Luc: A Spy Thriller

by Greg Coppin

  ‘What do you think of your nearest rival for the leadership, Julio Falcao?’

  ‘Well, Julio is an outstanding politician. It’s not a secret that we don’t see eye to eye on everything. But if he does become leader, I look to serve him in any way I can.’ We continued on like this for a few more minutes and then he looked at his watch. ‘And now, I do apologise, but I have much still to get through.’ He put his glasses back on. ‘And tonight I’m to be grilled on Ask the Question, so…’

  ‘You must love those programmes,’ I said grinning.

  ‘It’s a good opportunity to get across to people what I believe in,’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘Well, thank you for your time, Mr Thurton. The people of the UK are most concerned with what’s been going on. It’s good to know that things appear to be under control now.’

  Thurton smiled and nodded and we shook hands. ‘Give my regards to Barney,’ he said.

  ‘Will do.’

  I left the room and strolled down the corridor.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  The Zeiss 10x54 zoom binoculars stood on a tripod at the front window of the top floor apartment of Mrs Juanita Contenza, an elderly lady who had been listening to old fashioned Belizean jazz rhythms on her ancient gramophone when I had earlier called. Mrs Contenza had now temporarily vacated her one bedroomed apartment and was being excellently catered for by those lovelies in the black pencil skirts at the British Embassy.

  Looking through the Zeiss I turned the lens and Thurton came into focus. He was crouched down, flicking through some paperwork in the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet. I was looking directly down into his office window from the building opposite. He stood up and kicked the drawer closed and took the file back to his desk.

  I watched for a good hour. He had a further two meetings. One was with a journalist from The Belize Times. They talked of the upcoming leadership election. They also talked of more domestic matters. The second was a meeting with a member of the Senate. Discussing something valid but, for my ears, mundane. I’m glad I just about managed to stay awake though. Because Thurton had a third meeting.

  And this one was with Ray Mortlake.

  Mortlake strode into the office with his bodyguard, Salazar. The microphone picked it all up, if a little muffled.

  ‘How’s your day been, Thurton?’ Mortlake asked. Salazar stood away to the right, out of my sight.

  ‘Okay. Busy as usual. The life of a politician.’

  ‘You wanna try being a lawyer.’ Mortlake’s New York accent was still strong.

  ‘I’ll stick to being a humble politician.’ I could see the weak grin on his face.

  ‘Next week you’ll be the Prime Minister and we’ll both be as rich as Croesus. Get used to it.’ He looked around the office. ‘Before we start preparing for your Ask Any Crap appearance, anything happen today that we should know about?’

  Thurton shrugged and gave another weak grin. ‘Publicity went well.’ I could hear the smirk in his voice. He sounded like a fourteen-year-old trying to impress an eighteen-year-old.

  ‘Shut up, Bob,’ Mortlake said. ‘And I’m serious. This is an election. We got people who want to stop us. Anybody meet you, try and contact you, who you didn’t know, were unsure of?’

  Thurton shook his head. ‘I meet lots of people. I don’t know. I’m a politician.’

  ‘Well you wanna get out of that habit. Look, you wanna be on the lookout for people who don’t have your best interests at heart. You got me?’

  ‘Yes, sure.’

  ‘We’re moving heaven and earth for you, all right? We don’t want it ruined at the last minute. The Brits especially have it in their craw to stop you.’

  ‘The British? Why?’

  ‘Who knows about the goddam Brits. Does anybody?’

  ‘I’ve always go on well with - .’

  Mortlake pointed a finger at Thurton. ‘Have you met any Brits recently?’ I tensed.

  ‘No. Actually, yes.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘It was just a guy from the London Times.’

  ‘What guy?’ Mortlake sounded suspicious as hell.

  ‘A journalist.’

  ‘When was this? This a scheduled meet?’

  ‘Today. A few hours ago. It was a last minute arrangement, but they were doing a piece on the leadership election. Why not?’

  ‘From the London Times?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know this journalist? You’ve seen him before? One of the usual?’

  ‘Well, no, but…’

  Mortlake reached into his case and pulled out his laptop. He tapped out something on it and then strode round to Thurton. ‘This the guy you saw?’ He put the open laptop on the desk in front of Thurton.

  ‘Yes. That looks like him.’

  Mortlake nodded. ‘Journalist, eh?’ There was a hissing sound. I couldn’t see, he had his back to me, but I think Mortlake was letting air out through gritted teeth.

  ‘That sonofabitch is not a journalist.’

  ‘He said he was.’

  Mortlake got animated. ‘Where did he go? In this office, where did he go?’

  Thurton shrugged. ‘He sat in that chair. Put his recorder on the desk.’

  Mortlake marched to the front of the desk. He crouched down and looked under the desk, felt underneath with his hands. He stood up. He was motionless for a touch of a second. Then he seemed to see the chair. He grabbed it, turned it upside down.

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ Mortlake roared. He plucked off the mic. A scuffing sound came through my ear bud. Mortlake then threw the chair across the room. It disappeared out of my view, but the sound of the crash was loud.

  ‘Goddam it, we got people masquerading as journalists to get in here, and when they do they bug the goddam place.’ That sounded like a little speech for the microphone. The outraged innocent.

  Mortlake dropped the mic onto the carpet. He then smashed his heel down on top of it four times. The first time loudly disabled it.

  Mortlake looked up. He looked at the window. He slowly approached it. His face scanned from left to right.

  Then he looked up.

  The Zeiss has an anti-glare coating. But it’s not 100%. If you’re looking for it, you might just find it.

  Mortlake looked as if he had just found it.

  He backed away, pulled out his phone and disappeared from view. My phone began to ring.

  It couldn’t be…

  I looked at the display. It wasn’t.

  ‘Luc, it’s Aranda. Are you near a TV?’

  ‘Why, what’s happened?’

  ‘Something bad. Switch on the TV.’

  ‘Is Falcao okay?’

  ‘We kept him alive. But we couldn’t count on this. I’ve got to go. Switch on the TV.’

  I backed up and went across the living room. An old Sharp TV stood in the corner, a potted plant on a lace doily sitting on top. I switched on the TV and then went hunting for the remote. I found it down the side of the brown armchair. I switched channels until I got the news. A male reporter was standing outside an apartment block. Police tape was stretched across the road behind him.

  ‘…the girl died of her injuries. Mr Falcao is helping the police with their enquiries but we understand he is denying that he ever knew the girl.’

  The anchor man back in the studio then spoke: ‘Jim, do we know how the girl got into the apartment?’

  ‘No, we don’t. Mr Falcao says that he drove back to his apartment after giving a speech at a St George’s Caye event. As we understand it, his version of events is that he found the dead girl lying on the floor of his bedroom when he got in.’

  ‘You’ll know as well as we do that there have been rumours circulating that the girl was a sixteen-year-old prostitute.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. We should stress that those are still only rumours. They have yet to be substantiated, but…’

  I switched off the TV.

  They’d got him.

  And they didn
’t even have to pull a trigger.

  I stalked back to the window. I looked down at Thurton. He was still in his office. He was talking on the phone and watching, I presumed, a TV screen across the room. This man just became the firm favourite to win the leadership election.

  Activity below caught my attention and I leaned over to peer down to the street level. As the glass misted up from my breath I saw heavy-set men stepping out of black cars and running into this building. Giuttieri’s men.

  Mortlake had called them.

  They were coming for me.

  I grabbed the tripod and Zeiss and smartly left the apartment. I unscrewed the Zeiss and left it in a broom cupboard at the end of the hall. I carried the tripod with me to the stairs.

  I pushed open the door and took a couple of steps down. I stopped, my foot hovering. I could hear many footsteps, quickly pounding up the staircase towards me.

  I retraced my steps back up and silently re-emerged back into the corridor on the eighth floor. I ran the length of the light brown hallway and turned the corner, looking for the fire exit. I reached it and was not at all happy to find that it was padlocked.

  The hallway was essentially a rectangle, and I ran down the right-hand side to the end of the hall and peered round the corner. I could see the doors to the stairs. They hadn’t arrived yet but I could hear them getting closer.

  Suddenly the door swung open and two men with handguns stepped into the hallway. They both wore dark polo shirts and black jeans. They took in the layout and with silent hand signals one communicated that they would both search in opposite directions.

  I pulled back and rested the back of my head against the wall. And waited. I could hear the man’s footsteps. I was imagining it in my head, trying to judge it as best I could. The footsteps were getting close. I gripped the metal tripod tighter. And then I went for it.

  I swung round, the man brought his gun up, and I smashed the bulky end of the tripod into the his head. The man’s head bounced noisily, sickeningly, off the wall and he collapsed ungainly onto the faded green carpet.

  I leaned over him and grabbed his gun. I looked up and then dived back behind the wall, as bullets tore chunks out of the plaster above my head. The second man had heard the noise and come back firing.

  The second man was speaking. Not to me. I listened and I could tell he was speaking into his receiver. He was letting the rest of the hit team know where I was. He was still in the hall, hadn’t taken cover. He must’ve seen that I had grabbed his colleague’s gun. Or did he? Either way, I had to go for him now, because very soon there would be a dozen others to contend with. And this would be the best time. While he’s speaking. His mind engaged elsewhere. The brain genuinely cannot do two things at once, and do them well.

  I got into position, ran forward and swung my right arm round as I passed the corner and the man stopped speaking and fired and I fired once, twice, three times and the second shot hit him in the chest and the third took half his neck away. My right shoulder blade slammed into the far wall as the second man hit the floor, his gun thrown against the wall and I collapsed and dropped to the carpet too. I went to get up, pushing with my left hand on the floor, and received a pain in my left shoulder which could only mean I’d been hit. I got to my feet. I undid a couple of buttons and pulled my shirt down over my left shoulder. It wasn’t pretty but it looked as if the bullet had just grazed me.

  I looked at the two bodies.

  How many more to go?

  I could hear them. Hear the pounding footsteps mounting the stairs. They weren’t being as quiet now. I raced across the hall, past the doorway to the stairs. I grabbed the second man’s gun. I was going to need all the ammunition I could get. I carried on round the far corner and then dug my back into the wall and waited.

  The stairwell door flew open and I turned and fired. The first man through cried out as two of my bullets hit him in the chest and shoulder and he was thrown backwards. He disappeared back through the doorway. The door had a frosted window and I waited for it to darken and I fired again and again and the glass shattered and blood splattered and slowly dripped down the front of the wooden door.

  Four down.

  I may just be all right. If I could pick them off one by one then - .

  A violent burst of gunfire shredded the doorway and my illusions. Bullets and shrapnel and wooden splinters exploded everywhere and a man carrying a massive sub-machine gun appeared, stepping over the body of the fourth man and spraying bullets left and right as he walked.

  A cold fear pulsed in my body and I turned and sprinted away down the corridor.

  I took the corner and then continued round the second corner and could see at the far end, lying sprawled on the carpet, the legs of the first man who’d come for me.

  I pounded on down the hall. By the sound of it, the man with the sub-machine gun was sprinting after me, taking the same route as me. As I approached the corner I could see more men bounding through the gap that used to be the doorway to the staircase. With a gun in both hands I fired at them and kept on firing and firing until I heard the click of empty magazines. There were three newcomers and they spasmed and span round and the bullets peppered their torsos and they fell to the floor and there was an angry shout from halfway down the corridor and getting closer - the man with the machine gun. I dropped the guns and grabbed a handgun from one of the newly-downed men. Then I remembered the tripod. I grabbed for it, picked it up and with a lot of force hurled it around the corner at the oncoming man with the sub. I stepped round the corner as the man shielded himself from the missile and he released a volley of bullets which zinged above my head. I had time to get two good shots in and he collapsed backwards with two new eyes and what sounded like an army stormed up the stairs behind me. I tore over to the body as footsteps trampled towards me and I scrabbled for the sub-machine gun and grabbed it off the floor, lost balance, twisted in the air, toppled backwards, firing.

  The army came round the corner and I landed on my back and I could do nothing but squeeze the trigger and try and point the weapon in front of me, I couldn’t even breathe, just release this storm of bullets. I was sweating but I was cold, I was frightened, bullets tore past my head, brick dust exploded all around me, but I kept spraying, left and right, and men smashed into walls on both sides and the hall filled with smoke and dust and dead bodies.

  A calm. And then:

  ‘Would somebody get that sonofabitch, please.’

  I sat up. That was Mortlake’s voice. He was somewhere out on the staircase.

  ‘Salazar,’ I heard him say. ‘Will you please get that bastard.’

  ‘Will do, Mr Mortlake.’ Low and slow. Midwest American.

  I was out of bullets with the sub-machine gun. I quickly picked up the tripod and stalked back round the far corner to more safety.

  Salazar padded into the theatre of dreams. He wasn’t making a lot of noise but I listened to see which way he was coming. I couldn’t hear him. I stepped over to the left corner and carefully peered round a millimetre. Didn’t see him. I sprinted quickly and quietly to the right corner. I didn’t have to look round. I could hear some very quiet footsteps approaching.

  I saw the gun first.

  Worked out where the rest of his body would be. I did it instinctively rather than go by what I saw. I thrust my right arm round the corner, digging two fingers into the pressure point in his neck. It was close enough and he momentarily blacked out. He fell towards me, twisting as he did so, but he quickly regained consciousness and I brought the tripod up and with one of its legs open I swung it over his head and pulled it up against his throat. He was awake now, lashing out, thrashing his arms and legs. I needed this to be as quiet as I could make it. I didn’t want Mortlake to know that Salazar was dying.

  But Salazar was dying.

  As I increased the pressure, dug the tripod leg tight into his throat, he spasmed one last gruesome time and then his body went limp.

  Gently, I laid him on the car
pet.

  I pulled his red handkerchief from his jacket pocket and mopped my brow. Had to work out what was the best way to do this. I decided, and grabbed Salazar’s shirtfront and lifted him bodily up. I bent down and threw him over my shoulder, carrying him in a fireman’s lift. With him still on my shoulder I bent down again and picked up his fallen gun. I fired two rounds harmlessly into the wall. I then jogged around the corner, fired another round.

  ‘Dammit,’ I said out loud. ‘Wait. No - .’

  I cut the ‘No’ off with another burst of gunfire and then immediately threw Salazar against the wall, where he crashed to the floor.

  Approximating Salazar’s low, slow Midwest accent, I said, ‘Got him.’

  A huffing Mortlake clumped up the stairs and stomped into the hall. ‘About time,’ he called out.

  I turned the corner, pointing the gun at his head.

  ‘Isn’t it,’ I said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Ray Mortlake was uncooperative.

  Pretty much to be expected. I pushed him forward, down the street, one hand gripping his collar, the other holding the gun to his back. The strap of his laptop case hugged my chest.

  ‘One helluva mess of you they’re gonna make,’ he said, doing his best to push against me.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Ernesto Giuttieri’s men.’

  ‘Yes, well, they tried.’

  He laughed. ‘Half a dozen heavies,’ he said dismissively. ‘I’m talking about his personal army. They’re gonna hunt you down, and then they’re gonna go to town.’ He enjoyed his little rhyme.

  ‘Down here.’ I roughly shoved him down a turning on our left. His legs went stiff and he tried to push against it, but I was in no mood.

  He went down the turning. A deserted alley with a couple of cars parked up on the side.

  ‘Where we going?’ he asked halfway down the lane.

  ‘Just enjoy the ride.’

  ‘We walking all the way there? You kidnap someone and you don’t even got no car to get away in. Ain’t exactly a pro, are you, sonny.’

  He already knew that his men had trashed my Toyota.