by Chris Ryan
‘France.’
‘Your whole life?’
‘If a man has to make a city his prison, Paris is as good as any.’
‘And what did you say your name was?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘There’s that sure voice again. Never wrong, are you? Well, I’m Steph.’
‘Alain.’
Golan had some more small talk lined up, when the doors swung open to his six and a gang of beefy women yelled at the waiter for more Jägerbombs. He frowned at them, pretending to ignore her reaching for the laptop case braced between her legs.
‘We don’t get women like that in Paris,’ he said. Then he edged his hand closer to hers and smiled his best smile, the one where his chin, cheeks, lips melted into one another like beeswax. ‘But I’m sure they have their own charm.’
‘Not bloody likely. I have to share living quarters with about twenty of them.’
‘You’re Royal Navy?’
‘Royal bitches, more likely.’ She attacked her rosé. ‘The other Wrens are at each other’s throats night and flipping day. Who can drink the most. Who can lick a matelot in a fair scrap. I thought the boys were bad, but they’ve got nothing on the Wrens.’
‘You sound like you want to leave?’
‘And I will, soon enough,’ she said. Her eyes slid from the wine glass to a spot between her legs. ‘Just a few little things to take care of first.’
His hand almost touched her trembling fingers. Suddenly he flinched, spilling the glass of rosé over her top.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.
‘It’s fine,’ she replied, standing up and brushing her shirt. A waitress rushed over and wiped down the table. ‘Shit. I need to wash it off.’ Nodding at the case, she added, ‘Do you mind watching this for me?’
‘No problem. And again, my apologies.’
Two minutes later she returned, the rosé stain now a fleshy pink. She straightened her top and smiled awkwardly at Golan.
‘I have to leave,’ he said. ‘Good luck with whatever you have to do.’
That smile lingered on her face. A tinge of regret maybe?
No matter. He’d got what he came for.
5
2048 hours.
‘The villa’s on Sir Herbert Road,’ Land had said. ‘Other side of the Rock.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Cowboys. Mercenaries with time on their hands and no work. A growing problem for us.’
‘American?’
‘These particular cowboys are British.’
‘I’m going to need a weapon.’
‘I understand.’
‘Because I’m guessing the targets are armed—’
‘We think so.’
‘—and they know how to use a gun.’
Rule number one in any contact situation, Gardner reflected: Never underestimate your enemy.
‘Go to your apartment. Our field agent’s left a little present for you,’ Land told him.
At the Charlatan Hotel, a two-star joint off Main Street, the room smelled as if a dog had died and nobody bothered to clean up after. He’d slept in ditches more comfortable than the single bed, and the shower veered between cold and freezing. Meanwhile Bald was living the high life at the King’s. Another reminder of MoD cutbacks perhaps. On the plus side they’d supplied him with fresh pairs of combat trousers and a few polo-neck T-shirts.
Fuck it. He wasn’t here for the sightseeing.
He found the present under his pillow, and it was little. A double-action Sig Sauer P228, mag already loaded, with three spare clips of 9x19 mm Luger to keep him in business. He pressed the mag-release button, pulled the slide back and gazed down the chamber. Empty. Clean. He slapped the clip back into the feed, chambered a round and tucked the pistol into the band of his jeans. Unlike its more bulky cousin the P226, this model was easy to conceal.
Gardner trekked on foot to the eastern side of the Rock to Sir Herbert Road, and the villa where the cowboys were holed up. He didn’t want to run the risk of a taxi or bus driver remembering his face. Land had spelled it out loud and clear that the Firm wouldn’t help him out if he was caught knee-deep in dead people.
Devil’s Tower Road eased into Catalan Bay Road and, after two miles, Sir Herbert Road. The east of the island was a parade of idyllic beach and rows of modern duplexes with balconies surveying the Mediterranean. A nice retirement spot.
The villa stood by itself, towards the southern end of Sir Herbert Road. As he passed a four-storey apartment complex, his senses heightened. He noted that most of the lights were off, holidaymakers enjoying a night out in town. A cruise ship glowed on the horizon. The beach was unlit, the road empty.
No one around to clock your face, he reassured himself.
Wet sand squelched underfoot as he neared the villa. Thirty metres. He spotted a grey BMW 3 Series parked on a gravel track out front. He raked his eyes across the porch. Lights went off in the reception.
They have to be out back.
Gardner found the perimeter wall, a four-foot-high block of whitewashed brickwork. He placed his weapon on the top of the wall and used both hands to lift himself up and over. At the rear of the villa, waves lapped against a deck fronting the beach. He stopped to recce the deck. Light poured out from a sliding door, colouring the ink-blot landscape. Chairs stood around a metal table littered with three plates of mauled chicken wings and opened Coke cans. To his right a glass sliding door, presently closed, linked the villa and the deck. Satisfied the deck was empty, he crept up to the side of the door.
Peering through the glass, he counted two targets in what seemed to be a master bedroom. Big guys, backs to him, hulking shadows. A black bag on the bed. Shapes that looked like handguns and a long, snake-like object he figured was a Benelli shotgun.
He removed the Sig Sauer from his jeans. He had plenty of experience using the P228, a Regiment favourite. He settled on a plan. Keep it stupid-simple: hit them hard and hit them fast.
The pistol had no safety lever. Gardner manually cocked the hammer to switch from double-action mode on the opening shot to single-fire. Firing the P228 was a joy: the first pressure on the trigger was ten pounds, and each subsequent pressure around half that. Once you got into the flow of discharging rounds, it felt as natural as breathing.
Gardner picked up a pebble and lobbed it at the table. The Coke cans rattled.
The muffled voices inside ceased. He had their attention.
A click as the latch on the sliding door unlocked.
Gardner balanced on the balls of his feet.
The door began to slide back. Sounds sharpened.
‘Probably those fucking kids again,’ a voice scratched.
The guy the voice belonged to emerged on to the deck. First he was a boot, Gore-Tex Caterpillar, all black, followed by a stocky leg. Then came the torso, chest like a forty-gallon drum and pecs fixed like spotlights on top.
Now.
Gardner lunged at his upper body, bending his left arm at the elbow, his fist tucked close to his chest, so the ‘V’ of his elbow pointed directly at the guy’s neck. He shifted a step sideways and aimed his elbow at the nape. Now he swept his left foot along the ground in front of him, tripping the guy up. He reeled, losing his balance. At the same time Gardner straightened his left arm. His forearm smashed into the guy’s neck, adding downward force and momentum to his fall. He heard the thud of skull meeting hardwood. As the guy hit the floor, Gardner moved his pulled his left leg back, up, then down, like a hydraulic press, on to the groove of his spine. The guy grunted. He didn’t know what the fuck had hit him.
Gardner turned his attention to the master bedroom. He raised the Sig Sauer level with his shoulder. Shit, where’s the other guy? An arched entrance led to another room. Too dark to see much inside. A white door to the right. En-suite bathroom, he figured.
‘Fucking come out!’
Nothing.
He aimed at the wall beside the door and fired. The shot punched a hole big
enough to sink a fist into.
‘Last chance!’
The door opened. A man stepped out of the bathroom, hands raised in the air. The big guy, writhing on the ground, made a play for Gardner’s leg. He was built like a tighthead prop, and about as slow. Gardner swung his left foot into his balls, crushing them like a pair of ripe plums. The guy screamed like a baby.
Gardner kept his eyes on the other one. I recognize him, he thought.
Fuck, you’d clock that face anywhere. The grin that ate shit for breakfast, the crew-cut hair and peck-holes that passed themselves off as eyes.
‘Joe? That you, mate?’ said the man, lowering his hands.
‘John Killen,’ Gardner replied, not lowering his gun.
‘Fuck me, what are you doing here?’
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘We’re on holiday, mate,’ the guy replied in oozy Scouse. ‘Come here for the fishing, like.’ Seeing Gardner frown, he pointed to the bed. What Gardner had taken for firearms were a distance reel and a bite alarm, and a gym bag stuffed with a bait box. The shotgun was a hefty sea rod. ‘Real good fishing here: bass, conger eel, mackerel… Do you mind not depriving Eddie of his manhood?’
Gardner glanced down at the guy with the squashed bollocks. He had a shaven head with a bulging vein running like a pipeline down his temple. His eyes were so close they almost met at the bridge of his nose.
‘You remember Eddie Stone, Joe.’ It was a statement of fact rather than a question. Sounded about right. No one was quite like Stone.
‘How could I forget?’ Gardner replied.
‘Bastard,’ Stone gasped as Gardner released his foot, his voice like trapped air gushing out of a puncture. ‘I’ll tear you a new arsehole!’ he growled.
‘Calm down, you big poof,’ said Killen. ‘Joe could’ve slotted you by now if he’d wanted to. Isn’t that right, Joe? But exactly what are you playing at? Six months since we last shared a beer, and now you pop round here with a bit more than a friendly hello.’ Killen was nodding at the Sig Sauer.
Killen. Stone. Once of the Maroon Machine, 3rd Battalion. They had worked alongside Gardner during his brief stint on the Circuit. A life of bounced cheques, shady contracts and broken promises. A life he’d been only too glad to leave behind.
‘Someone told me you weren’t just here to catch fish.’ He kept it vague, not wanting to give away Land’s name, or Bald’s.
‘Is that so?’
‘Someone told me you came here to kill a man.’
Killen gave it the eyebrows.
‘Seriously, mate? We’re ex-Paras on our hols, not on some bloody top-secret Operation Flavius. Or perhaps we’re going to go to the petrol station and slot a couple of Irish?’
‘I don’t know who to believe any more.’
‘Put the gun down, mate. Whatever you’ve been told, it’s not true. Look around the villa if you want. We’ve got nothing to hide.’
The certainty drained from Gardner’s complexion. The gun wavered in his hand.
‘All right, lad,’ said Killen, helping Stone to his feet. The big guy with the small brain eyefucked Gardner. ‘Easy now. Joe got his wires all crossed, is all. Isn’t that right, mate?’
‘Seems so,’ Gardner replied. He scanned the master bedroom. Everything tied in with Killen’s story. Fishing gear. Couple of bottles of Wells Bombardier bitter on the table next to a map of Gibraltar, a couple of red areas circled around the Strait. Sky News played on a TV. The news item featured a press conference held by the Iranian President, Fereydoon Karimi: ‘We will not resist, we will not move, not one tiny step, on our sovereign right to nuclear technology . . .’
Gardner looked beyond the TV. Killen dusted plaster off his shoulders. Stone slumped in an armchair, rubbing his sore testicles. The scene picked at Gardner like a scab. He glanced over his shoulder at the deck. At the table. The Coke cans and the plates.
‘. . . peace is important to us. Injustice is our enemy. And I want to assure the world, even on this momentous day in our nation’s rich history, when we joined the ranks of nuclear powers: we do not seek to build a bomb.’
‘Where’s the other lad?’
Killen blinked.
‘Who?’
Three Coke cans on the table. Three plates.
Three men arrived on the Rock this morning, Land had said.
‘Don’t mess me about, Johnny. Wherever you go, Eddie Stone goes. And wherever Fuck Face is, there’s Terry Gill.’
‘Terry’s not here,’ Stone said.
‘Eddie’s right. It’s just the two of us. Now stop being a fucking tool and put the gun down.’ Killen’s Scouse sharpened. ‘You’re a mate, Joe, but you’re beginning to piss me off.’
He’s lying, Gardner decided. Both of them had become tetchy the moment he mentioned Terry Gill’s name. Why would they lie about Terry’s presence if they had nothing to hide?
‘No,’ Gardner said. ‘You’re playing me. Terry’s here.’
Stone snorted and edged towards Gardner like a boulder.
‘And what makes you think that?’
‘Because that mug of yours is looking even uglier than normal.’
Stone lost it. He’d never really had it, but now he lost it big time. Stampeded at Gardner, head low, big hands reaching out to grab him. Brave tactics. Brave but stupid. Gardner slugged the barrel of the Sig against Stone’s skull. Felt as if he was pistol-whipping solid lead. His wrist shuddered. Stone dropped on the spot, a divot next to his bulging vein.
‘Once chance,’ Gardner said to Killen. ‘That’s all you’ve got. I suggest you come clean, unless you’d rather be six feet under.’
‘Eat a dick, I don’t know—’
Forcing Killen to his knees, Gardner placed the pistol alongside his ear and squeezed the trigger. Killen closed his eyes and clamped a hand to his ear.
‘Fuck you, you cunt.’
‘One more try,’ Gardner said. ‘Open wide.’
He shoved the Sig into Killen’s mouth. Made him suck on it. The barrel was coated in stringy gunk fresh from Stone’s head.
‘This is it. I hear any more shit out of your piehole and you get to meet Ken Bigley.’
Killen was silent. Gardner cocked the hammer with his right thumb. Killen’s eyes bulged out of their sockets, round and white as golf balls. His face was red. He mumbled something through the gun-gag.
Gardner pulled out the barrel, saliva clinging to it. Killen leaned forward and coughed.
‘Jesus Christ, OK. Shit,’ he spat. ‘Terry’s here. It was his idea anyway. He knows Dave Hands, worked with him on a blood-diamond gig in Sierra Leone.’
‘Hands told Terry about the coke?’
‘That prick has the loosest gob in England. Buy Hands a couple of pints and he’ll tell you his fucking dick size.’
‘Would have done,’ Gardner corrected. ‘Hands is dead.’
‘Good fucking riddance. Terry’s the one who planned to rob Bald. We were just tagging along as support, I swear to fuck. The plan was, he’d call us soon as he’d lifted the product.’
‘Where is he now?’
Killen shot Gardner a defiant look.
‘The King’s Hotel. Where the fuck do you think?’
Gill was already on his way. No time to lose.
‘Cunt,’ Killen muttered under his breath.
‘Say what, mate?’
‘Do me a favour and get a new fucking hand, Joe.’
Gardner lamped him round the face with the Sig. Two solid thwacks and he was conked. He yanked a length of fancy rope from the curtains and bound up Killen and Stone. Then he locked the sliding doors, chucked the key into the sea and ran fast as his legs could propel him. Kill them, Land had said. But they weren’t a threat any more, and Gardner wasn’t hot on slaying his own kind. They could stew here awhile until he figured out what to do with them. Who knows? he thought. They might even come in useful.
He rushed to the King’s Hotel, praying he wasn’t too late.
<
br /> 6
2145 hours.
Petty Officer Stephanie Wright stood in front of the door to room 39 and steeled herself. Four large glasses of Zinfandel rosé sloshed around her head like a rough sea, and she found it difficult to focus. Wow, she thought, suppressing a hiccup. Gibraltar’s bartenders didn’t mess about with the measurements.
She went to knock. Hesitated. Her knuckles cast a ridged shadow over the spyhole.
At first the offer had seemed so simple. Take a package onboard the frigate, stash it in her locker – not that easy, considering how stingy the Senior Service was when it came to locker space and the endless dress codes required of the average Wren – unload the package the other side and collect payment.
There’s always an at first, she told herself. At first it was a good idea to marry Danny, the guy she’d met two weeks before her sixteenth birthday. Danny, the boy in a man’s skin who did lines of coke on their wedding night, and flirted with the hotel staff on their honeymoon in Corfu.
At first it seemed like a smart call to join the Navy.
Well. No more regrets. She’d already made up her mind that she wouldn’t go back to Danny. And as for paying off his twenty-grand debt with the money from this job, forget it. No, this was her life now and no one else’s.
She knocked on the door four times. Paused. Knocked twice again.
The stress of each trip back aboard the Lizard left her exhausted. Having to return to her locker, waiting for the coast to clear.
The crevice of light between the door and the carpet blackened.
He’s standing the other side, she said to herself, taking a deep breath. John Bald scared her. Which was weird, when she thought about it. John was calm, softly spoken. Perhaps he reminded her of her father, the gentlest man in the world one minute and boxing her mother about the head the next.
The door opened and she stood there.
‘Aren’t you coming in?’
John was munching on a red apple, his frame filling the doorway.
Wright froze, glancing up and down the corridor. Vacant.
‘This is the last package.’
‘Tell the whole world, why don’t you?’
