Night Market

by Daniel Pembrey

  ‘I didn’t see Karremans,’ I replied.

  ‘Come now,’ Boomkamp said in an avuncular voice. He spoke as if he were amused. ‘That little device in your jacket not only tells us what you say, it tells us where you are.’

  ‘OK then,’ I said, folding my arms. All the while I was readying my move. I needed to exploit my ability to surprise them while I still had it. ‘I was at his house, but he wasn’t there. He’s in China.’

  ‘China, eh?’

  The van was accelerating again, and I used that momentum to throw myself to the back. I’d seen the inside of the rear door when Vermeulen got in; my hand landed just above the handle, bracing myself. Vermeulen was on top of me, but my speed in the bumpy darkness had caught him off guard.

  Boomkamp was banging on the side of the van. ‘Stop!’

  Before Engelhart could react, I’d yanked the door handle and the door swung out. I did all I could with my arms to break my fall, landing on the forest track with Vermeulen on top of me. The heavy Belgian winded the life out of me, but protected me from Boomkamp’s aim.

  I reached back and up for Vermeulen’s hip-holstered gun. He’d had the same idea of course, but again I had the benefit of surprise. My hand clasped his trigger finger and I squeezed with all my might; the weapon jumped with a bang and Vermeulen’s grip slackened. He curled up in a ball, shot in his lower body.

  The rear door had closed again, Boomkamp taking cover. It gave me a moment to try to wrestle Vermeulen’s gun from him, but no luck. Engelhart would be edging down the side of the van, ready to fix me in his sights.

  I got to my feet, bent double, and ran into the dense forest, hearing cracks of gunfire at my back.

  *

  The bomber jacket was moss green, and maybe that’s what saved my life. I’d no doubt that both men were expert shots, having served together in that NATO regiment. If I were to stay alive, I needed to be better than them, exploiting my own training in those northern Norwegian forests.

  But the odds were against me. There were two of them (three, if Vermeulen recovered). They surely knew the terrain they’d taken me to, they had the advantage of communications, and they potentially had the ability to call in support. The key factor was their level of motivation. From my experience, most fights come down to one question: who wants to win most?

  My breathing was heavy and becoming ragged as I wove between the dense fir trees. The rain hissed; thunder occasionally rumbled. It helped soften my progress, the saplings snapping less sharply, the mulched leaves damping my footfall.

  When I sensed I’d got sufficiently far from them, I paused to catch my breath, which was condensing. The temperature was dropping. Night would come soon, which was good and bad. Darkness might help me seek cover, but without a den or shelter I’d be in for a worryingly cold night.

  I slipped my jacket off, ripped open the fabric beside the zip and found the device – no bigger than a thumbnail, including its battery. I dug a hole in the ground, buried it and kept moving.

  A hundred metres further on, I stopped again to check my phone. It showed one bar of coverage and almost no battery life. They’d brought me to a dead zone.

  There was one thing I immediately needed to satisfy myself about, so that I could gauge the extent of the threat they posed. Unwilling to use my voice in case it carried across the cold air, I thumbed a text to Stefan:

  The boys home in Ghent (re. Karremans). whats its name?

  While waiting, I tried to use the phone’s compass, but was having trouble calibrating it.

  The phone vibrated with Stefan’s reply.

  Beau Soleil.

  So there it was. Boomkamp, Vermeulen and Engelhart were connected to the boys’ home where the notorious abuse had occurred.

  What did it all mean? How did their time together at the foster home link to the NATO regiment they went on to serve in? Whatever remained unclear, it showed me – as nothing else could – the extent of their rage and revenge-lust.

  I texted Stefan again about gunshots in the forest north of Driebergen, and how he should alert the police there…

  Your message failed to send.

  Perhaps Boomkamp had already alerted them, declaring me a fugitive suspect and persuading someone at Driebergen to monitor my phone. It would be illegal without a warrant, but that didn’t seem to have stopped him elsewhere. Had he leaked the Karremans allegations to the press? Nothing could be ruled out now.

  The phone screen was blank anyway, the battery dead. I threw it as far as I could, back the way I’d come. The phone snapped a sapling as it landed. I heard something else. The machine-gun­ rattle of a woodpecker, and…

  ‘Fan out,’ Boomkamp’s voice faintly commanded.

  Had they found the transmitter? If so, they had my tracks.

  There was no sun overhead to find direction by. My internal compass told me I was moving south – back towards Driebergen – but I couldn’t be sure of that.

  Keep moving, a voice inside my head urged. Cover ground.

  A path appeared amid the underbrush: again, it was good and bad. Faster, yet more easily followed.

  I decided to take it and began jogging at a steady pace, regulating my breathing and being careful with my footfall. Only now that my adrenaline levels had dropped did I register the repeating sharp pain down my right-hand side. From where Vermeulen had landed on me?

  I was betting that the path would take me back to civilisation. Not quite, as it turned out: within a couple of hundred metres I emerged in a clearing… a small lake fringed with reeds; an old, broken-down, single-storey house. Had it belonged to an estate? This whole area had once been a wilderness-playground for Holland’s landed aristocracy.

  In the open of the clearing, the rain fell insistently. The thunder rumbled on. I walked slowly around the water, peering through the rain-pitted surface, seeing a silvery flash in the depths. It hadn’t been completely abandoned.

  But the building had.

  I stepped over the sill of the entranceway, which was missing its door. The thatched roof had caved in, the supporting beams shattered by a combination of weight, damp and termites.

  There was evidence of a makeshift fire – long ago abandoned – and corroded tins of food. A cracked mirror remained above the original fireplace. Glaring back at me, my eyes appeared huge – belonging to someone else entirely, intensely alive. They startled me.

  The cottage resembled the kind of prop used in my military training. If that was true for me, it had to be true for Boomkamp and Engelhart. I had to try to put myself in their boots – to anticipate the moves of my pursuers. They were armed, coordinated, and trained to storm a structure such as this one, should I be hiding inside. I’d managed to surprise them once, leaping from the back of that van; they’d be hell-bent on preventing me surprising them again.

  Reluctantly I left the shelter, wincing from the pain in my ribs as I stepped back into the rain. They couldn’t be far away, and over that knock-knock of the infernal woodpeckers – louder, more resonant now – I heard movement.

  I crouched down.

  Yes, something was moving in the forest. Was it them, or an animal?

  There was no time to find out. I crawled forward on all fours towards the water’s edge. Lying beside it, I rolled gently in.

  I was already wet through, but the cold was shocking. My idea, if I could even call it that, had been to hide with my head above water among the reeds. It was the last place they should have looked for me. Perhaps I’d hoped that the cold would anaesthetise the pain in my ribs, too. But my ribs contracted, making the pain intense. Within minutes I’d be dead from the cold, anyway.

  I couldn’t rely on them passing through the clearing quickly. Through the reeds, I couldn’t even see them approaching.

  Numbly I clambered out again. I was dangerously cold and starting to lose the power of struct
ured thought – starting to feel more and more like a hunted animal. My only salvation lay in the darkening sky, making it harder for them to see me – assuming they weren’t equipped with night-vision or thermal-imaging kit, in which case I was finished.

  I clambered across the muddy lakeside like some amphibian creature, with two instincts: to dirty my jeans, and to make it look as though I’d fallen into the water. Ripples were still washing against the shore.

  In this manner, I made my way for three or four metres, looking up every few seconds for any sign of them. I sat up, my eyes darting among the gloomy branches and underbrush. Then I stood and ran, crouching, towards the line of trees. I couldn’t feel my legs; I could only see them pumping beneath me. It was as if I were looking at someone else’s lower body. I was dripping but the path was already wet and soft; I wasn’t leaving a trail.

  The first tree I found, I climbed ravenously, my hands grappling for ever-higher branches. I forced myself to slow down, to prevent the trunk and branches from shaking. That way, I managed to get four or five metres above the forest floor, into dense foliage. I made my legs level along a branch, having tested it for strength. My muddy jeans blended in with the branch, and my green jacket was lost in the leaves – the tree made an effective hide. The twin worries now were my adversaries’ powers of observation, and the cold seeping into my broken bones.

  Why hadn’t Boomkamp or Engelhart arrived yet? They knew my direction of travel; I’d struck out on a clear path. Had they waited for backup? But it was unlikely – they’d have a lot of explaining to do, even if they managed to persuade others of my fugitive status.

  Were they taking care of the fallen Vermeulen?

  There was a crackling sound that might have been a small animal. As it came closer, I spied a human moving cautiously along the track: Engelhart, alone, his weapon in a two-handed grip.

  My plan was to jump down on top of him. Only, now that he’d arrived, I saw that my mind had tricked me again. The distance to the ground risked a bad landing. Engelhart’s palpable sense of alertness and purpose told me that I wouldn’t get a second chance – maybe not even a first one.

  He crept forward.

  The woodpecker rattled away at my nerves.

  Upon entering the clearing, he made, cautiously, for the broken-down building. Then he saw the muddy trail leading to the water’s edge.

  He looked around him, and for a second I felt sure he would peer up into the hide and spot me, but instead came a whisper of radio static. Hastily, he muted the two-way radio clipped onto his lapel.

  He started walking around the lake, interrupting his circuit to stalk over to the abandoned cottage. After a minute spent inspecting the inside, he returned to the water’s edge. He was staring intently at the reeds and vegetation fringing the lake as he circumnavigated it. I knew exactly what he was thinking: Something doesn’t feel right.

  Soon he’d be on the far bank – looking directly back at my elevated position. That wouldn’t do – I needed to keep him looking down. I had no better idea than to throw my cigarette lighter into the nearside of the lake. It was made of battered metal, dulled from use; I was betting that the light wasn’t strong enough for it to reflect as it flew.

  Again I hesitated, owing to the numbness of my throwing arm. I was half-hoping that Engelhart would give up on the clearing and look elsewhere. But I knew he could sense my presence. I practised a couple of flicks of my wrist, keeping movement to a minimum.

  I was ready. Hand trembling, I clasped the lighter, aimed, and flicked it towards the lake. It landed with a soft plop on the nearside of the water. The sound could almost have been a fish rising, but Engelhart knew the oddness of it immediately and fired his weapon.

  Crack, crack.

  Where was Boomkamp? Probably trying to radio him.

  Finish the clip, I willed Engelhart.

  Of course, he knew not to do that.

  He came round to the source of the ripples, staring into the water, his back to me. I wouldn’t have a better chance. My heart thumping, I gripped the branch hard, and slid underneath it so that I hung by both hands. I hoped that this would reduce the height of my fall.

  As I readied myself to let go and run at him, the branch gave way at the trunk with a shattering snap. I landed in a crouching posture. Engelhart had swivelled and fired reflexively into the tree, at the source of the noise. My crouching run propelled me towards him. He swung his arm round and fired again, at my lowered torso, missing… just. My fist met his nearside temple with all the force of my body’s weight and momentum; it must have felt like a blow from a lance. His eyes rolled back into his head and dulled.

  I thought I’d killed him. But then he staggered back into the water.

  Quickly I waded in after him; I managed to catch his gun as his slackening hand released it. He twisted round and crashed into the water, and there he floated, face down, his jacket billowing at the back.

  I’d been prepared to kill him – certainly to let him die. It wouldn’t have been the first time that I’d have let a man drown.

  Only, I couldn’t do that.

  Whatever Engelhart had done, he was still a policeman. We’d have to work it out, or my conscience would also be the loser.

  I left the gun on the bank and jumped in, reaching around him – ready to haul him out, part of me fearing that he’d played a trick and lured me in to try and drown me. But he came out of the water limply, and it was only when I got him bent double that he spluttered and shook from his depths, shuddering back to life.

  I pulled his two-way radio off his lapel; it was wet and useless. So, too, was his phone, which I fished out of his inside pocket.

  I picked up the gun and sat beside him.

  His eyes fluttered open, dark pupils roving between me and the surrounding trees. Perhaps he thought he’d died or entered some nightmare. I slapped him hard across the face.

  ‘Don’t go to sleep.’

  He stared at me.

  ‘Call to Boomkamp.’

  His body began to shiver.

  ‘Call out to Boomkamp!’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘What else have you got?’ I went through his pockets more thoroughly; there was a folding pocketknife.

  On it was engraved: Beau Soleil Boys’ Home Scouts.

  He looked blankly at me as I weighed the knife in my palm.

  ‘Let’s go.’ I left his redundant possessions in a little heap by the lakeside, like an offering to the gods of the forest. ‘Get up.’ I prodded him in the small of the back with the gun’s muzzle.

  As soon as we’d rounded the lake and re-entered the cover of the trees, he stumbled off the path amid low branches.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I said. ‘Get back on the path. I’ll shoot.’

  But he knew I wouldn’t. I’d saved his life once; he knew that I wouldn’t kill him now. My hand was trembling. The cold and the pain were getting to me, more than ever.

  Engelhart had stopped, dead still, facing away from me. It gave me a chance to listen. There was a faint murmur – the sound of traffic on a main road?

  Suddenly, the top part of Engelhart’s shoulder vanished into a dark-red mist.

  The muffled sound of a gun report blended into rolling thunder; I was horizontal again – on the forest floor – as the second shot blew apart Engelhart’s skull.

  ‘Jesus, Boomkamp!’ I screamed. ‘Stop the madness!’

  ‘It’s not Boomkamp you need worry about,’ came the calm, strident voice of Tommy Franks through the trees. ‘Not anymore.’

  12

  THE SWITCH

  My searching gaze swept the fir trees. The starkly vertical, black trunks blurred as if viewed through a zoetrope, creating that flickering sensation in the inner eye.

  Was Tommy Franks part of Boomkamp’s inner circle after all?

&
nbsp; If so, why had he appeared to be such an outsider? Was it a cover?

  The rain hissed down. I forced my eyes to focus.

  Why had Franks killed Engelhart? Had he done so by mistake, while trying to kill me? It suddenly felt like I knew nothing at all.

  I crept back to the edge of the clearing. The lake, the building… and a movement beyond: blurry brown, like a fast-moving fox – was that him?

  I pulled out the clip of Engelhart’s muddied gun. There were four 9mm rounds left. I drew back into the trees and waited, frozen in place, making myself as small and still as possible.

  The minutes stretched by. The familiar noise of the woodpecker was replaced by the haunting hoot of a tawny owl. My eyes adjusted to the dark. My clothes were damp and the forest was only getting colder. The cigarette lighter had meant fire and warmth, but the cigarette lighter lay at the bottom of the lake.

  I looked up at the tree canopies; they spiralled darkly and my vision swooped back to the forest floor. Where was Franks lurking? The pain down my right side was overwhelming. So, too, the sense of fear. Not just of Franks’s marksmanship – there was also a primal fear, permeating all parts of me, of my own animal instincts and where they might lead me now.

  Keep moving.

  I struck back out onto the path, where my progress was unimpeded and hence noiseless. Earlier in life, in Africa, a safari guide had taught me how to spot animals, even at night.

  I saw a heaving and subsiding form lying among the trees. I stepped back off the path and crouched down.

  Was it Franks, lying in wait?

  Only… why? In my last conversation with him, amid the firemen, I’d asked him where the rest of the team was. He’d said, You know what strikes me? If abuse victims are willing to do this, what else are they willing to do?

  I tried to find meaning in that. Perhaps there was none. Perhaps this was all just senseless bloodlust. All I could assume was that he was better prepared than me to wait this out. Better prepared with warmer, drier clothes, more ammunition, and a more accurate firearm…