Dead Line

by Chris Ewan

  Trent drove on and sped away down the road.

  ‘See the sign?’ he asked.

  Viktor nodded without saying a word. His skin was waxy and colourless. His pulse jumped in his throat.

  ‘You thought they held you in a cave,’ Trent told him. ‘Now we know where.’

  Chapter Fifty

  Trent drove fast towards the little petrol station in the village. He pumped fuel into the Golf, then purchased some bottles of water from the old man inside. He returned to the roundabout on the outskirts of the settlement and pulled over by the side of the road, on a dirt slope that bordered a sunflower field.

  He handed Viktor a bottle of water, then turned in his seat and delved inside the duffel bag, removing his shotgun, his Maglite and a roll of duct tape. He balanced the shotgun across his thighs and set about securing the torch to the blued barrel with the tape.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Viktor asked.

  Trent didn’t suppose he was really that naïve. But maybe he felt the need to act that way.

  ‘Part of their hideout is a cave,’ Trent said. ‘It must extend inside the limestone ridge that runs behind the outbuildings we saw. If I’m going in there, I have to be able to see what I’m doing.’

  ‘You’re going in?’

  Trent kept winding the tape round the shaft of the torch and the shotgun barrel. He’d fastened the torch to the right-hand side of the barrel. He supposed the added weight might throw his aim off a degree or two but not enough to be a problem. A shotgun was a very forgiving weapon. Unless you happened to be on the wrong end of it.

  ‘But that’s a big risk,’ Viktor said.

  ‘What did you think?’ Trent asked. ‘They were just going to surrender?’

  ‘But we can call the police. They can surround the place. Force the gang to come out. Arrest them.’

  Yes, Trent thought, and wreck any chance he had of questioning Jérôme. Maybe bungle the situation altogether. Perhaps mishandle it in a way that would lead to Jérôme being killed before Trent could get to him.

  ‘Like they did at the ransom drop for your release?’ Trent shook his head. ‘That didn’t work out so well. They got away. And one of Girard’s officers was shot dead. Besides, if the police surround the place it won’t end well. It’ll be a siege. There’s no predicting how the gang’ll react, but the odds won’t be in our favour. It’s better I go in alone.’

  And not only that, it was something he wanted. Something he needed. All the long weeks of waiting, of reacting to the moves and decisions other people had made. He’d had his fill of it. Couldn’t take any more. He was going to end things today, his way, on his terms. He was going to punish Xavier’s gang for the anguish they’d caused him, for the way they’d disrupted his plans, for what they’d done to Girard, for what they’d caused him to do to Alain, for how they’d delayed him finding his way to Aimée.

  He remembered the taunt that had been scrawled on the map of the Calanques: WE KNOW WHY YOU WANT HIM ALIVE. Yes, Trent thought, and it’s the same reason why I’m going to leave you all dead. No witnesses. No comeback. Everything had to end with just him and Jérôme. Just the truth, finally, with nothing left to obstruct it.

  ‘But there’s four of them,’ Viktor said.

  ‘At least.’

  ‘And you don’t know what’s in there. You don’t know the layout.’

  ‘So tell me some more of what you remember. Let me know everything that occurs to you.’

  Viktor remembered plenty, but not much that was useful. He told Trent that the chamber he’d been kept in had been just tall enough for him to stand. It had been twelve paces in length. Ten in width. He remembered the dimensions exactly because he’d paced it many times.

  He’d had a camp bed set up in there, and a couple of electric arc lights and a portable heater. They’d given him a CD player, but no radio. They’d provided him with a bucket as a toilet and every few days one of the men would bring in a bowl of cold water for him to wash with.

  ‘How deep inside the cave were you?’ Trent asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you must have got some idea when they took you outside?’

  ‘I told you before – I was blindfolded. And they led me on different routes. Some nights it seemed to take longer than others.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Maybe they walked me in circles.’

  Trent had finished securing the torch to the shotgun. He checked the beam was working OK. Then he switched it off and verified that the shotgun was loaded. Tubular magazine, seven rounds.

  ‘This chamber you were in,’ he said. ‘Think about it some more. What was it like inside? Was it a display cave? Did it have stalactites and stalagmites, maybe?’

  ‘No. It was just rock. It was like I told you. I used to think it could be an old cellar or a bunker.’

  That was interesting. If the caves had been open to visitors at some point, then it was likely that they featured mineral formations. Something, anyway, that people would pay to see.

  Trent removed his Beretta from his shoulder holster. Inserted a fresh magazine. Fifteen rounds. He stared at Alain’s Ruger. Decided against it. It would weigh him down. The shotgun and the Beretta would be enough.

  He asked, ‘And when they were taking you outside, were you on your hands and knees, or could you walk normally?’

  Viktor scrunched his face up in thought. ‘They pushed my head down sometimes.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘Like this..’

  Viktor demonstrated by reaching up with his good hand and cupping the back of his neck. He didn’t bend at the waist. He just tucked his chin down a short way and hunched his shoulders.

  That was interesting, too. If Trent could get as far as the caves, it didn’t sound as though he’d need to go scrambling through on his hands and knees. And that fitted with the idea of the caves being open to the public at some point. Sure, some enthusiasts liked to put on hard hats and miners’ lamps and go potholing, but the general public would expect to be able to stroll inside generous caverns.

  So access shouldn’t be a problem. But exposure might be. It could be tough to penetrate the cave system without Xavier’s men seeing him coming.

  ‘Get out of the car,’ Trent said.

  Viktor didn’t move. ‘You can’t leave me here.’

  ‘I don’t plan to.’ Trent propped the modified shotgun against the gearstick, then grappled with his door lever and stepped out onto the side of the road. ‘We’re switching places,’ he said. ‘You’re driving.’

  * * *

  Trent necked some water while Viktor trundled along the road through the middle of the fields of crops. Their speed was only modest but Viktor was crouching forwards over the dash, clenching the steering wheel, as if the Golf were in danger of careering out of control.

  Trent cracked his knuckles, then lifted the shotgun.

  ‘How long will you be?’ Viktor asked.

  ‘No way of telling.’

  ‘How will I know if you’re OK? How will I know if you’re coming back?’

  ‘You’ll see me walk out of there and signal you. Once you drop me, drive on ahead and turn where I turned earlier. Then come back and pull over before you get to the yard. Sound the horn if anyone comes at you or tries to escape. Drive away if you feel threatened.’

  Viktor stared ahead through the windscreen at the tangle of bland grey outbuildings that were growing in size and menace, speeding towards them. He wet his lip.

  ‘Won’t the gunfire be loud?’ he asked. ‘What if the neighbours call the police?’

  ‘It’s all farmland around here. Maybe they’ll think it’s a bird scarer.’

  Viktor glanced across. He hadn’t bought it. Trent wasn’t surprised.

  ‘Listen,’ Trent told him, ‘I don’t plan to be away any longer than I have to be. This is a lonely spot. It’s isolated. It’d take a while for a police unit to get here.’ He scanned the terrain by his side. Just crops. Just trees. It was flat and u
ninhabited. There wasn’t a single person to be seen anywhere close. ‘These are the bad guys, remember?’ he said. ‘They deserve what’s coming their way.’

  Viktor lifted his hand from the steering wheel. He stared at the ugly scar tissue where his thumb and finger had been. There was no light in his eyes. No expression on his face. He just stared at his hand, at the gnarled disfigurement.

  ‘We’re close,’ Trent said. ‘Get ready.’

  There was no reaction from Viktor. Mentally, he was in another place entirely.

  Trent slapped his hand on the dash. He pointed ahead of them at the complex of concrete buildings. ‘Slow down.’

  Viktor jerked his foot away from the accelerator. He lowered his hand back to the wheel and steered a course over the crest in the middle of the road, veering towards the left-hand shoulder. He blipped the brakes just as they approached the end wall of the outermost building, slowing the car to a crawl. Trent popped his door and swung sideways in his seat, then stepped out onto the road like he was disembarking from the still-moving carriage of a commuter train. He closed the door behind him with his trailing arm and jumped into the verge. He watched Viktor pull back over to the right-hand side of the road and accelerate on his way.

  There were no windows in the wall, so Trent was able to stand upright without any fear of being seen. He waited a beat for the engine noise of the Golf to begin to fade, listening keenly for any disturbance from the yard, then crept through the knee-high grass and thorns. He was holding the shotgun in his right hand, muzzle pointed down at the ground. He took a measured breath but it failed to calm his racing heart. He craned his neck around the corner.

  The yard looked exactly as it had done before. The blue van was parked off to the right and the Land Cruiser was tucked away beneath the line of fir trees in the distance. A trio of bare metal craters peppered the Land Cruiser’s tailgate. Bullet holes.

  The exterior wall alongside Trent continued for fifty feet or more before a second, two-storey building kicked out from it on a horizontal angle. There was a door set into the front elevation of the building. It was old and weathered with a dirty pane of glass at head height. Trent couldn’t see anyone through it but that didn’t mean they couldn’t see him if he stepped out and approached.

  Plus there was the Alsatian to think about. It was over in the unkempt garden of the neighbouring property. At the moment it was down on all fours in a patch of long grass, chewing what looked to be the remains of an old vehicle tyre. But if Trent tried circling round and following the line of the fence, under cover of the trees at the edge of the lot, the dog would spot him and it would probably bark.

  He snatched his head back and rested his skull and shoulders against the pitted exterior wall. The concrete was hot, warmed by the low evening sun. The air was humid and close. He was sweating copiously. There was birdsong in the trees. Insects circled his face and hands. The road was empty but another vehicle might pass at any moment. And sure, he could drop the shotgun to the ground, but he’d still look suspicious, loitering there.

  He moved back the other way. Inched his head around the opposite corner. There was an open field to his side, filled with dry cornhusks grown as high as his chest. There was a gap of a couple of feet between the crops and the side wall of the outbuilding. He could spy three sash windows but the frames were old and paint-flaked and the glass was smeared with dirt. At the end of the wall, the horizontal two-storey building extended out into the field. No door this time. Trent was beginning to think of the structure he was faced with as being shaped like a T. He was at the base of the T. He needed to move around to the top. He gripped his shotgun crossways in front of him, bent at the hip and sprinted into the corn.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  The corn was tall and dry and stiff. It snagged on his clothes, rustling like a swept broom as he burrowed through. There was a lot of heat trapped down between the stalks. The ground was dusty and hard. His feet kicked up hazy dirt in the heated air and he buried his nose and mouth in the crook of his arm.

  His thighs and lower back ached from stooping but his camouflage was good. It was difficult for him to see the side of the building clearly, so it would be next to impossible for any of the gang to spot him. Back in his military days, he’d trained for assaults just like this. Dummy exercises against dummy foes lurking inside dummy structures. But this time it was real. This time it would count.

  The horizontal building that formed the top of the T was just ahead. He circled round it, creeping low through the corn, the paper-dry stalks cutting his hands and knuckles where they were bunched around the shotgun. He worked his way towards the edge of the field. Dropped to one knee and scanned the new terrain.

  This part of the complex was shaped like a backwards r. The two-storey horizontal building was now on a vertical axis, extending for some thirty feet directly ahead. There were several windows fitted into the grey concrete wall, a half-glazed door in the middle and a pair of French patio doors at the far end. Just beyond the patio doors, a timber structure jutted out to the left. It had a pitched roof and a large display window with sliding glass panels. It looked like an old serving hatch. There was a tattered canvas canopy above the hatch and a faded sign offering ice creams from several seasons ago was secured to one side.

  The intervening area was laid out with pink and grey patio stones in a chequerboard style. There were several old picnic tables. A grubby blue sun canopy branded with the Orangina symbol was open above one of them.

  Everything looked still. The only movement was the heat wafting up from the patio stones. But the window nearest to Trent was partly open and he could hear the low murmur of a radio.

  He edged out from the corn. His face was filmed in sweat and itched all over. There were bugs in his hair and stuck to his clothes. He crept to the side of the building, squatting down on his haunches, his back to the wall. The window was only a few metres away. He could hear the radio more clearly now. It was tuned to a local station. The DJ was yammering away between snatches of Euro-pop.

  Trent eased himself upright, his back scraping concrete. His right index finger curled around the shotgun trigger. His left hand gripped the barrel, just below where the torch was secured. He crabbed sideways. One step. Two. He rolled to his right and peeked in through the glass.

  He saw a kitchen. There was a Slavic-looking guy seated at a table, his pale face down, hands over his ears, scanning a deck of playing cards. There was a green army surplus jacket draped over a second chair and an assault rifle propped against the wall. There was an open doorway behind the table and a freestanding cooker off to the left. A large pot was boiling on the stove. Steam was mushrooming up from it, tumbling and coiling against the ceiling.

  Trent rocked back. He released a breath. At least one guy inside. Possibly more. Maybe as many as three. Somebody had to be guarding Jérôme in the cave. Maybe more than one person.

  He asked himself if he really needed to tackle this guy now. He asked himself if he could just creep by and leave him alone. But he didn’t know who or what he was going to face inside the cave system. It would be tough enough getting in there and finding his way to the chamber where Jérôme was being held without leaving hostile men to contend with on his way back out.

  He slid down the wall and crept along beneath the window, closer to the half-glazed door.

  In some ways, the shotgun was perfect for just this scenario. He could burst into the kitchen and fire off a booming round that would cut the guy in half before he was up from his chair. The problem was noise. He guessed the opening to the cave was close by and he didn’t want to do anything that might alert whoever was inside. His task would be much easier if he could sneak up on them. But that meant taking a chance with the guy in the kitchen and anyone else inside the house. It meant no gunfire.

  Not using the shotgun, or even the Beretta for that matter, was a risk. A big one. Trent had already spotted a rifle and the guy might be sitting there with a pistol in his lap. He wo
uldn’t have any concerns about noise. He’d be perfectly prepared to shoot.

  Trent closed his eyes. Told himself to focus. He freed his hand from the trigger of the shotgun and wiped his soggy brow.

  Then he heard something. It was distant but unmistakable. A car engine. The scrabble of slowing tyres. It wasn’t coming from the yard. It was out on the road.

  Viktor.

  If Trent had heard it, then the guy inside might have heard it, too. He might be moving.

  Trent swept upwards with the shotgun in his left hand, grabbed for the door handle and rolled inside.

  The guy was moving. He was rising up from behind the table. Pushing back his chair. But he wasn’t in a hurry. He was standing with exaggerated reluctance, like checking on the vehicle was a futile but necessary chore. He wasn’t expecting Trent. He reared back towards the rifle when he saw him coming. He began to flail. His chair toppled and clattered to the ground.

  Trent reached for the pan of boiling water with his right hand. The handle was pointing towards him. There was no lid. He picked it up and felt its weight tug at his forearm and then he flung it towards the guy with a vicious backhand swing.

  Boiling water arced out of the pan. Spaghetti came with it. The water hissed as it hit the guy full in the face. Spaghetti clung to his skin and lips. Steam billowed up from him and he yowled and clasped his hands to his eyes as the pan ricocheted off his chest and danced on the floor.

  The guy ducked down instinctively, cradling his scalded features, trying to smother the pain. Then his survival instinct clicked in and he roared with fierce outrage and he surged towards Trent blindly, arms outstretched, chin raised, his face flushed and misting with vapour.

  But Trent had adjusted. He’d had time to react. He’d raised up his shotgun with his left hand, bringing it crossways over his chest, his right hand fisting around the barrel just above his left as the stock pivoted back over his shoulder.