Eye of the Cobra

by Christopher Sherlock

  ‘Get me another focking bottle!’

  Someone tapped him on the back and he spun round.

  ‘Don’t you do that,’ he grunted, and then stared aghast at Aito Shensu. The Japanese businessman was clearly the last person he’d expected to see in the Dublin pub.

  ‘Mickey,’ Aito said, ‘it’s time to go home.’

  ‘You focking Nip!’ Mickey screamed, flailing his fists. He struck air, and crashed to the ground. Then he was pulled to his feet, his arms held in an iron grip. He had not expected either the strength or the speed.

  ‘Mickey, we go outside.’

  ‘Fock off!’

  The grip intensified, and the pain shot through him and he vomited.

  ‘Outside.’

  Out in the cold air, he regained his energy.

  ‘Leave me, get out o’ me life.’

  Aito maintained his grip on him.

  ‘Now we’ll go to the hotel.’

  Mickey broke loose and Aito’s left foot shot up, hammering into the side of his head. He crashed to the floor in agony.

  ‘We’ll go to the hotel.’

  He lay in the hot water and looked across at Aito, now in his shirt-sleeves. For the first time he noticed the tight sinew of the muscles and the line of callouses at the edge of the hand.

  Mickey touched his own ear. It was tender, and his whole head still rang from the blow he’d received. His neck-muscles screamed.

  Aito handed him some tablets and a glass of water.

  ‘Take these, they will make you feel better.’

  Mickey gulped down the tablets and the water, then he sank back into the bath.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ he asked.

  ‘We had a contract. You broke it,’ Aito said coolly.

  ‘I killed your focking driver!’

  Aito shook his head.

  ‘No one blames you. The only person who is against you is yourself. We have a saying in karate: “The hardest battle you fight in life is the battle against yourself.”’

  Mickey pulled himself up and held out his hand. They shook.

  ‘Man to man, Aito.’

  ‘I am sorry about your head.’

  They sat in the viewing-room and watched the videotape for the twentieth time.

  Bruce hunched forward. ‘Let’s look further back . . .’ Mickey shuttled the tape in slow motion, then actuated the start button.

  In Ibuka’s car there’d been a front-mounted video-camera, a source of additional film material for the sponsors, which was relayed to the broadcast cameras.

  ‘No, Mickey. Further back.’

  ‘What? To the pit stop?’

  ‘No, even further.’

  ‘What is it, Bruce?’ Aito asked.

  ‘Wait and see.’

  The tape played on and Aito and Mickey stared at the screen.

  ‘Bruce, I dunno what you’re getting at.’

  Bruce sat back in his chair and switched on the overhead light.

  ‘While you were drowning youself in Dublin whisky,’ he said, ‘I was doing some hard thinking. I’ve never, ever known two cars to go wrong in the same way at the same time.’

  Aito shrugged.

  ‘Statistically, it is possible.’

  ‘No! I survive in this business on detail: everything has to be right. My cars don’t just self-destruct. Why has it never happened before, Mickey? Why?’

  ‘I focked op.’

  ‘No. Look at the footage on this tape.’

  Mickey slipped the cassette into the recorder and Bruce switched off the light.

  The first cut was of Ricardo driving, so was the second.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Aito said frankly.

  ‘What difference do you notice between the two cuts?’

  ‘Well, in the first he is driving smoothly. In the next he is using the wheel more . . .’

  ‘The first clip is taken just before the tyre change. The second is taken at the identical bend, one lap later, after the tyre change.’

  ‘He was getting used to the new tyres,’ Aito suggested.

  ‘Yes. But the new tyres should make it easier in the bends, not harder,’ Bruce expanded. ‘Now let’s look at the next two cuts.’

  The footage was of Ibuka driving through the same bend. Mickey sucked in his breath. In the second sequence it was as if the Japanese was imitating Ricardo’s movements after his tyre change.

  ‘These were taken before and after Ibuka’s tyre-change.’ Aito frowned.

  ‘Were the pit crew at fault?’

  ‘Once maybe, but not twice.’

  ‘The tyres! The focking tyres!’

  Ricardo was sweating heavily. One of his responsibilities, as Phelps’s agent, was the supply of tyres to the Calibre-Shensu team. And he had messed up. He knew what had happened in the ambush - that most of the tyres had gone up with the container.

  The Carvalho factory had been quite specific in their instructions. Certain tyres were only for testing - and they had told Ricardo the order in which the tyres had to be delivered to the pits, and the order in which they had to be used.

  He hadn’t checked the wet-weather tyres he’d salvaged from the container against Carvalho’s instructions. Each tyre was carefully numbered, and if he’d seen the list, he’d have known they were for testing only.

  Phelps had screamed down the phone at him soon after the race. The bugger-up, Phelps had told him, was his responsibility alone. Then Bruce de Villiers had also found out about the supply of the wrong wet-weather tyres, from watching footage of the accidents on video play back.

  Now Ricardo was sitting alone in his car, down a deserted lane near the Calibre-Shensu test circuit. The passenger door opened and Talbot got in beside him. He put his arm around Ricardo’s shoulders and whispered into his ear.

  ‘Relax, buddy.’

  Ricardo felt terrible. Every day was a battle to keep his weight down. Since the coke habit had started, his face had become puffy and his whole body had taken on an almost bloated appearance.

  ‘You realise now that the accident was entirely your fault?’

  Ricardo coughed and tried to free himself from Talbot’s arm - but the grip intensified.

  ‘Porco Dio! Are you out of your mind!’

  ‘You killed Charlie Ibuka. Yes ... it was your incompetence in handling the delivery of tyres that killed him.’

  Then Talbot whispered something else in his ear, and Ricardo went white.

  Bruce de Villiers stared around the huge laboratory, then back at his old school-friend. Dr Max Weiss had a cadaverous face and slow black eyes. His reputation as one of Britain’s top forensic scientists brought him an endless stream of interesting work.

  ‘What are you looking for, Bruce?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just that something’s not right with this business. I just want you to examine that video footage and then the pieces of the tyre I’ve given you.’

  ‘Are you suggesting sabotage?’

  The black eyes rested on him. Bruce felt unsure of how to reply.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It might be a wild-goose chase.’

  The doctor sat down on a high chair and stared at the contents of a test-tube.

  ‘I don’t believe in chance. You know that. Everything happens for a reason.’ He swept back a lock of his long black hair.

  ‘Suppose I find evidence of sabotage and someone’s to blame. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If it’s murder, I’ll have to involve the police - and I know that your team has a lot of problems already.

  ‘Would you give me a couple of weeks’ grace?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s all.’

  ‘Let’s see what turns up, then.’

  Wyatt couldn’t quite believe what he was staring at. He felt Carlos’s hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Jesus! That is for making drugs - why else would someone hide a factory in this place?’

  The buildings were all painted th
e same shade of green as the jungle. So was the landing-strip that stretched off like a giant tennis court over the edge of the cliff.

  The Hercules transporter was backed up against one of the buildings and there was a swarm of activity surrounding it. The cargo was being unloaded by men who looked like laboratory technicians.

  Carlos sank back into the greenery and drew out his knife.

  ‘Vamos.’

  Wyatt nodded.

  ‘Let’s find Suzie.’

  They moved slowly through the foliage till they were behind the longest of the buildings. Big picture-windows ran along its side, and Venetian blinds kept out the sunlight. It looked like the in-house laboratory of a giant pharmaceutical manufacturer.

  Carlos focused his binoculars on the interior.

  ‘I do not believe this. Look . . .’

  He handed the binoculars to Wyatt.

  ‘See the transparent packets at the end of the room?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It can only be cocaine. Tons of cocaine.’

  Estelle leaned forward as a photograph of her dead brother- in-law appeared on the BBC evening news.

  ‘Since the brutal slaying six months ago of David Ramirez, the controversial Argentinian-born Minister of Justice,’ the newscaster said, ‘Colombia has been in a state of agitation. Now rebels have seized command of the Houses of Parliament and have imprisoned the ruling party. The Colombian army is reported to have suffered heavy losses in the fighting that has broken out across the country. General Miguel Santos, the rebel leader, has announced that he will form a new government that will co-operate with the United States to stamp out Colombia’s huge trade in cocaine.

  ‘Rumours that the revolution was engineered by the CIA have been vehemently denied by the US President, but speculation continues.’

  Estelle grimaced. She knew Santos, and that was why she could believe the rumours. She knew that he was no knight in shining armour. He was an opportunist who had worked for the Ortega Cartel as a hit-man, reportedly dumped when his employers discovered he had been taking charge of large shipments for his own personal benefit.

  Perhaps the CIA was using Santos to establish a puppet regime under their own control. It was possible.

  It had always been a relief to her that Carlos had never wanted to get involved in politics like his brother. He concentrated on his first love, the game of polo. But she knew that Carlos would not rest now until he found David’s killer.

  And where had Wyatt and Carlos got to now?

  Having worked out the layout of the buildings, they had waited until nightfall before launching their assault.

  Carlos handed Wyatt the knife with the blackened blade.

  ‘These men will stop at nothing, believe me. There will be no second chances when they realise we have discovered their factory.’

  But Wyatt handed the knife back.

  ‘I don’t need it,’ he said.

  ‘You are crazy.’ Carlos slid the knife into its scabbard, slung the Uzi over his shoulder and pushed the pistol into its webbing holster.

  They approached a side-entrance in the moonlight. A guard stood casually against the light, smoking a cigarette and staring into the darkness.

  Wyatt crept through the foliage. The hours and hours of karate training, the years of hardening, condensed into a single fluid moment. He moved without noise, modulating his breathing, a coldness creeping through his body; he came up the side of the building, a leopard stalking his prey. Then he was behind the guard. His left arm pulled the guard back off balance whilst his right clamped over the guard’s mouth. He twisted the guard’s neck in a rapid movement and heard his spinal column snap.

  The guard slumped forward, and Wyatt dropped him into the foliage.

  Carlos was up next to him in a second.

  ‘Jesus, that was quick.’

  Wyatt gestured for him to be quiet. Then they opened the door and stepped into a clinical white corridor . . . and looked up to find themselves staring at a TV camera.

  A second later the alarm sounded.

  ‘Choto!’ muttered Carlos.

  Wyatt moved on the balls of his feet down the glass-walled corridor, and a burly man came towards him, smiling. Wyatt stood back, dropping his weight onto his left foot. A deft movement with his right foot sent the man reeling forward, and Wyatt’s right hand chopped hard against his neck. There was a sickening crack as the man slumped across the floor. Carlos sucked in his breath.

  They moved quickly down the passage - and another guard came up without warning, pointing a gun at Wyatt’s torso.

  Before the guard realised what was happening, his right hand was yanked forward and a blow came up from beneath the elbow, breaking his arm. As he gave a cry of pain, Wyatt twisted him round, applying pressure behind the left elbow.

  ‘Where is the German woman?’ he asked quietly in fluent Portuguese.

  ‘I don’t understand . . .’

  Carlos heard the other elbow snap and watched the man’s face explode with pain.

  Wyatt twisted the man round again, placing his knee in his back and holding up his face by his hair.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Down the corridor, second on the left.’

  He lifted the man up, slammed his face hard into the wall and let him fall. As Wyatt moved down the corridor, two more men appeared. Carlos drew his gun, but waited as Wyatt appeared to dance between his two adversaries, slamming his fists and then elbows into them before they had a chance to react.

  Wyatt opened a door. He caught sight of a big woman lifting a machine-gun. He dived under the burst of fire and rolled towards her, gripping her ankles with his hands and toppling her over. His main finger and little finger extended, he rammed his right hand into her eyes. Just within his field of vision he saw a man coming at him with a gun. His left foot shot out, took the man in the stomach and sent him flying hard against the glass window. The man’s skull smashed against the glass and left a bloody patch as he sank down unconscious.

  The woman was writhing on the floor, clutching at her eye- sockets.

  ‘Jesus, oh Jesus!’

  He turned to see Suzie lying on the bed, expressionless, wearing just a T-shirt and a pair of panties. The inside of her left arm was a mass of ugly red pin-pricks, and on the table next to her lay an empty syringe. Wyatt noticed her skin was a patina of bruises.

  She looked up at him, no reaction in her eyes.

  ‘Please, don’t let her,’ she pleaded in Portuguese, her eyes resting on the woman writhing on the floor. Wyatt pivoted round and his right heel came down hard on the woman’s skull.

  He lifted Suzie up gently. Behind him Carlos said, ‘Wyatt, we must get her to a doctor.’

  There was the noise of voices in the passage, and the sound of weapons being armed. Carlos unslung the Uzi in a single movement, rested his left hand on the barrel and moved towards the doorway. He opened fire as a man appeared in the passage and Wyatt heard the screams as he followed behind his stepfather. He was scarcely aware of Suzie in his arms, she was so light. The bullets coursed out of Carlos’s gun as the trio made their way out of the front of the building, towards the landing-strip.

  Then an ominous sound came from the air above - it must be a helicopter, closing in under cover of darkness. Then Wyatt heard a voice screaming in Portuguese: ‘Lay down your weapons! We are coming in to attack!’

  Carlos looked across at Wyatt, his eyes asking the same questions. Gunfire erupted, then bullets pumped into the concrete floor around them. There were screams in the distance.

  They moved back into the building and ran down the passage, heading for the door through which they’d first entered. Every instinct told them to get out of the place.

  Wyatt shifted Suzie to the other shoulder, and suddenly he and Carlos were out of the door and plunging headlong into the greenness.

  Wyatt lay safely at a distance from the buildings, hidden beneath the green canopy of thick vegetation. He held Suzie tight, looking
across to the factory.

  The noise of the helicopter blades above sounded like distant thunder. At first he could see nothing, but then the Hughes Apache helicopter burst out of the darkness and into the range of the factory’s lights. From its belly a machine-gun spat out bullets against retaliatory fire from the ground.

  High above, another helicopter angled its spotlights around the factory complex, leading the Hughes Apache. Two more Apaches came in from the darkness and landed on the airstrip, their guns trained on the buildings. Then a Sikorsky H-53 Stallion dropped from the darkness like a vulture and touched down on the landing-strip, disgorging thirty-eight combat troops, who dashed into the factory.

  Gunfire erupted, and there were screams as men died.

  A tall, fair man in combat fatigues stepped down from the cockpit of the Sikorsky and surveyed the scene. His men regrouped and stood to attention in front of him, and he ordered them to conduct an intensive search of the area and to take up defensive positions.

  Wyatt stared at the man in horror. It couldn’t be. No, it couldn’t be . . .

  The years of training together, the competitiveness. And they had both been chosen, Wyatt to head the dojo in Japan and Rod to head the one in the United States.

  Talbot. Rod Talbot.

  He had disappeared, Aito had said - disgraced the dojo, just as Wyatt had done.

  What was Talbot doing here?

  Wyatt sank back down into the foliage. He had not been prepared for the change in Suzie. One moment she was as docile as a young puppy, the next her body was rigid. Now her eyes darted round anxiously.

  ‘Please, I need a fix,’ she cried out in Portuguese.

  He held his hand over her mouth and she bit it.

  ‘Suzie, it’s me. It’s Wyatt.’

  Carlos laid his hand on Wyatt’s shoulder.

  ‘She won’t recognise you.’

  Wyatt stared at him for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘We have to get out,’ he said, ‘and there is only one way.’

  They started cutting their way through the undergrowth towards the airstrip.