It was now or never.
He had unbuckled and edged forward. He grabbed hold of Stefanescu by the throat and squeezed until he could feel a strong pulse. His other arm gripped the Romanian’s forearm, causing instant pain.
The strength of the Romanian’s counter-attack took Hewett by surprise. He held the advantage, being at waist height he had him firmly in his grasp, increasing the grip on his testicles by the second, causing him to cry out in agony. Stefanescu knew they were seconds away from bursting – it was gladiatorial but effective.
Stefanescu hissed at Hewett. “Let go now. You don’t want to do this.”
Hewett replied in an equally serpent-like voice, which in any other circumstances would have been almost amusing.
“You betrayed me, you bastard. I gave you everything and you…”
“No. I bailed you out of your family debt. How does that make me…?”
It was a Mexican stand-off and Anghel had heard enough. She jerked the controls sharply, throwing Hewett backwards and into the fuselage, cracking his head against the Perspex window. Stefanescu jolted against the seatbelt and cursed as his arm jarred, opening up the existing wound and allowing it to bleed once more. It seemed like weeks since that idiot Cade had shot at him at the river.
To make matters worse, the black Pelican cases were now free of their location and sliding up and down the aisle. One struck Hewett’s foot, slamming it into the seat frame.
“For Christ’s sake. Can anything else go bloody wrong today?”
Anghel fought to control both the passengers and her aircraft.
She yelled at them, “You are like children. You should be ashamed. Both of you. Do you want to get us killed?”
Silence.
Actually, she could hear the men breathing, which unfortunately meant that at least one of them was alive.
She pulled the carburettor heat switch out towards her and lowered the landing gear. Ahead she could now see the runway, hardly Charles de Gaulle, but better than an emergency landing in a field with headlights – and having done that once she vowed it would never happen again.
Hewett had gone beyond panic, beyond anger. And he had played his cards too openly too. It wasn’t in his nature to run away, but it was even further from the norm to grab the pilot and fly the bloody plane into the ground. Whichever bridge he was on right now, he would need to cross it and hope for the best.
The way the injured Stefanescu was looking at him, the best option didn’t bode well at all. And yet there was something that told him that his co-passenger could have caused him more damage, even with one arm tied behind his back. He had stopped first. Why?
It felt like the plane was dropping all the time. It was. She was back in control and now revelling in the moment. She picked a spot on the runway, illuminated by her meagre lighting, adjusted the aircraft’s nose, balanced the throttle and allowed the Piper wheels to contact the dry grassy surface. It began to bounce, Hewett gripped onto anything stable and quietly prayed as the French scenery rushed past, bright green markers flashing in his peripheral vision.
Another heavier bounce and the Piper was on terra firma. It just needed the front wheel to make contact. The old adage about any landings being good was probably being recited in Anghel’s mother tongue.
She pushed the pedals, braking the aircraft, reducing their speed, but to the passengers it was still too fast. They were used to jets and their rapid deceleration.
Steering it down the runway towards the white car that lay ahead and off to her left, her speed was in fact reducing all the time, but the aircraft was noisy in such a generally quiet rural area. If the locals weren’t awake, they were now.
The Chieftain came to the end of the runway. She turned it around and lined it up with the centre line. The Lycoming engines were ticking over and she was ready to discharge her passengers and cargo and leave France as soon as possible. Her relationship with this team was over.
“Welcome to France. I have no idea what this is all about, but it is time for you to leave,” she said coldly. “Walk behind the aircraft and make sure you pay me what you owe me.” In truth, she didn’t care anymore – they had already paid her well for her time.
Valentin left the relative calm of the Citroen and using its headlights for guidance walked towards the men who were already stood by three black cases. One of the males was favouring his arm, a darkened patch of blood obvious to anyone that was stood on a grass runway in southern France at such a ridiculous hour.
He spotted the eyes straight away, so the other one must be Hewett. He looked different in the dark; dishevelled, away from home, from the city and the protective layer provided by the British Foreign Office.
Hewett was rubbing the back of his head and checking for blood. Valentin had no idea what had happened during the flight and didn’t care, but curiosity got the better of him.
“Gentlemen. A turbulent flight?” His smile lit up the surrounding area more than his rudimentary runway. It also revealed the pistol in his right hand. He held it with a gentle grip, it was more accurate that way. Both men saw it. So did the pilot.
“I’m going, clear the runway.”
As she reached the door to climb back on board Stefanescu called over to her.
“Hey. Thank you. I will recommend your services to anyone. You will be paid what we agreed, no more. However, if you make contact with me soon I will provide you with enough opportunities for a wonderful future. Until then, take care up there.” It seemed genuine. Perhaps she would see him again. Most likely she wouldn’t.
Valentin watched her fasten the door, take her seat and start the process all over again, building up the power until she began to roll down the grass runway.
He shouted over the noise. His handgun was more evident now, in the favoured Sul position, held close to his torso but ready to use in a split second.
He spoke in English but looked through his audience.
“You will put those cases in the car. Then we will move to a safer location. From there we will sort out what we do with the one among you who has betrayed the government that I work for, and then, how to get you back into their custody. Local French police staff are travelling to us now. I should not have to tell you that I will shoot first and won’t ask questions later.”
He looked at the two males who seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the Piper had thundered down the runway and lifted off into the night, heading for a safer local airport with a plausible story in exchange for fuel and a tarmac runway.
With the cases on board and the hatch closed, Valentin continued.
“The British government has asked me to take care of you. It recognises your service, the risks that you have taken, and also for recovering the packages from London.”
Neither male spoke back, allowing Valentin to continue. It was Hewett that looked confused, but he was growing in stature. He nodded, affirming he was listening and encouraging the unknown armed male to continue. Perhaps there was some hope? He was speaking in accented English, after all.
“Mr Stefanescu, if you would be so kind.” He handed him a set of Speedcuffs and gestured towards Hewett, who looked as if his own mother had betrayed him.
“What? What in God’s name are you doing? I am the one who works for the British bloody government! I am British! I am well respected by the Foreign Office. Just ring them! And who the hell are you to tell me what will and will not happen?”
The handgun was now pointing at Hewett.
“Yes, Mr Hewett, you are British. The rest is past tense. And my name is irrelevant. Needless to say, the British government considers me an ally – and has done since I first played chess with them many years ago.”
Hewett was growing angrier by the second, now manacled, he lifted his chin up and spoke in a public school voice, clear and precise.
“I play chess too Mr...?”
“Nice. Old school, but nice. I told you, names are not important, Johnathan.”
Sensing d
efeat, he tried once more. “Then if you won’t allow me to know your name perhaps you would be brave enough to outline where exactly he, and you and I sit on the chessboard?”
Valentin pushed Hewett into the back seat, shielding his head from further injury. As I said to another keen player not long ago, “I am the Queen, I move where I want, in any direction.”
Valentin got into the driver’s seat with Stefanescu behind him, sat alongside Hewett.
“It’s OK, Johnnie. Trust me. We had to bring you here, to get you away from London, and importantly my dear older brother. He would just play with you until you gave up every secret of the British government. There is a lot to learn about him. But, as you may have discovered tonight, there is more to learn about me. More than you, or Mr Cade or his devoted team at Scotland Yard can ever know. You see, we all swim in the same cesspool Johnnie…it really depends on who with and how much you are prepared to breathe.”
Hewett was exhausted but had reserves that he now called on.
“I have no idea what you are…on about. I work for the British Foreign Office. I was sent to investigate the rise in thefts from British banks…”
Stefan held up a hand until Hewett stopped speaking.
“John. We both know that is not true. Are you telling me you are some sort of double agent? This is the stuff of spy novels. Wouldn’t you agree, Valentin?”
The driver smiled and continued on his course to his home in the woods.
“No John, you see the truth is you are in debt, probably to more people than just Alex Stefanescu and not just financially. But you allowed yourself to become a customer of my brother and his. How can I put this, unofficial bank, correct? And in doing so you became a plaything of his – and they normally end up dead. Trust me on this – they really do.”
“But you said, back there, that you work for the British? I’m tired but this makes no sense, and won’t do when I am rested.”
“You expect me to just tell you everything? Naïve at best, my friend. Naïve. No, close your eyes, we have a short drive, then we can eat and all will be revealed.”
“Tell me what is going on. Please.” Hewett sounded desperate.
Stefan tapped Hewett on the leg. “It is not wise to make war with your brothers in arms…”
Hewett stared out of the car window into a dense forest and began to rewind the previous few days and weeks. Dire straits indeed.
Chapter 32
“You must feel better for some food and refreshment, Mr Hewett.”
It was Valentin that was speaking now. His English was accented but had a hint of private school. He was entirely self-taught, like most of his skills his linguistics had been honed by years of necessity.
He took a sip of a local red and continued. “There are some things that can never be explained – every government has a need to know policy, as a Foreign Office worker you of all people should know that. In the case before you it is so overly complex that even bite-sized pieces would make an elephant difficult to digest.”
Hewett was still cuffed but able to use his hands – to a point. He drank some water, wanting to retain as much of his faculties as possible.
“I am cleared to an extraordinarily high level, there is nothing you cannot discuss with me, if, as you suggest, you are employed by the same government as me.” Hewett was digging into his reserves and past training. He was known for his negotiation skills as well as his rather charming manner.
“Not in this case, John. Sorry. Even we only have limited access. What I can tell you is that you have wandered carelessly into a swamp from which there appears no way out of.”
“For Christ’s sake, will you just spell it out in words of simple syllables – I haven’t slept in days and…”
“John, the Clownfish has a special relationship with the Sea Anemone. In exchange for shelter, the Clownfish protects the anemone and preens it of parasites.”
Hewett banged his head on the white kitchen table. “Are you not listening? It’s all fucking riddles. Tell me how much trouble I’m in and what I need to do to get out of it. Or shoot me now. Please.”
“If you would allow my colleague to finish.” It was a partly rested Stefanescu, cleaned of dried blood and looking a little brighter for nourishment. “We are the Clownfish Johnathan. The British government is the Anemone. Simple enough?”
“Oh well, thank you both for an enlightening National Geographic documentary on the life of the Great bloody Barrier Reef. I feel I can sleep tonight!”
“Sarcasm becomes you, it really does.” Stefan was smiling and forcing more food into his mouth, knowing that it might be awhile before they ate again.
“The bank attacks in London and the English counties?”
“Go on,” replied a barely interested Hewett.
“They are my brother’s rather elaborate game – a way of luring the other fish out of their safe harbour and into the path of the sharks.”
“Do you know what gentlemen, I’ve heard enough.” Hewett pulled at his cuffs and tried to stand, but Valentin simply jammed his foot across the top of Hewett’s own. He held his gaze long enough to enforce the point.
Stefanescu waited for silence. “The money was useful, after all, every criminal loves nothing more than cash and it makes the world go around. But he has enough. Obscene actually, he has notoriety too, but what he craves the most is respect. He is surrounded by opulence and whores, and dare I use another marine analogy…leeches?”
He finished off the block of cheese and drained his wine glass. “And you, in a moment of weakness provided him with an opportunity to gain total respect from his own country and yours too. Great Britain with its ceremony and reputation. And you knew the whereabouts of two things that could drag it into the cesspool along with everyone else. Not jewels or inappropriate photographs of a princess, but documents, two to be precise.”
Hewett knew that they held the winning hand.
“Your brother gave me no choice.”
“No, you had every choice available to a man in your position. All you had to do was say no, or admit to your country that you were in debt. You were such a champion, a rising star, they would probably have given you the money!”
“So now what?” Hewett tried to be resolute, but his limited audience could see he was failing.
It was Stefan who spoke first. “Now, you have to find a way of closing Pandora’s famous box. You need to work with us. Johnathan, you have become a link, you could say a degree of separation. I am sure you have heard of the famous Hungarian and his theory of inter-connectivity?”
“Of course, I am quite intelligent you know.”
“Absolutely you are. Now, we all need some sleep. But before we do, indulge me, would you?” Stefanescu looked at him through bi-coloured eyes, picking food out of his teeth with his investigative tongue.
“Mr Cade is the first degree. Miss Nikolina was the second. Her daughter the third. A man who is known to you in the Foreign Office, he’s the fourth. And I am the fifth which if my rudimentary mathematics allows…makes you the sixth.”
“But you have left out one key person in this fool proof equation of yours, Stefan. Your brother.”
Stefan laughed. “Hardly. My brother Alex is the seventh. That goes without saying.”
“But there is no such thing as seven degrees of separation.”
“Oh, trust me, there is now.”
Cade pushed forward along the off-white tunnel until he reached another door. He could feel a draught through the gaps, not dissimilar to the last time he was in a tunnel, desperately trying to track down his other partner in crime: Detective Sergeant Jason Roberts.
For a split second, he thought about him and how he was. How O’Shea was. How he has missed at least one funeral and how his arse still burned like crazy from the gravel rash injury he had endured. When was that exactly? The week before, the one before that? And why did it appear that everything happened to him?
Daniel was alongside him now and ha
d broken the chain of thought.
He whispered, “Anything?”
Cade shook his head and eased open the door. He could hear a mechanical noise, a deep, guttural metal on metal sound. The change in air pressure shocked him. The locomotive, a Class 9, built expressly for the Euro Tunnel operation, was immense, more so given he was stood just below the level of the track.
He fell back, almost into Daniel’s arms, and then grabbed hold of the ducting that ran through the tunnel. They were in a service door and looking out into the main train network that linked France to England. The train was massive, the tunnel immense. It dwarfed the service tunnel that they had previously been in, and both men felt insignificant.
Cade knew the Eurostar trains could travel at high speed – he thought around one hundred and fifty miles an hour – he was short by twenty, but assumed that in the tunnel the locomotives would have to slow down for safety reasons. They did, to a steady hundred miles an hour. And the one that had just roared past him was about a metre away. He could have easily touched it or been consumed by the airflow and dragged under its wheels.
It banked slightly around a curve. It was then both men heard the first crack, a sound like a shotgun or a demolition blasting cap. In the confines of the concrete tube the noise was heightened. For some reason, call it grass roots policing. They ran out into the tunnel, onto the narrow walkway and allowed curiosity and instinct to draw them along the underground passageway.
The noise was repeated five times. Each sound was the explosion of a track safety device, hurriedly laid on the track by Constantin, who waited ahead with his team. It was the last of his old-school chemistry set that he had carried for days, guarding it for just this occasion.
A sizeable piece of metal had also been draped across the line, and a small cloud of smoke was visible. To the driver, at speed and approaching the hazard quickly, it looked as if the roof had collapsed but he knew this was impossible. He was already braking hard when another series of devices set off additional charges, which in turn initiated smoke. In a tunnel smoke is the first alarm flag, and often where there is smoke, there is fire.
Seven Degress (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 2) Page 53
