Waking Caliban

by Mike Cartlidge

  “So I was right?” she asked. “You had scanned them?”

  “I had. And I guess we must assume that whoever broke into my room now has the electronic versions.” I couldn’t believe I’d been so foolish. I’d committed the cardinal sin of underestimating my unseen enemy. In doing so, I’d put my friends in danger and probably given up the one secret that allowed me some measure of control over this whole situation.

  Miranda’s hand came back to mine and squeezed. “What do we do now?”

  I forced myself to drop the self-recrimination and think. George’s recorded message had also told me was that the police wanted to talk to me about the break-in. That, I thought, would have to wait. Spending time with the police was something I couldn’t afford, especially as there was a chance my admirers in the Warwickshire constabulary would find out and decide to catch up with their favorite mass-murder suspect. The thing I most needed to do was to get to Stratford and make sure that if someone had taken my computer, they wouldn’t be able to do anything with the knowledge they’d stolen.

  I needed to know more about the break-in. I rang George’s mobile only to hear the message service cut in.

  “She’s probably still at the hospital,” Miranda said. “If she’s anywhere near medical equipment, they’ll have made her have turn her mobile off.”

  I was distracted by a change in the pitch of the Mercedes engine and realized the vehicle was slowing down. The driver pumped the accelerator and the car lurched violently but continued to lose speed. The Arab steered towards a long, leafy lay-by, leaning back in his seat and speaking over his shoulder. “Engine is missing. Breakdown, yes? I stop and fix.”

  Miranda’s eyes were wide with disbelief. I wished I’d been able to think of some way of getting a gun after our flight from America. Too many bad things were happening at once and the engine, when the driver wasn’t playing footsy with the throttle, sounded fine. I had no choice, though, but to sit helplessly as the Mercedes glided to a halt in the lay-by, a few meters off the road. As the car stopped, I leaned forward and placed my hand on the driver’s shoulder but he squirmed sideways and, opening the door, was out of the car like a rat from a burning dumpster.

  By the time I got out and followed him, he’d propped up the big car’s bonnet and was opening a small tool kit beside his feet. He picked up an adjustable spanner and gave me a nervous grin before crouching over the engine. I’m no mechanic and all I could see was that his hands were fumbling around with part of the electrical system. I cursed under my breath and, reaching down to the tool kit, selected the largest screwdriver I could find. Then I caught hold of the driver’s wrist and, pulling him round to face me, pressed the tool against the side of his face. His eyes met mine and then dropped.

  “Car is broken,” he muttered. “Must call for help.”

  I gave his left nostril a tweak with the tip of the screwdriver. “Get this car moving now!”

  His hands pushed ineffectually against my chest. “Is no good. I not tricking. Car sick.”

  I pushed him disgustedly. Slipping the screwdriver into the inside pocket of my jacket, I walked round the car to the driver’s door and tried the ignition. The engine turned over but wouldn’t fire. When I turned back to the driver, he’d pulled a mobile out of his pocket and was hitting numbers.

  “I call for help,” he said desperately.

  I moved towards him again and he shrank back, huddled over the phone. Miranda had climbed out of the car now and she placed a hand on my arm to stop me.

  “The little bastard’s scared out of his skin,” she said. “It’ll be no use knocking him about.”

  “I wasn’t going to hurt him. Just scare him a bit.” I forced myself to breath deeply and look around. Apart from the occasional car passing on the road, we were quite alone. The lay-by we were in had been part of the road at some time: the road itself had been straightened and this curve had been stranded like an ox-bow bend in a flatland river. The local council had placed a rubbish bin and a wooden picnic table – now liberally covered with graffiti – at one end of the grassy space around it. Oak and elm trees lined the whole area and a gate behind us led to a path that was decorated, for its first few yards, with abandoned mattresses, derelict prams and bags of household refuse.

  Miranda moved closer to me, a concerned expression on her face, and slipped her hand around my waist. The driver had now walked a few feet away and was busy on his mobile. He glanced up and saw me looking at him. “Help coming,” he called.

  I glared at him. I didn’t know what was going on here but I was beginning to form a few theories and none of them were attractive. We needed to get away from this place as quickly as possible. I walked back up to the chauffeur and, grabbing his shoulders, turned him round and pushed him against the car. I suppose I had some idea that he might have removed part of the car’s electrical system and, as he cowered in front of me, I patted down his pockets. I found nothing beyond a thin plastic wallet and a cheap biro. If he’d removed anything from the engine, he’d already hidden it somewhere.

  I left him and ran back to the driver’s door. Another turn on the ignition was no more successful than the previous effort and, after a brief but satisfying thump on the car roof, I forced myself to fall back on the training I’d received so long ago. Think, plan, execute. Stay focused and don’t concern yourself with might-have-beens. If we couldn’t get the Mercedes going, we needed alternative transport quickly. I decided to flag down a vehicle and see if the driver would take me someplace I could hire a fast car.

  I left Miranda standing by the Merc and trotted to the side of the road. Past the trees that surrounded the lay-by, I could see fields containing lazy-looking cattle and, in the meadow nearest to us, a piebald pony. No signs of people.

  The first car that came along was a large Chrysler driven by an elderly man. When I tried to flag him down, he sped up and then swerved around me as I stepped onto the road.

  Miranda walked part-way to the road. “You trying to take my mind off our troubles by getting yourself run down?” she asked.

  I glanced at her and then looked back down the road. “We need to get away from here.”

  “You think this is a set-up? Surely Salim’ll come back for us? There’s not much point him going to Stratford without us.”

  “You think?”

  “If he don’t got us, he don’t got the map.”

  “Unless,” I said, “he’s got it already.”

  Her face fell. “Whoever broke into your place must have been working for Bakst.”

  “Maybe. Did Salim have a phone in his Rolls?”

  She turned towards the driver. “Hey, Abdul!”

  The Arab was leaning on the side of the car. He looked across at us and, holding up his mobile, answered the question he’d obviously been expecting. “Help coming. Be here soon.”

  “Do you have Salim’s phone number?” she called.

  He nodded his head. “Got number in phone.”

  Miranda turned back to me. “Look, try to flag down a car if you like. I’ll get Salim on the driver’s mobile and get him to come back for us.”

  As she walked over towards the driver, another car, a fawn-colored Ford Focus, sped towards us. I stepped back into the road and held up my hand but the vehicle swerved past me, following the same line as the Chrysler. I cursed all the old newspaper stories about car-jackings and motorists getting mugged by people they’d stopped to help.

  Back in the lay-by, Miranda had taken the chauffeur’s phone and was pressing numbers on the keypad. Even as she was holding the phone to her ear, though, the chauffeur pushed himself away from the car and came towards me, pointing up the road, in the direction towards which we’d been heading. We must have been very close to another town: I could see a tow truck coming towards us, its front painted in bright reds and yellows, a small crane sticking up from the flat bed behind the cabin.

  “Thank God for that,” Miranda said.

  The tow truck looked innocent en
ough but my instincts for trouble were screaming. I called for Miranda to stop and looked around, wondering if the surrounding fields offered any chance of an escape route, should we need one. When I turned back towards the lay-by, I saw that Miranda was still walking towards the car.

  “Miranda!” I shouted. “Stop and get back to me!”

  She looked confused. “It’s just a goddam tow truck, Hastings.”

  The truck was turning into the lay-by now and I was torn between making for the nearest cover and running to collect Miranda. When it came to it, I knew I couldn’t leave her.

  It was too late, anyway. As the truck braked to a stop in front of the Mercedes, its doors swung open and two very large men jumped down onto the fractured tarmac. It was the blond one whose face registered first, with its line of teardrop tattoos beneath the narrow-set eyes and its strangely effeminate smile.

  I tried to remember if this one was called Havoc or whether that was the dark-haired one, the one with the plaster over his nose, who was now jumping down from the cab and pointing a silenced automatic pistol at my face.

  Chapter 29

  Isn’t it gratifying,” the dark one said, “to have the opportunity to renew old acquaintances?” He turned his head slightly and winked at me. “Is my observation not perspicacious, Mr. Havoc?”

  “Perspicacious and efficacious, Mr. Damage,” the blond one said.

  Well, at least that cleared up the confusion about who was whom. Not that this was a great comfort. Havoc had also produced a pistol which he aimed somewhere between me and Miranda. I stepped forward but both guns instantly turned towards me. After our early meeting on the street near Madame George’s, it was reasonable to assume that both Havoc and Damage would avoid taking chances with me. I breathed in and kept still until Havoc stepped closer to Miranda and, grabbing her arm, began to pull her towards the tow truck. I stepped towards him then but Damage had moved around to keep a clear line of fire on me: he yelled at me to stop and I had to stand and watch as Havoc made Miranda climb into the cab.

  Things were happening quickly now. Havoc pushed Miranda across the cab and, getting in behind her, squeezed himself into the driver’s seat and closed the door. As he started the engine and reversed the truck towards the road, I had no choice but to watch as Miranda squirmed round and looked back at me, her eyes wide with fear.

  Damage had to move a few steps sideways as the truck moved but he was still standing roughly in front of me. His eyes fastened on mine: full-on, I noticed again that he was slightly cross-eyed, as if the skewed nose that I’d hit a few days ago – and, I sincerely hoped, put a little further out of shape – affected his eyesight. He made an impatient gesture towards the driver and the Arab returned to the Mercedes and put his head under the bonnet again. I could see him adjusting some component of the engine, his hands remarkably sure after his earlier fumbling, and I guessed that the car’s ailing electrical system would soon experience a miracle cure.

  I looked back towards the truck, which by now had pulled onto the road. As it accelerated away, I could see the back window through a cloud of black exhaust smoke. Miranda’s mouth was open as though she was shouting to me but I could hear nothing over the roar of the engine. Without thinking, I stepped forward and Damage raised his pistol and aimed it directly at my face, only lowering it when he heard another car approaching and had to move sideways to block the view of the gun from the road. I glanced at the car as it passed. It contained two teenage couples, the one in the rear seat locked in passionate embrace. As the vehicle sped away from us, the boy in the back looked up and flipped us the finger.

  Damage had glanced round in time to see the boy’s gesture. “All too typical of the youth of today,” he grumbled. “One cannot help but observe a distinct lack of respect for their elders and betters.”

  “Why don’t you run after them and shoot out their tires?” I suggested.

  He cocked his head to one side, pretending to consider the suggestion. “An intriguing proposition, it most certainly is. However, much as I might enjoy the enactment of such a fantastical scenario, you and I must perforce engage in a short perambulation.”

  Behind us, the driver had finished fiddling with the engine. Rolling up the tool kit, he slammed the bonnet down before walking round to the driver’s door. He tossed the tools onto the car’s back seat and folded his arms as if awaiting events.

  I looked back at Damage. “Did you just mean what I think you meant?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He gestured with the pistol towards the gate that led to the woods. “A little walk. If you’d be so kind.”

  I thought again about trying to jump him but there was no doubt our little rumble on the streets of old London town had made him wary of me. As I side-stepped towards the gate, he maintained a steady distance between us of about ten feet, too far for me to be able to close the gap before he could fire the gun, too close for there to be much chance of his missing if I tried to run. I had no choice but to keep walking, even though, once we were in the woods and hidden from the road, I guessed I’d be able to count my remaining lifespan in seconds.

  I walked through the gate and a few feet along the path. If I was going to have any chance of surviving this encounter, I needed some way of distracting him or of getting close enough to disarm him before he could put a bullet into me. I needed a diversion. Maybe an irritable rat would jump out of one of the soggy old mattresses beside the path and bite his leg. It was as good a prospect as anything else I had going for me.

  There was one other possibility, even if it was a long shot. So far, Damage hadn’t insisted on my raising my hands. In itself, this was interesting: it implied that he knew I’d be unarmed. It also meant that, when I turned my body away from him, I could slip my hand around the handle of the screwdriver in my inside jacket pocket. I had no great hopes that a tool from a car repair kit would be a match for the pistol Damage was holding, but at least it gave me some sort of fighting chance. All I needed now, of course, was that diversion.

  For once my luck might be improving. I heard the sound of another car engine on the road and it seemed to be slowing down. I prayed the driver would stop in the lay-by. Damage cursed and ordered me to keep still. By this time, he was level with the gate but, when I looked back over my shoulder, he was still about ten feet away from me. He glanced at the slowing car, a BMW 7 Series with tinted windows.

  It was the best chance I was going to get. I pulled the screwdriver from my jacket and, flicking my wrist as it came clear, hurled it tip-first at his face.

  My timing was slightly out. Damage was already turning back towards me and, seeing the approaching missile from the corner of his eye, ducked sideways. The screwdriver still struck him a glancing blow on his cheek and, by this time, I was moving. The gun came up in his hand but I closed on him fast, shifting my weight so that I could kick with my right foot towards his gun hand. He was just inside the mossy gate and maybe that impeded his movement and slowed him down for a split second. I swiveled my left foot on the earth, tae kwon do style, and catapulted my right leg out. I felt impact on the outside of my foot and heard the silenced phut as he got off a round. He was a fraction of a second too slow. The gun flew sideways and fell to the ground as I dropped my leg and flowed straight into the punch, slicing upwards towards his throat and then following through with a combination of kicks and blows as he staggered and half-fell against the gate post.

  It was clear that he had the strength to match his immense size: my kicks and punches would have dropped most opponents but he was still standing and, to my surprise, he lurched forward at me. I moved into a defensive stance, ducked a roundhouse punch aimed at my head and then raised my knee and dropped my elbow to parry a clumsy kick aimed at my stomach. He was fast but he was essentially a street-fighter, a scrapper who relied on strength and the shock of violence rather than finesse. As he punched again, I stepped forward to block the blow and then slid my arm under his, pushing so that he was partly turned away from me. Ten
sing, I put a straight right punch over his shoulder and into the side of his face, aiming for the line just below the ear, between jaw and skull. I heard him grunt and, before he could counter, repeated the punch twice before stepping back and kicking high into his face. I saw blood spurt again from his nose and he went over and sprawled onto his back amongst the bin-liner bags of rubbish beside the track.

  He wasn’t out but I figured I could finish him. I started forward again, raising myself onto the toes of my left foot, ready to bring the heel of my right foot down onto his throat. It was a savage move but anger spurred me on and I was in no mood to show mercy. I was about to kick downwards when I was distracted by the unexpected sound of a pair of hands clapping.

  I stopped and turned towards the noise. The BMW had pulled up next to the Mercedes and a stocky man was standing next to the chauffeur, just the other side of the gate. The newcomer had close-cropped hair, brown but graying at the temples, and a goatee beard around a slit of a mouth. His hands were hidden by expensive-looking leather gloves. It was his eyes, though, that held my attention. I’d seen his type before: this was a man who could do bad things and never have a moment’s regret about them. He stopped applauding and took hold of the pistol he’d been holding underneath his right arm. Then he grabbed the chauffeur and pushed him towards me, gripping him by the back of his collar as a child might hold a kitten.

  My breath was ragged from the recent exertion but, otherwise, I stood still while I waited to see what the newcomer would do next. At least he didn’t seem to be aiming his gun at me. Rather, the pistol barrel was pointing in the general direction of Damage, who by this time had pushed himself into a sitting position and, groaning from time to time, was holding his hands over his newly-rebroken nose. The newcomer pushed the chauffeur towards him and the Arab stumbled and then dropped by Damage’s side as if he meant to help the big man.