach. The caretaker stayed silent and locked the metal gates behind him. He walked in front of the car and waved to Uri to follow him. Uri looked around the derelict fairground and a shiver ran down his spine. Uri thought that there was something eerie about the funfair at night, but even more so when it was deserted and decaying. The building to his left had a weathered sign identifying it as the ‘River Caves’. Tall weeds and grass now grew where the river boats once floated in fluorescent blue waters. The imitation caves were once filled with life sized plastic dinosaurs which had long since been sold on to fairgrounds elsewhere. To the right hand side of the caves was the ‘Hall of Mirrors’. The caretaker waved Uri toward the alleyway between them. There was a set of double doors and he pulled them open one at a time, revealing a busy chop shop within. Inside the shell of the derelict fairground attraction were a dozen vehicles. Each vehicle was undergoing a makeover before it would begin its journey to the East. There was a small army of men and machines, cutting, grinding and re-spraying the stolen prestige cars. A radio played an Oasis track somewhere at the back of the building. The noise inside was dampened by thick strips of carpet and cardboard nailed to the doors and walls, making it impossible to hear the men and machines from outside.

  Uri pulled the Mercedes into the unit. He turned off the engine and released the boot catch before climbing out. Four men wearing white paper suits, covered in engine oil and grease opened the trunk and removed the body. None of the men that were cutting and grinding paid any attention to the others as they struggled between the cars with the dead weight. Uri watched as they carried the limp corpse across the workshop to a wooden bench. The bench incorporated a large band saw, and had been draped with a polythene sheet to minimise the mess. The electric saw sprang to life and the body of Gari was pushed through it half a dozen times in different directions. Within five minutes, the corpse had been expertly dismembered ready for disposal at sea. Uri had seen it done many times before but it never failed to fascinate him just how quickly a man can be wiped from existence.

  “There’s a fire exit at the back of the unit which will take you back onto the beach road,” the man who had opened the gates said gruffly. “Unless there is anything else, do you need a lift anywhere?”

  “No thank you. I’ll walk, I could do with some fresh air,” Uri took one last look as the men scraped Gari’s intestines into a bucket. He was a hardened criminal but he wasn’t sure how much more of this business he could stomach. He headed for the exit and decided to have a few beers before getting one of his men to pick him up and drive him back to Liverpool. He had an unhealthy craving for vodka after drinking beer especially after completing a cleanup job. Uri stepped outside and the sea breeze cleared his head. The fire exit door closed shut and the noise of the chop shop inside was silenced. Out in the bay he could see small deck lights flashing as the gas industry continued to search for vital fossil fuels. His thoughts were disturbed when his mobile phone vibrated and he cursed under his breath as he removed it from his pocket. He squinted in the darkness and then looked at the screen. The handset’s caller identity told him that Victor Brastz was on the line, and he never called unless there was trouble.

  Chapter 16

  The Lightship

  Christopher Walsh scanned the oceanographic charts in detail, and he compared them with some of
the surveys that his divers had already undertaken on his behalf.

  “Are you absolutely sure that this is the site where you made a contact on the seabed?”

  He was very excited because the charts confirmed something that he had suspected for a while. There were three areas marked on the maps that they had retrieved from the old submarine commander, which were allegedly the exact sites of torpedo attacks on suspected German spy ships in 1943. The issue Christopher was contemplating was purely a matter of physics. He knew from the study of dozens of wrecks that a sinking ship never travels vertically to the seabed. They usually travel at a steep angle from the surface, which can take them hundreds of metres away from the actual point of conflict when they finally hit the ocean floor. Millions of dollars had been invested and ultimately lost all over the planet by treasure hunters looking for wreck sites. Pinpointing the exact resting place of any ship was a science more akin to winning the lottery. Christopher had invested time and money into finding the whereabouts of these particular wrecks even though he couldn’t be certain if they were there at all, or if they contained blister agents. He only suspected that the wrecks held caches of mustard gas shells. It wasn’t until he had sent his men to interrogate the submarine commander in his sheltered accommodation that he began to feel more confident that he wasn’t on a wild goose chase. His men had encountered armed police, who had killed two of them as they tried to escape with the charts. Armed policemen are a rarity in the United Kingdom and they certainly don’t patrol retirement villages at random. They must have been there for the same reason he had sent his men. Now he was absolutely convinced that the authorities believed the same thing that he did. There were wrecks containing blister agents on the seabed.