by Rob Aspinall
“No, just the hard way,” she said.
I shrugged lethargically. “Well, that’s a shame,” I said, breaking into a sprint.
Before I could think about what I was doing, I was powering forwards and using the big guy’s back as a launch pad. Left foot on the base of his spine. Right foot on his upper back. Pushing off into a jump. I wrapped my ankles around Inge’s neck, hands around the soft part of her skull at the back. I hung upside down, twisted and front-flipped her over onto her back, her head in a vice grip between my knees. I delivered a martial-arts punch to her face, knocking her clean out. The crowd of passengers gasped at the move. Sounds complicated, but it only took me a second.
“I’ve no idea how I just did that,” I said to the assembled crowd.
I stood up and steadied myself with the pole as the tram hit the brakes, coming into the station. It slowed alongside the platform, passengers by the doors, itching to get off. As the doors slid open. I pushed through the fleeing herd, looking anxiously over my shoulder. I saw Inge shouldering her way through the closing doors, groggy. How the fuck had she come back from that one?
I pushed further ahead through the crowds towards the exit at the end of the platform. I saw the U-Bahn tram pull away into the tunnel, empty apart from Philippe and Clarence, grappling like mad against one of the windows. No one was bothering to tell the driver there was a fight to the death on board.
Inge barged through the crowd after me, talking into the lapel on her jacket. I didn’t feel I could outrun or outfight her for long. And if I hit fresh air, who was to say those JPAC stooges wouldn’t be waiting for me? I took a chance and darted off the platform into the tunnel, the tail of the tram shrinking away with a rumble and a spark. I stood flat against the wall of the tunnel, next to the track. I caught my breath and looked back to the platform. Inge hadn’t seen me. She was heading for the exit. Go on, you bitch. Go up those stairs. Get yourself some fresh air. She stopped, turned, looked around. I shuffled off down the tunnel, ears on alert for the next tram. I heard footsteps instead, landing on the hard tunnel floor.
Damn it! Inge. She’d sussed me out. I jogged along the inside of the track, staying close to the wall. It was humid down there. The smell of oil in the air. A permanent humming from the lines over the track. The slapping sound of my feet and the in and out of my breath echoing off the walls. Inge the same, gaining on me with every step her longer, fitter legs took.
Then disaster!
I tripped over a piece of track and fell, scraping my hands on the floor. I scrambled along on all fours and into a run, but here was Inge. She rugby-tackled me to the ground. I kicked her off and got to my feet. There was a screech of steel on steel. More sparks and rumbles, shaking the tunnel wall. The glaring lights of the next tram along the track. Inge flattened out next to me against the wall, the wind from the tram blowing through my hair and skirt. Inge was too rangy in the shoulders to run alongside it, but I wasn’t. I got the jump on her before the tram had passed, putting a good twenty feet between us.
As the tram vanished around the next bend, I heard Inge coming after me again. She spoke into her radio. A man’s crackly voice said he was coming the other way.
I saw his shadow coming first. It loomed long and large against the opposite wall of the tunnel, lit briefly by the disappearing lights of the tram. Then he appeared, a murky silhouette of a man, dead ahead. Running my way. I slowed to a walk. Inge and the man ahead followed my lead, slowly closing the net. I saw the shape of a weapon in his hand, pulled from a holster on his hip. I heard a click as he prepared to shoot. He pointed it square at me. I waited for the flash and the blast from the barrel.
“Nein,” said Inge. She told him they’d throw me under the next tram. It would either look like teen suicide, or just plain old stupidity. The man tucked his gun away. Of course, they didn’t know I sprechened die Deutsche.
“Be calm,” Inge said in English, a faint clatter and whine from the next tram echoing in the tunnel. “There’s nowhere to go.”
Au contraire. I spotted a door on the other side of the tracks. Inge and the JPAC stooge edged closer. The tram grew louder, its lights illuminating the tunnel wall opposite as it came around the bend. The door across the tracks appeared to be open a crack. I looked left at Inge. I looked right at the stooge. I waited for them to get close. I waited for the tram to get real close. Noise, light, vibration in the wall, a gust of hot air pushed out ahead of it. Inge nodded. As they reached out to grab me, I bolted across the tracks in front of the tram – for a second, swallowed up by its deafening roar and blinding headlights.
But I made it.
By a cat’s pube, I made it.
Note to self: do cats have pubes? Remember to Google.
I squeezed through the heavy door, solid metal, painted pea green. An old blast door from WWII maybe. As the tram flashed past, carriage after carriage, I shoved the door closed with everything I had. It was stiff and slow. But it clanged shut. I heaved down on the lever that locked the door. No wonder they left it open. It was a bugger to close.
I heard a dull banging on the other side, just as I locked the lever in place. You can huff and you can puff, JPAC, but you ain’t getting in.
I bent over, hands on knees. Okay, that was close. Suddenly, I was in a pitch-black tunnel. I couldn’t see where I was going. Didn’t know where I was going. I might never find my way out. And, worst of all, I most definitely heard the squeak of a rat.
39
Going Underground
It was like I’d been shrunk to the size of a bug and got lost in someone’s poo tubes.
Aside from the skin-crawling sounds of rats scuttling unseen across my path, there were the myriad smells of gas, diesel, urine and shit to contend with. Not to mention pitch-black darkness, uneven flooring and slimy surprises every time I reached out and touched a wall. Some parts of the tunnel were narrow. Others, head-bumpingly low. One section, a wide-open cave with a loud, gushing waterfall and a square of light breaking from a grid high above.
After an hour or so of stumbling round, I felt the tunnel rise below my feet. There was a low, vibrating sound coming through the walls. And not like the periodic rumble from U-Bahn trams. It was a throbbing, beating sound. Like a nightclub. I came to a dead end, music dum-dumming on the other side.
I felt around the wall in front of me. There was some kind of panel around waist height. Edges sunk in. Two feet square and made of thin sheet-metal. I drew a leg back and kicked it. It gave a little. I kicked it again. It gave a little more. And again. Kick, kick, kick. Eventually, it flew inwards. Bright, blinding light and the nostril-stripping pong of hairspray spilled out into the tunnel. I hoisted myself up through the hole in the wall and into the room on the other side, the music much louder. It was a dressing room – a narrow space with a couple of chairs in front of a long mirror and desk spilling over with cosmetics and spray cans. A rack of fancy dress outfits to one end, a black curtain over a doorway to the other.
The room was cast in mellow lighting, with brighter bulbs framing the mirrors and dog-eared posters plastered over the walls advertising Berlin club nights. I stopped halfway through the hole; a pair of heavily made-up girls sewn into PVC outfits stood over me. One a nurse, one a cop. Platform heels like stilts.
“Hi,” I said, squinting up at them like a mole who’d crawled out of a hole. “Is this the way to the museum?”
“Where the fuck did you come from?” the cop said in German, chewing on a stick of gum.
“Well,” I said, “I took a shortcut back there at the … Is it Halloween already?”
A man’s voice called from behind the curtain. “Naughty Nurse. Slutty Cop. You’re up.”
Oh, wonderful. A strip joint. Of all the holes in all the walls, I had to crawl through this one.
The strippers tutted and marched out, every nook and cranny squeaking. Another pair came in. These two stripped to their knickers, boobs out and body glitter twinkling in the light. They ignored me and t
ook a seat, sucking on a bottle of water each, towelling the sweat off their toned, glistening, voluptuous—
“Hey, you!” It was the man’s voice again. Only now, he stood beside me with a clipboard. An obese man with a beard and a belly fighting its way out of a thrash metal T-shirt.
“Huh?” I said, caught in a naked-boob trance.
He jabbed me with a knuckle on the arm. “Hey, I’m talking to you.”
“Okay, Fat and Furious. What?”
The man ran his eyes down his clipboard. He looked up at me. “Once again, are you the new girl?”
“I, um—” I hooked a thumb towards the hole in the wall.
He looked back to his clipboard. “Schoolgirl’s supposed to be Wednesday. Either you got your days mixed up or Dieter fucked up the schedule again.”
I tried to explain, but he jostled me out of the dressing room and into an even smaller space between the black curtain and a shiny silver one, a couple of steps leading up to it. The music was louder out here.
“You look a little young,” the man said over the noise. “You got any ID?”
“Yeah, I, um—” I reached for the money belt under my jumper and blouse.
“Oh, who cares?” he said, man-handling me up the steps. “They’ll love it.”
“But—”
“You’ve got ten minutes out there,” he said.
“Out where?”
He shoved me through the silver curtain. The beat of the music went boom-boom-boom. I heard whistling and cheering. Dry ice rising around my feet. I turned and saw I was on a stage with a pole in the middle. Men sat around circular tables watching on from a gloomy room lit blue and purple, awful chrome and leather decor and a long bar at the back. The cop and the nurse wiggled their lady bits on stages to the left and right. Forget anything JPAC had done – this was the stuff nightmares were made of.
I shuffled out into the centre of the stage. I heard clipboard guy over the music. He announced me as Little Lolita. I did some half-hearted dancing while I looked for a way down off the stage.
One guy heckled. Another booed. But a couple of pissed-up men in suits stood at the foot of the stage and held out some euro notes, beckoning me over to them. Instead, I made a beeline for a set of nearby steps, one of the guys trying to cop a feel of my bum. I stiff-armed him in the balls, doubling him over. The handful of guys in the audience cheered. I weaved through the tables, searching for the exit. A bouncer came my way. Sleeveless wife-beater vest, a blonde mullet and an earring. He pointed at me and shouted something I couldn’t hear over the music. Blocked my path. Tried to push me back towards the stage. I left him in a heap, nursing a broken rib. I found my way out of the club and into the bright daylight outside. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. I looked left and then right. Asked a passer-by, an old woman, which direction the Brandenburg Gate was. She said it wasn’t far. Only a five-minute walk around the corner. I hurried on my way, enjoying the outside air on my face. It was noon already. My plan was to get to the youth hostel and collect my things from my locker. I’d then think about getting out of Berlin. Fuck knows what had happened to Philippe. Maybe he was caught. Maybe he was dead. Either way, what could I do about it?
The youth hostel was just past the Brandenburg Gate area. I could see the sign across the road.
Almost made it.
Almost.
As usual, there was one teeny tiny snag. JPAC. Nathan and a stooge who reminded me of Vin Diesel were waiting outside the door to the hostel.
40
Fine Dining
How did the bastard know? He always seemed to be one step ahead.
As I backed off, Nathan spotted me. He tapped his stooge on the arm and they gave chase, picking their way across the busy road. I doubled back to the Brandenburg Gate and merged with the sea of sightseers outside. I ran between the tall, looming columns and on to the wide expanse of space the other side, which gradually funnelled into the Unter den Linden, a long, straight boulevard lined by picture-postcard trees, with a busy four-lane road either side. It was plushville. A world away from the spit ’n’ litter streets of central Manchester. With horse-drawn carriages and bicycle taxis waiting in line for their next customer, people posed for snaps and selfies in front of the gate. One couple were newly married, in full wedding clobber. I heard a loud bang behind me – Nathan shooting in the air to clear the crowds out of the way. Everyone bolted, newlyweds and horses included. The stooge took a shot at me this time, the bullet zipping by and taking out a supersize cup of soda in a tourist’s hand. The smell of German sausage and pastries from a nearby stall caught on the breeze as I weaved through the traffic on the road, over to a smart beige building with a deep-red canopy over the entrance and a couple of Bentleys parked outside. The Hotel Adlon Kempinski.
I spun through a set of rotating glass doors, into the cool, swank-fest of a lobby under a high, circular stained-glass ceiling. Receptionists were busy telling guests to stay indoors. I heard nervous chatter about terror attacks, a bomb and armed police. I followed signs for one of the hotel restaurants into a circular dining room with white-cloth tables and old paintings on the wall. The smell of roast beef and gravy filled the busy room as diners quietly munched and clinked and murmured away, apparently unaware of the dangers lurking outside the double-glazed French windows.
I spied a middle-aged couple. Rich. Well, let’s face it, everyone in there was loaded. I slid into a spare chair on their table, which was ideally placed to spot anyone coming through the entrance to the restaurant.
“Excuse me. Who are you?” the husband asked me.
I ignored him and picked up a menu, hiding my face behind.
“I’m talking to you,” the man said, getting increasingly arsey. He clicked his fingers in the air, trying to catch the eye of a waiter.
“Helmut,” his wife said, “don’t cause a scene.”
“Yeah, Helmut, chill,” I said, slipping his steak knife off the table and holding it against his left kidney.
Helmut chilled.
I gulped a drink of ice water out of his glass, giving myself brain freeze. I shook it off and took a few deep breaths. Looked over the edge of the leather-bound lunch menu as Vin Diesel strode into the restaurant. He scanned the dining room. Started moving between tables. I slid lower in my seat, burying my head in the menu, peeping out around the edge as he circled the room. At the same time, a server wheeled out a tray covered with a white cloth, a silver platter sporting a joint of juicy pink roast beef on top. Vin Diesel seemed satisfied I wasn’t in the dining room. He headed towards the exit. I didn’t take my eyes off him as he walked out.
“Your daughter? Is she not eating?” the server asked Helmut as he sliced through the meat.
The question stopped the heavy in his tracks. He turned and started back towards our table, hand reaching inside his jacket.
He brought out his gun to a ripple of cries and gasps. The server had his back to him and seemed oblivious, busy pouring gravy on the pink meat. Vin Diesel cocked his gun. I rose out of my chair, snatched the carving knife blade off the tray and flung it hard. It landed in the shoulder of the guy’s shooting arm, rocking him back and causing his finger to twitch on the trigger. Bullets rattled into an oil-paint ceiling, causing a mass panic towards the exit. I took the opposite route through the double doors to the kitchens. White tiles and stainless steel. Spotlessly clean. A full team in black uniforms frozen mid-grill, fry and flambé. Within seconds, they’d cleared out. I followed them through the back. Vin Diesel barged through the double doors, spraying machine-gun fire with his weaker hand, the knife still stuck in his right shoulder. I dived for cover behind a counter and peered around the corner. He pulled the knife out of his shoulder, growling in pain.
“Come on, kid,” he said in a nasally South African accent. “There’s nowhere left to run.”
He was right. I’d backed myself into yet another corner. As soon as I made a move for the rear exit, he’d shoot me down for sure. I peered ou
t again. He was stepping forward slow and quiet. I was fresh out of weapons and dead as the assorted meats on the menu. My eyes danced over my immediate surroundings. All I could see were plastic boxes of fresh veg stashed under a nearby counter, a pair of white food gloves hanging off the top. I reached over, grabbed the gloves and slipped them on. As quietly as I could, I pulled one of the boxes over, holding my breath and hoping it wouldn’t make a sound.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” said the stooge, getting closer. “Surrender now and I won’t have to kill you. In fact, my boss would prefer it if you were alive.”
Almost in slow motion, I peeled the lid off the top of the box and scooped out a handful of the contents. I squeezed them in a fist until the juices dripped out.
“This is your last chance,” Vin Diesel said, almost on top of me.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’m coming out.”
41
Fake Plastic Guitars
I emerged from my hiding spot and stood in the long, tall shadow of Vin Diesel. He held the gun on me and spoke into a hidden radio mic on the lapel of his jacket, wincing at the pain from his shoulder, oozing blood down his right arm.
“Got her, sir,” he said. “Ground-floor restaurant. In the kitchens.”
“On my way,” Nathan said, his tinny voice crackling through the radio mic.
“Okay,” Vin Diesel said to me. “Don’t move a—”
I didn’t have long before Nathan caught up. So I went for it, pushing the muzzle of the gun away with one hand and smashing him in the nose and eyes with a handful of fresh, red-hot chilli peppers. Before he had chance to get his bearings I’d rubbed the chillies in his eyes, staining his entire face red. He screamed and shot blind, hitting a wok and flipping it over on the gas flame. The whole thing caught and blew a fireball across the kitchen, just as Nathan burst into the kitchen. I took my chance and ran out the back, no time to steal the gun from Vin Diesel, who was now cradling his face, crying out for water. I ditched the gloves and took the fire exit out onto the street. I headed left, no clue where I was going.
