Jack hadn’t suffered bad dreams for over fifteen years. Tonight they came back in droves. Half asleep, he sat upright trying to shake off the top sheet, fighting to get at the sneering face of Rikko Duval. The bomber had the bloodied head of Jules Townsend in one hand and a grenade in the other with the pin removed. Jack grabbed at Duval and fell to the floor, the jolt wakening him completely. He lay for a few moments, covered in sweat, until reality returned. Sleep was impossible for the rest of the night. The gremlins danced in his brain. He had to act on Duval. Waiting for his adversary to make the next move was driving him crazy. He’d call Marcel in Lyons this morning.
CHAPTER 49
Jack felt like death warmed over. Another hot shower had done little to ease the tension from his shoulders. As the dawn broke, he realised he hadn’t eaten properly for almost twenty-four hours. A ravenous appetite was blunted with a huge cooked breakfast. It also gave him something to do until time to go visit his wife. The police officer at the front gate nodded a good morning greeting as Jack got into his car. The journey took longer than usual with a couple of road accidents en route holding up the traffic. The icy conditions always produced bottlenecks and he was glad to get to the hospital with only a forty-minute delay.
Schedules for patients never paralleled those of the outside world. May-Ling had been awake since five o’clock. Her first therapy of the day started at seven, completed with more walking in the corridor. This time she needed only one nurse to keep her steady. Doctor Spencer stood by the bedside when Jack arrived.
“Morning, Doc. Morning, sweetheart,” he said, kissing his wife on the forehead.
“Good morning, Mister Calder. She’s making excellent progress. Frankly, I’m surprised at how soon her strength’s returning.”
He removed a thermometer from May-Ling’s mouth.
“Hello, darling. How did you sleep? You’re like something the cat brought in.”
“If it hadn’t been for the cat I wouldn’t be here, baby.”
The quizzical looks from both his wife and the doctor held a ton of questions.
Jack explained the events of the previous afternoon and why he hadn’t come back in the evening.
“My God, Jack,” said May-Ling when he’d finished. He hadn’t mentioned the nightmare.
“I’m sorry to hear this,” said the doctor. “I hope the authorities catch this madman soon. I’ll be back later, Mrs Calder.”
Jack didn’t miss the concerned glance the doctor gave him before leaving the room.
He hugged his wife. This time she held on longer than usual before sitting down again in the armchair.
“I spoke with Marcel this morning,” said Jack. “No reported sightings yet. They’ve circulated the CCTV pictures of Duval from the ferry terminal at Ostend with his changed appearance, as well as the original stuff Mac gave Jules. Sooner or later the bastard’ll slip up.”
“I’ve been thinking, Jack. Some of the training courses we did back in Hong Kong covered the psychology of loners. Rikko Duval’s a one-off. No family. No relationships. No associates. He doesn’t need money. Jules said he was like a chessmaster.”
“Honey, this isn’t a game.”
“Hear me out. Chessmasters operate on logic. They win by out-thinking their opponent’s moves.”
“So?”
“It also involves moving to where you’re least expected to be. We’ve been trying to figure out likely hiding places for one guy. Usually large crowds can serve the purpose, but only for so long. Then he’d have to move again. Where’s the least likely place you’d expect to find him?”
Jack stared at May-Ling for a few seconds as he absorbed her logic. Then he spoke. “Geez, sweetheart. You could be right.”
He jumped up from his seat and embraced his wife.
“It might be a while before I’m back. I love you, baby.”
“I love you too, Jack. More than you’ll ever know. Be careful.”
CHAPTER 50
Rikko Duval gave the beret an extra tug over his brow. The long coat concealed the limp effectively. The vantage point across the street afforded a clear view. No lights and no movement for the past hour. He walked across the road and swung the gate ajar. Moments later the front door opened and he entered. In the darkness of the hallway he reached for the light switch and flipped it on.
“Welcome home, Rikko.”
The man sitting on the chair facing the door raised his arm and fired. A searing pain burned across his chest and Duval collapsed to the floor. The taser gun wires snaked back to where Jack Calder sat. The shock of fifty thousand volts to the human body incapacitates the muscles for up to seven or eight minutes. Duval was helpless to prevent the Scotsman’s actions.
Jack dragged him onto the seat and secured his legs to the front. The plastic slide-cuffs bound his wrists behind his back. Duct tape rolled several times around his torso, leaving no room for leverage from the chair. He wrapped the tape twice around his neck and jerked backward, looping the end to the top spar of the chair. The final piece taped his mouth shut.
As the feeling came back into his limbs, Duval could do nothing. Jack unrolled a cloth package and extracted a half-brick of familiar reddish-orange material and several tiny tubes of artist’s paint. Semtex in malleable form looks like builder’s putty. At first he couldn’t fathom what his captor was doing with the paint. Red, green, blue, yellow, white. Then he understood. Bright colours. No camouflage. He mumbled in vain. Jack Calder’s mission was unstoppable.
One by one, parcels formed in Jack’s hands. Rikko Duval wasn’t the only one with SAS Semtex training. Into each, a small detonator completed the explosive biscuits, ranged in colours like a birthday cake. The duct tape affixed each one to the terrified mercenary’s body, all on the left side. The significance was lost on him until Jack strapped the last parcel tightly over his left eye. Now he understood.
No amount of struggling made any difference. Jack Calder arranged more Semtex parcels around the room, all positioned to channel blasts toward the chair. Duval watched as his intruder tidied the used paint tubes into the cloth bag, placed the bundle under the seat and strolled to the end of the hallway. He didn’t look back.
Jack closed the door and made his way to the street, mounted the motor-bike parked fifty metres away and kicked the engine into life. He took the radio transmitter from his pocket, switched to live mode, pointed at the villa and pressed the button.
Fed with planted snippets from Interpol, the Casablanca press carried news of the discovery of a rogue terrorist cell of indeterminate source. Something had gone wrong in a bomb factory in a villa in the city suburbs. The obliterated remains of at least one body were being tested for DNA, but the wreckage inside the house had been so devastating, authorities held little hope of identification. No other casualties were reported.
CHAPTER 51
A month after the blast in Morocco, Chuck Morrow, in his capacity as chairman of the Society of Re-Insurance Groups, delivered on the contract with ISP. A Manager’s Check for ten million dollars from the society complemented the generous payouts already made to ease the burdens of families caught up in the New Bond Street bombings.
The ISP partners agreed unanimously on the disposition of the windfall. Half of the contract money was placed on various term deposits and working capital accounts for the firm.
Other disbursements included handsome amounts to the relatives of the ISP personnel killed in Hong Kong and Frankfurt.
The grief-stricken parents of the dead nurse received a payment in memory of their daughter.
In the name of one of their own, former head of Serious Crimes Division, Paul Manning, further money found its way to Alan Rennie at the London Metropolitan Police with instructions to seed a fund for families of officers killed in the line of duty.
A large sum in the shape of an endowment to the Intensive Care Unit found grateful recipients at the hospital where May-Ling was treated.
Jack drove his wife home two weeks after
returning from Casablanca. Rehabilitation was far from complete, but she had made enough progress to satisfy Doctor Spencer to authorise her release from hospital. A walking stick helped the daily routine of long walks until the leg muscles strengthened enough for her to do away with the cane. Her husband’s arm became a more welcome substitute morning and evening as the strides became brisker. Twice-weekly visits to the physiotherapy unit accelerated her recovery.
The fear of completely losing her eyesight receded. The retina would need a series of reconstructive operations to recover almost seventy-five percent vision. The bump in her belly had become noticeable by the time Jack brought her home, and was expanding every week.
Six weeks passed and Jack ferried May-Ling to the office where the rest of the partners waited in the boardroom. Malky’s injury was on the mend. He sat at the end of the table with his leg sticking out, encased in a plaster cast.
“Hello,” said Donnie, kissing May-Ling on both cheeks. She leaned forward for Malky to follow suit.
“It’s wonderful to have you back, looking so well,” Donnie continued. A smile danced across his face. “We need you present today for an important board item.”
May-Ling frowned, bemused.
“We’ve been discussing how to re-organise ourselves with Jules and Paul gone. Your injuries, especially to your eye, makes it impractical to think you’ll be on field duties in the future. You’re also carrying another little Calder. The rest of us would appreciate you considering becoming chief executive officer of the firm.”
“I’m flattered, Donnie, but surely one of you men…”
“No,” Donnie interrupted her. “None of us has your perceptive qualities. Jules always said you were the brightest spanner in the box. We’re all boots on the road guys. We need a steady head directing us. You know how we work. An outsider isn’t an option. Oh, and by the way, Jack had no vote on this.”
Everybody laughed, including May-Ling.
“But the baby?”
“You wouldn’t be the first chief executive to take maternity leave. We can live with that if you can. Will you accept?”
“I guess you give me no choice. You’re so persuasive.”
“I think I’ll call this meeting closed,” said Donnie. “A celebratory lunch is in order. ISP pays.”
CHAPTER 52
Alan Rennie collected Marcel Benoit in person from the airport for the drive to Winchester. The Assistant Commissioner wore civvies, no match for the neat European cut of the Frenchman’s suit. The shop talk was inevitable. Since the disruption of Fadi’s and Estrada’s empires, new drug-lord pretenders disputed the rights to the business.
“They’re like bloody cockroaches,” said Alan. “No matter how many we eradicate, another swarm’s always ready to pick up where they left off.”
“Keep the faith, my friend,” said Marcel. “Think how it would be if we didn’t at least keep putting down the current crop. In Turkey we’ve had dozens of mob killings over the fight for the Afghani trade.”
“How about El Paso?”
“Hank Turner told me this week one of Estrada’s competitors is making deals with the others. Some sort of agreement to cartel. That’s more problematic, I’m afraid.”
“I wish we could utilise guys like Jack Calder more,” said Alan.
“So do I, but you know as well as I do, our government lords and masters won’t buy in. The politically correct brigade’s too loud. Vigilante nonsense they say. So long as people like us run what we do, Alan, we’ve always the means to give the quiet nod to the likes of ISP.”
“Amen to that. Here’s the cathedral.”
Malky opened the rear door to permit Jules’ widow to get into the car. Instead, she beckoned her children inside. She preferred to sit in the front passenger seat alongside the Irishman. Throughout his career, Jules had kept his family life a universe apart from his military service and business activity, deciding it was the only way to stay honest to both worlds. Malky didn’t even know her first name.
“G’mornin’, Mrs Townsend. Mornin’,” he said to the children behind him.
“Good morning, Mister McGuire,” she said. “It’s very kind of you to pick us up.”
She had dispensed with her widow’s black soon after Jules’ burial. The circles her family moved in didn’t much dwell on morbidity.
“What a lovely morning for a christening,” she said.
“Aye, it’s all o’ that,” said Malky, heading toward the cathedral.
Donnie Mullen’s Jaguar appeared in the parking area before anyone else. Old police habits die hard. He wanted to arrive early and take a stroll around; making sure everything was in its right place. The other vehicles began to arrive and lined up alongside where Donnie had left his, a short walk to the entrance.
Mac journeyed with an SAS driver the hundred and eighty kilometres south from his SAS base at Stirling Lines. Jack considered him family, as did most of his former colleagues. The dark-blue double-breasted suit, immaculately pressed, held the empty left sleeve tucked into the jacket pocket, pinned tight with half an inch room on either side.
Twenty minutes before the hour, Jack Calder steered the family Range Rover into the reserved spot closest to the cathedral doors. Tommy Calder, their son, emerged from the front passenger side to open the rear door for his mother. At six feet, he was almost as tall as his father. He took his mother’s hand and helped her exit. She slipped her arm easily into Tommy’s and he escorted her toward the church. The lifting duty belonged to his father. Jack took the carry-cot from the back seat. The baby lay asleep until Jack moved the cot. Moments later it started to cry.
Geez. What is it with me and babies? he joked to himself.
The walking motion soothed the baby by the time Jack had reached his wife and the other guests. May-Ling lifted the child from the cot. As with Tommy, the blue eyes and blond hair of its father had been overruled by the beautiful brown eyes and jet black hair of the mother.
Unlike the previous visit to a packed cathedral for Jules’ funeral, the Dean officiated for a congregation of no more than thirty people. Godfathers Malky McGuire, Donnie Mullen, Alan Rennie, Marcel Benoit and Mac flanked the only godmother, Mrs Townsend.
The order of service proceeded and came to the baptismal passage. May-Ling, five weeks after the birth and showing hardly any change from her pre-pregnancy figure, handed the offspring to Mrs Townsend to take to the font.
The baby wriggled its arms, engrossed with the gold and red coloured sleeve of the Dean’s cloak as he wet its brow and intoned, “I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…Jules Malcolm Calder.”
Jack and May-Ling, with Jules Malcolm Calder, placed the flowers against the headstone and stood for a moment at the grave of their mentor. May-Ling shared Jack’s silent tears as baby Jules smiled at both of them.
THE END
The Jack Calder Series:
THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY
Jack Calder is an ex-SAS soldier working with former colleagues at ISP, a specialist security firm. He is sent to investigate a murderous diamond heist in the Netherlands, but swiftly learns that there is a very strong Far East connection. He then travels to Hong Kong where he meets the glamorous chief of ISP’s local bureau, May-Ling.
Together they begin to unravel a complex web of corruption. The twin spiders at the centre of this web are the Chan brothers, leaders of one of Hong Kong’s most ruthless and powerful triad gangs.
The trail of death and mayhem coils across Europe, Hong Kong and South America until all the scores are settled.
A Jack Calder Novel
VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK
Jack Calder and his former SAS colleagues at ISP, a specialist security firm, are saved from certain death when an ex-Gurkha is killed smothering a deadly grenade thrown into a lunchtime Chinese restaurant in the West End of London. They learn that murderous turf wars are raging between Asian Triads and Eastern European mobsters vying for control of intern
ational fiefdoms of drug smuggling, people trafficking, prostitution and money laundering.
An unexpected visit from the highest levels of international law enforcement offers Jack and the ISP team a means to use their black operations skills to wreak a ruthless retaliation against the drug lords.
Unlikely partners emerge in their onslaught against the gangs as the warring criminal factions threaten an unholy alliance to repel them. The pursuit spins across Europe, Turkey and North Africa before a final reckoning.
A Jack Calder Novel
KILLER CITY
The discovery of a woman’s mutilated torso in a rubbish bin in the north of England sparks a twisting series of events for Jack Calder, a former SAS officer, and his colleagues at their specialist security firm, International Security Partners (ISP).
Jack’s offer to help an old buddy’s son escape a framed murder charge, leads ISP from Manchester and London, across Europe into Lithuania and the mountains of Tajikistan hunting down the peddlers of illicit synthetic drugs, murder, and prostitution rings.
Corruption at the highest levels in European police forces and political hierarchies call for the ISP’s black ops skills to combat the growing global menace of drugs on city streets.
A Jack Calder Novel.
SAVAGE PAYBACK (Jack Calder Crime Series #3) Page 19
