But there had been nothing special about these agents. Hands held high, the FBI escort had given up their weapons. And Lachkovic.
A hood had been pushed over Lachkovic’s head as he’d been hauled from the SUV. He’d been bundled into another vehicle, a van with a cold, corrugated metal floor and a side door that scrape-screeched shut; the van must be old, Lachkovic had thought, intending to take note of clues like the smart kidnap victims on TV did. The van had surged forward, the spurt of speed slide-rolling Lachkovic towards the vehicle’s rear. A boot on his shoulder had stopped his motion. ‘Try taking off the hood and I’ll nail it to your head,’ the boot’s owner had snarled.
After a few minutes, the van had slowed, then stopped. The door had screech-scraped open, then he’d flinched at the jarring clang of something heavy hitting the metal floor. He’d been dragged to his feet, guided a pace, then ordered to duck his head and take a step forward: ‘There’s a plank in front of you, make like a pirate.’
With someone taking a firm grip of his shirt collar, Lachkovic had been nudged forward. He’d stumbled, then been pushed. He’d slammed onto another floor. This one had rubberised matting—it smelled new—but the impact still hurt. Behind him, a loud whoosh-thwunk let him know he’d been sealed in another van. An idling engine revved, then Lachkovic was moving again. The journey was long; the driver didn’t appear to be in a hurry. Lachkovic noted a half-dozen changes in road noise as the vehicle traversed different surfaces. He’d tried to tot up the turns, but he’d lost count in the high twenties. Eventually the van had stopped.
A click-whoosh-thwunk. Then more bundling and shoving. He’d been outside for a dozen paces, then pushed through the doorway of a building he didn’t need to see to know was abandoned: the hood hadn’t veiled the derelict-damp or the empty-building echo. In front of him, a door had whacked against a wall and he’d been led down creaking wooden steps.
Kneeling on a dusty concrete floor—the hood still over his head and the FBI’s handcuffs still on his wrists—Lachkovic had listened. The men who had taken him were American, but the voice of the man Lachkovic had been delivered to—a voice that was clearly in-charge—had the cadence of a native Spanish speaker.
‘How are you liking the irony?’ the spic in charge had asked.
Not fucking much.
The hood had been removed, the duct tape had been ripped from his mouth, and he’d been hauled to his feet and sat on a wooden stool. The spic had pulled the socks and shoes from Lachkovic’s feet, drawn a set of secateurs from a back pocket and said, ‘If I am not happy with what you tell me, you will need smaller shoes.’ Lachkovic had pissed his pants. And he’d told the spic everything: The FBI had been given names—including Tiziano Bazhunaishvili—and some of the details. But Lachkovic had withheld information about the involvement of the Vice President’s brother and one other individual: Brad Weaver, a Deputy Director with the CIA. And it had been Weaver who had been behind the attempt to frame Colombian cartel boss Alejandro Quintero for the Vice President’s abduction.
Now Lachkovic sat on the stool, gripping the bottle of beer the spic had given him as a reward for cooperating, wondering if it was his last.
The spic stepped towards Lachkovic. ‘Do not look so troubled,’ he said, clinking his own beer bottle against Lachkovic’s. ‘A toast. To new acquaintances.’ The spic sipped his beer. ‘My friend Alejandro will want to meet you.’
Isle of Benbecula, Scotland
‘Home-made soup. It’s like family. We never really appreciate it when we’re young.’ Ruairidh grinned, pleased with his hokey philosophising. He blew hard across the wooden spoon. Despite surface tension’s best efforts, some of the broth spilled back into the pot. Ruairidh slurped the remainder noisily. Then he licked the spoon. The look Scott Macrae shot at his brother was clear: I’ll kick your arse if you put that back in the pot.
Arm extended, the spoon dangling by its tip between thumb and forefinger, Ruairidh took the two steps from the hob to the sink and dropped the contaminated utensil in the washing-up bowl. Stretched out on the large leather sofa that marked the border between the kitchen and the lounge areas, Macrae raised his mug of tea and smirked approval. Ruairidh rolled his eyes before ducking under the ladder connecting the open-plan kitchen/lounge to the small mezzanine over the kitchen. Up there, tucked under sloping beams, were two single beds, one of which had been Macrae’s billet for the last few weeks.
After Vienna, Roger Sherman and Juan Vicente Ibáñez had returned to Lake Ohrid (where Uschi Schönbächler and Jakub Sokol—except for his week entertaining Pascal Blondeau—had been keeping the Macedonia operation running with a new team), Ernst Ebner had decided to give early retirement (and golf) another chance, and Tobias Häussler and Lucas Lacroix had stayed on in Vienna: home-town nostalgia had kicked in for Tobias, and Lucas had spent a few weeks pulling Bruno Durán out of the way of red paint and fake blood.
Macrae had intended to return to Lake Ohrid too, but a phone call from Ruairidh had brought him back home. In the last few years, Macrae had been back to the Western Isles a handful of times: two weddings, a Christmas and three funerals. Now four funerals; it had been almost five weeks since they’d buried Ùisdean. Macrae hadn’t planned to stay on, but after his cousin’s funeral he’d taken time to consider how intense the last few years had been: identifying and tracking down the organ harvesting culprits; setting up the appropriate retribution; and during the two months prior to the Vice President’s abduction, Macrae had been undercover, infiltrating his Alasdair MacAndrew persona into the Coalition’s back-up crew. Macrae had realised he’d needed a break from that life. Perhaps a permanent one.
As Ruairidh disappeared into the bathroom, Macrae sipped his tea and (once again) admired the work that had gone into renovating the old place. Authenticity hadn’t had much of a look in—the black beams across white ceilings were more mock Tudor than Western Isles white-house—but Ruairidh had done an amazing job.
Up until two weeks before Macrae’s seventh birthday (Ruairidh would have been just ten months) the three room cottage, then with a tin bathtub and an outside loo, had been home to their family of nine. They’d all appreciated the opportunities for privacy offered by the eight-room house their father had built (single-handedly) on another part of the croft, and their parents had been proud of advancing their children into the twentieth century, but for the Macrae siblings the cottage being allowed to decay and crumble had seemed like a small betrayal, as though they’d abandoned a family member. Not that any of the brothers or sisters had done anything about it, not until the baby of the family had taken on the croft after their father had passed away; and Ruairidh had turned a ruin into a lush living space.
Macrae glanced over to where the range used to be. He remembered his mother never letting it get cold, ensuring their home’s two-foot-thick stone walls retained heat, keeping the cottage cosy, even in the bitterest Hebridean winter. And it was those thick walls, together with the compact dwelling’s small windows that made the cottage a good place to defend. If it came to that.
Macrae leaned towards the coffee table in front of the peat-filled stove and set down his mug next to his Sig Sauer P229. When he’d packed he’d thought bringing three spare magazines was overkill—luckily ferry terminals didn’t have the same security as airports—but at the time he hadn’t thought there was anything suspicious about Ùisdean’s death. And he hadn’t expected to have pissed off Slovakian criminals looking for him. Oh well, if he was being honest, he’d been getting a little bored.
Vienna, Austria
Kai Degen glanced up at the cream and ivory façade of the Stiftskaserne. Within its high walls, the city centre barracks hosted a military academy, plus a police station and was home to a section of the Austrian Secret Service. Handy for reinforcements. But they wouldn’t be needed. He would go quietly. If that’s how it had to be.
The warm evenings of Vienna’s summer had stretched into early October, and the city’s streets still re
sounded with café culture clamour. Degen turned into Spittelberggasse. Its cobbled length was packed with candlelit restaurant tables, and every seat was taken by laughing, chatting, happy locals; Vienna’s tourists were paying more for their food and drink in the city’s easier-to-stumble-upon eateries. At a restaurant half-way down, Degen passed a table occupied by six men: all muscles and rapid-fire good-humoured banter. One of the six—mid-guffaw—caught Degen’s eye. Degen walked into the restaurant, ordered a beer at the bar and waited.
A near-empty beer glass was placed in front of Degen, and a familiar voice said, ‘Stately Home.’
‘Stately Home,’ said Degen, clinking glasses. He looked over Diether Adler’s shoulder. ‘Who are your friends?’
‘They’re WEGA,’ said Adler. ‘One of the tactical teams I got to know during your piece of theatre.’
‘They here for me?’
Adler motioned to the barman. ‘Not today.’
Degen studied his beer. ‘And tomorrow?’
Adler shrugged. ‘That depends on what you do next.’
48. CODA
Über-gangsters came in all shapes and hues. Attila Matzka was the tall, trim, tanned type with a personal trainer on speed dial. Probably a nutritionist too. He sat at his desk, as unruffled as his stylish haircut and his designer suit. Behind him, through a large floor-to-ceiling window fitted with one-way glass, was a dance floor filled with attractive, mostly female, twenty-somethings. Matzka’s office was soundproofed, and the skimpily clad clubbers gyrated in silence, completely unaware of the office, its occupants, or what was about to take place there.
Kai Degen stood on the other side of Matzka’s desk, flanked by two black-suited bouncers-cum-hoodlums; one was five centimetres shorter than Degen, the other was at least twenty centimetres taller; and both spent far too much time lifting weights. They’d frisked Degen and confiscated his Glock before admitting him to Matzka’s office. Degen’s weapon had been pushed into the back of the taller bouncer’s suit trousers, which had allowed Degen a glimpse of the shoulder holster rig the bouncer’s jacket had been concealing. A glance at the bottom of the other bouncer’s left trouser leg had revealed an unnatural straight edge beneath the material; Degen had doubted the bouncer kept a spare box of steroids there.
‘I am told you are here to deliver a message.’ Matzka’s words carried a very slight Hungarian accent, but his German was excellent. ‘You could have just emailed.’
‘Nuances are less likely to be missed face to face.’
A small smile tugged at Matzka’s eyes. ‘And the message?’
‘Pack up your shit and get out of Vienna. You’re not safe here. Go back to Budapest.’
The bouncers bristled.
Matzka’s smile spread to the corners of his mouth. ‘And why am I not safe in Vienna?’
‘Because you’re too cocky. And your security is shit. That will get you killed.’
The bouncers clenched their big hands into fists.
‘These guys look the part,’ Degen said. ‘But they can’t keep you safe. They’re big and ugly.’ Degen glanced at one bouncer, then the other. ‘No offence boys.’ Then he looked back into Matzka’s eyes. ‘That’s great for intimidating someone who wants an easy life. But not so much if you’re up against someone who wants to do you harm.’ Degen stabbed a thumb to his right. ‘Shoulder holsters look cool, but he’s got to cross-draw across that huge chest of his. It’ll slow him down.’ Degen’s thumb folded into his hand as he pointed an index finger to his left. ‘And this one will be even slower reaching down to his ankle.’ Degen turned to the shorter bouncer. ‘What you got down there? Baby Glock?’
The flicker of the bouncer’s eyebrows told Degen he was correct. It was an easy guess. Drawing a weapon at the ankle took longer than drawing from the hip, so a Glock 26 made sense. The Glock safe-action trigger meant there was no safety to slow things. Just draw and fire. Plus Matzka fancied himself a latter-day Habsburg—his criminal organisation spanned the old empire—and as there were no handgun manufacturers in Hungary, Matzka would favour Austrian weapons. And that meant Glock or Steyr. The Steyr subcompact, the S9-A1, was a nice little gun, but it had a key-lock safety that needed to be flicked before firing, and only a moron with a death wish added extra time to an ankle draw.
Turning back to Matzka, Degen said, ‘Here’s how you could die tonight.’ Degen’s tone was casual, as if he were describing how to make goulash. ‘I throw myself at Bluto.’ A short side-nod to the right. ‘He’s caught off guard and stumbles, just a step or two, before he reacts. But that’s enough. I’ve retrieved my Glock from the small of his back, and I put two bullets into his lower spine.’ Degen flicked his chin to the left. ‘Meanwhile, Bluto-Lite is scrambling about at his feet. Two in the top of his head. The next two go in your chest. And another between your eyes.’ Degen turned his head to the right and smiled up at Bluto. ‘And one more would go in your head. Just to be sure.’
‘And why,’ Matzka asked, ‘would you do such a thing?’
Degen turned an emotionless gaze towards Matzka. ‘Because you steal people’s lives.’
Matzka appeared to be genuinely confused. And that flicked a switch: Degen dropped to the floor. As he went down he backhanded Bluto-Lite in the balls with his left hand and reached across with his right for the subcompact strapped to the bouncer’s ankle. A finger found the trigger. He squeezed, and a 9mm shell exploded into the bouncer’s foot. Ignoring the screaming, Degen pulled the Glock 26 from its holster and rolled, bringing the weapon level with the other bouncer’s thigh. Degen squeezed. Bluto collapsed, and before he hit the floor, Degen was on his feet, the Baby Glock levelled at Matzka’s chest.
‘Bang. You’re dead,’ said Degen.
Matzka’s tan was considerably paler.
The Baby Glock swept down toward Bluto’s forehead. ‘Keep pressure on the wound. If your hands go anywhere else, the pain in your leg will end. For ever.’
Bluto mutter-grunted something in Hungarian. Bluto-Lite had passed out.
Degen turned the Baby Glock back to Matzka and said, ‘If you’re back in Budapest tomorrow, I’ll let you live. For seven days. You only live longer than a week if you divest yourself of all human trafficking activities.’
‘But ...’ Behind Matzka’s eyes was a high speed pile-up of fear and outrage. ‘But others will pick up the slack.’
‘And I’ll be having a similar chat with them.’
END
CHARACTERS
INDEPENDENT SECURITY CONTRACTORS / CONSULTANTS
Kai Degen (Austrian) Kidnap & Ransom consultant, ex-Jagdkommando (Special Forces)
Rikki De Witte (Dutch) ex-Korps Commandotroepen (Special Forces)
Ernst Ebner (German) ex-North Rhine-Westphalia police
Werner Fuchs (German) ex-Kommando Spezialkräfte (Special Forces)
Tobias Häussler (Austrian) ex-Heeresnachrichtenamt (Army Intelligence Office)
Juan Vicente Ibáñez (Spanish) ex-Grupo Especial de Operaciones (Police Special Forces)
Lucas Lacroix (Canadian) K&R consultant, ex-Protective Policing Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Alasdair MacAndrew (British) former sniper with 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment
Scott Macrae (British) background unknown
Larissa Němcová (Czech) ex-BIS (Czech Secret Information Service)
Kolinkar Øster (Danish) ex-Jægerkorpset (Special Forces)
Jakub Sokol (Czech) ex-601. skss (Special Forces)
Leif Vikström (Swedish) ex-Fallskärmsjägarna (Special Forces)
Dierk Wald (Austrian) ex-Austrian Military Police
Alojzy Zawadzki (Polish) ex-GROM (Special Forces)
FBI
Grace Breckinridge (American) Special Agent Baltimore Field Office, attached to DC
Oliver Jamieson (American) Special Agent Baltimore Field Office, attached to DC
Mrs Joosten (American) secretary to EAD Porter
Xavier Porter (American) Executive Assi
stant Director
Colm Reynolds (American) Special Agent Washington DC
US SECRET SERVICE
Daniel Calhoun (American) Special Agent with VP protection detail
Gibson Ellis (American) Special Agent in Charge pre-abduction
James Kang (American) Special Agent with VP protection detail
Molly Wells (American) Special Agent in Charge post-abduction
CAREER CRIMINALS
Besian Beqiri (Albanian) operating brothels across the Balkans
Luther Falck (Austrian) Vienna-based crime lord
Dren Jashari (Albanian) part of crime clan headed by the three Varoshi brothers
Joaquin Parera (Colombian) deputy and counsel to Alejandro Quintero, former enforcer
Alejandro Quintero (Colombian) Businessman/Capo, of special interest to the CIA and DEA
Arjan Varoshi (Albanian) youngest Varoshi brother
Korab Varoshi (Albanian) eldest Varoshi brother
Olek Varoshi (Albanian) nephew of Varoshi brothers
Valon Varoshi (Albanian) brains of the Varoshi crime clan, middle Varoshi brother
Kreshnik Xhepa (Albanian) Varoshi brothers’ enforcer
VIENNA
Elias Feiersinger (Austrian) representative of the Federal Chancellor
Gunther Rauffenburg (Austrian) Federal Police investigator
Rudhart (Austrian) Federal Police investigator
Schett (Austrian) Federal Police investigator
Timo Stoger (Austrian) WEGA (police tactical team for Vienna)
Klara Trommler (Austrian) Federal Police inspektor
Vice President of the USA/Richard Koenig aka Ranger (American) considered likely to be the next US President
The Hunting Command (Grey Areas Triptych Book 1) Page 29
