The Fifth Man (Ben Sign Book 2)

by Matthew Dunn

Fontonia turned down the music and sat on the rim of the sofa, facing Sally. “Remember me?”

  Sally blinked faster. Her vision was blurred. “I… I remember your voice. Woman from the bar.”

  “Woman from the bar.” Fontonia laughed. Her voice was cold when she said, “Not everything is what it seems.”

  “Please! Please! Why?”

  “I’m just here to chat. You have something I want – information.”

  “Don’t hurt me again. I’ve done nothing wrong!” Sally’s vision was returning to normal, though her eyes were still in awful pain. “Who are you? What do you want from me?” She twisted her head and looked at the base of the stairs. “Dad! Dad! Help!”

  Fontonia smiled. “Your father is unconscious. I did that to him.. And I’ll do the same to you unless you cooperate with me.”

  “You hurt my Dad?” Sally whimpered. “No, no, no, no!”

  Fontonia picked up Sally’s half smoked cigarette and took a drag on the tobacco. “So, this is how it works. I ask you a question. You answer.”

  Sally was still sobbing, even though her tears stung like Hell as they coursed down her bruised face and intermingled with blood. “Let me go. I don’t know anything about anything.”

  Fontonia stubbed the cigarette out. “A few days ago four men died while sailing a trawler. They were washed up on a beach near Stanley. You know those men.”

  “Debbie… Debbie, I…”

  Fontonia snapped, “My real name’s not Debbie. Come on Sally! Work out a lie when one slams you in the face! Stay focused! If you do, I’ll leave you alone. You knew the men, yes?”

  Sally’s head slumped.

  “Head up! Look at me!”

  Sally lifted her head. In doing so, pain shot down her spine. “I knew the men. They used to drink in my pub.” She was shaking with uncontrollable emotion.

  Fontonia lit a fresh cigarette from Sally’s packet and placed the cigarette in her mouth. “A couple of puffs might calm your nerves.”

  Sally inhaled smoke, coughed, and spat the cigarette onto the carpet.

  Fontonia used the soul of her boot to extinguish the cigarette. “We must be careful. We don’t want there to be an accident.”

  Sally was moaning. “Who are you?” she repeated.

  Fontonia’s tone of voice remained calm and icy as she replied, “Who I am is of no relevance to you. And who you are is of no relevance to me. All that matters is what you know about the four dead men.”

  Sally shook her head while continuing to shake. “What’s there to say? Eddie Wilson was a fisherman. Billy Green also worked on Wilson’s boat. Rob Taylor was a farmer. Mike Jackson divided his time between being a lighthouse keeper and a fireman.” Defiance entered her demeanour. “Are you telling me the truth about my Dad? If you are I’ll make sure you rot in hell. The police and the military here know me and my Dad well. You’ll never get off this island. They’ll put you in prison for life. Or they’ll shoot you on sight.”

  “Let them try. Maybe I didn’t hurt your father. Maybe I just tied him up and gagged him. Either way, one thing’s for sure – he can’t help you now. Tell me more about the men.”

  Sally breathed deeply. Though she was still in shock, she tried to summon strength in order to get out of this situation. Anything she said about Wilson and his friends couldn’t hurt them. They were dead. Compliance with the woman in front of her was her only option. Survival was all that mattered now. “They used to come to my pub. They used to sit at the bar. They didn’t talk much. They’d usually stay until closing time. Then they’d go home.”

  “Who else drank with them?”

  “No one.”

  Fontonia slapped her hard on the face. “Who else?!”

  Sally was wincing as she repeated, “No one. There’d be others in the pub, but the men would never mix with them. Wilson, Taylor, Green, and Jackson only ever drank together.”

  “Before they died, they were in your pub. What did they say?”

  Sally stared at her.

  “What did they say?!”

  Sally wished she could rub her eyes. “There’s been an Argentinian ship watching the islands for a couple of months. We all knew about it. Wilson and his mates got drunk that night. They said they were going to drive Wilson’s boat out to the ship and once and for all get rid of it. I told them not to do something so stupid. They left. That’s the last time I saw them. And that’s all I know!”

  Fontonia withdrew a hunting knife and tossed its hilt back and forth between her hands. “On the night they died, there was a fifth man on the boat. Who is he?”

  Sally stared at the razor sharp blade, her eyes wide with fear. “I don’t know!”

  “Yes you do,” said Fontonia in a slow and deliberate voice.

  “I’m telling you the truth! You’re not the first person to ask me this.”

  Fontonia held the knife in one hand. “Who else has approached you on this matter?”

  Sally kept her eyes on the knife. “Two detectives from London. At least, that’s who they told me they were. Do they work for you?”

  “Give me their names and I’ll let you know.”

  “Ben Sign and Tom Knutsen. They said they were staying at Mount Pleasant.”

  “Ah yes. They’re colleagues, though are working through this matter from different angles. I hope you cooperated with them.”

  “I told them what I told you; that I know nothing about a fifth man! Who do you all work for? Military? Intelligence? Police?”

  “Something like that.” Fontonia said, “Tell me about someone Wilson or his friends might know who has access to guns.”

  “What?”

  “It’s relevant to our investigation.”

  Fresh tears were streaming down Sally’s face. “Lots of people on the islands have guns. Hunting rifles. Shotguns. That kind of thing. They have to register them with the police. It’s all tightly controlled.”

  Fontonia smiled. “Shotguns and small calibre hunting rifles would be no match for a ship. I’m wondering if there’s a man on the islands who has access to military-grade weapons. You may know that person.”

  Sally’s head slumped again. “Don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. You just need something to jolt your memory.” Fontonia walked up to Sally and placed the tip of the knife against her stomach. “If I put this knife into your gut – and, trust me, I’m very willing to do so – I will ensure that I miss your vital organs. I will have done you a kindness. It would be possible that you could survive the wound. But, there would be a downside. The knife will have penetrated your stomach lining. You’d have massive internal bleeding. And if the knife was pulled out without an expert medical team present, you’d bleed out within twenty minutes. Or die from shock. RAF Mount Pleasant has a superb unit of combat paramedics with access to helicopters. They’re on permanent standby. If I called the base, the unit would be here in minutes. They’d treat you here and evacuate you to the base. They have surgeons on the military compound. They’d treat you as if you were an injured war combatant. You wouldn’t get better medical care anywhere else in the world. I’d make that call, providing you cooperate with me.” Fontonia angled her head. “Do you want me to put the knife in you and take your chances? You decide. Who on the island has access to military grade weapons?”

  Sally was petrified.

  Fontonia stared at her.

  Sally sucked in air. “Terry…”

  “Yes?”

  “Terry Maloney.”

  “Where does he live and why does he have the weapons?”

  Sally gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. “He’s got a farm and shooting range in Goose Green west of here, halfway across the east island.” She tried to move her hands but they were bound too tight. “He’s an islander but is contracted to the army. He lets them use his range for target practice.”

  “That’s good Sally.” Fontonia crouched in front of her. “Do you think Maloney might have been the fifth man on the boat?
”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Have you met him?”

  Sally shook her head. “My Dad told me about him. My Dad and some other men once went up to the range to deliver sandbags and help make repairs to the shooting range. It was a cash in hand job. That’s the only contact my Dad had with Maloney. Seems like he keeps himself to himself. He’s never been in our pub.”

  Fontonia sliced the knife through three inches of Sally’s jumper, ensuring that she avoided Sally’s skin.

  Sally rocked back.

  Fontonia grabbed the chair to avoid Sally crashing onto her back. She sat back down on the edge of the sofa. I think you’re telling me the truth.” She faked a look of sympathy. And she lied. “Your father will be okay. You must understand that people like me are investigating a matter that affects Western security. I’m not from Tasmania. I work for the Australian government. And in turn we’re cooperating with other nations. Sign works for the Brits. His angle is obviously to protect the islands. Knutsen works for the Norwegian government. His angle is to ensure Argentina doesn’t inadvertently discover that Norway has a top secret listening post in the Antarctic. And my employers’ interest is to ensure that Australian mining rights in the Falklands’ waters are not jeopardised by covert or overt military action. To get to the truth of what happened that night, all of us need to take desperate measures.” She sighed. “If you want peace and stability on the islands, it’s best that you don’t breathe a word of our conversation this evening. Tell your father the same. If you say anything, it would go bad for everyone you know who lives here.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?!”

  “Because I want you to know that a few aches and pains in your body have not been for nothing. On the contrary, you’ve done a service to the Falklands. I’m going to cut you free and leave. You’ll never see me again.” Fontonia moved behind her.

  Relief overwhelmed Sally.

  Fontonia withdrew a standard-sized hammer from the inside of her jacket and repeatedly smashed it against Sally’s forehead and the crown of her skull. She did the same against her stomach, the base of her spine, the parts of her abdomen where her kidneys and liver were located, and against her chest. It was impossible to tell whether Sally died from shock, a heart attack, brain damage, or organ failure.

  But, she was most certainly dead.

  And there was not a drop of blood on the chair or floor. The only blood present was soaked into Sally’s clothes. She secreted the hammer in her jacket and searched the lounge, hallway, and kitchen. She found what she was looking for: the keys to the old Land Rover that Sally drove. Her father’s vehicle was too modern and therefore of no use. She went upstairs and lifted the dead man onto her shoulder. It would have been easier to have dragged him downstairs, but that would have meant that a strip of the fibres in the room and stairs carpet would possibly be facing the same direction. A clever forensics analyst would be able to tell that a heavy object had been dragged in one direction. So, she carried him downstairs and gently laid him next to Sally. She went outside, entered the Land Rover, and reversed it up the driveway adjacent to the house. This location wasn’t overlooked by neighbours. Plus, it was pitch black. She re-entered the house via the rear kitchen door, left the door wide open, picked up Sally’s Dad, and laid him down on the jeep’s back passenger seat. Back in the house, she untied the ropes around Sally, put the ropes in a pocket, and carried Sally to the jeep. She dropped her on top of her father. She re-entered the house and moved the chair Sally had been sitting in, placing it back into the spot it had been when Fontonia had first entered the property. Using a separate key on the car key fob, she locked the back kitchen door once she was outside. She got into the Land Rover, started the engine and drove northwest out of Stanley.

  Twenty minutes’ later she was in an area that was completely uninhabited and rugged. The sea was to her right. Wind was buffeting the jeep; snow was falling fast; the sound of waves smacking the shore were just about audible. She slowed the vehicle in order to find a spot off the road that would suit her purposes. It only took her a couple of minutes to find that place – a flat strip of land that was fifty yards wide and led to a cliff, beyond which was a forty yard drop onto rocks and seawater. She reversed up the coastal road, stopped, engaged the gears in first, gunned the accelerator, lifted her foot off the clutch, and droves as fast as she could, going through the gears as she did so. She yanked the steering wheel right and went off the road. She stopped and turned off the engine. The vehicle was pointing at the deadly drop. She got out and hauled Sally into the front passenger seat and her father into the driver’s seat. No seatbelts were applied. The jeep had no airbags.

  She leaned into the driving area while keeping her feet outside. She placed the man’s foot onto the clutch, his other foot onto the accelerator, and turned on the engine. She pressed Sally’s Dad’s leg to rev the accelerator. Then, she put the jeep into fourth gear. This was important for two reasons: fourth gear would indicate the Land Rover was travelling at speed; it would also mean an extremely slow start when the clutch was lifted. She pulled the dad’s leg off the clutch, slammed the door, and watched the four wheel drive vehicle amble at slow speed toward the edge. It went over. Even within the din of the weather, Fontonia could hear the crash on the rocks below the precipice.

  And that was everything that needed to be done.

  If cops could be bothered to analyse the road, they’d see that the jeep was travelling at high speed before it careered off the road.

  All injuries sustained by Sally and her father would be attributed to the crash.

  Fontonia’s footprints in the snow would be obliterated by more snow, in minutes.

  Sally’s home was secure and normal – no blood, no sign of violence whatsoever.

  The accident would be due to a tragic driving miscalculation within treacherous weather.

  The only question the cops would be asking themselves is why Sally and her father were out at this hour and where were they going. That didn’t matter. The cops would never get answers to that question.

  She walked ten miles back down the coastal road. It was hard going, but she’d done far worse in her training and subsequent deployments. She reached her car, near Sally’s home, drove it to her cottage, and called Casero. “Terry Maloney. He lives near Goose Green. He’s got a gun range and access to military weapons. That should be our next stop. But, we also have a problem. There are two blood hounds down here, trying to find our target. I think they’re British. Their names are Ben Sign and Tom Knutsen. What are your instructions?”

  CHAPTER 10

  The following morning, Knutsen gathered up logs from the wood shed outside the cottage. He carried as much as he could into the house. Sign was cooking bacon for their breakfast. Knutsen placed some wood into the log burner and got a fire started. He felt low and knew that Sign felt the same way. They were getting nowhere with the investigation. No leads. No breakthroughs. Nothing. He sat next to the fire and held his head in his hands.

  “Cheer up, old fella.” Sign handed him a bacon bap. “A hearty breakfast will put a smile back on our faces.”

  Knutsen ate in silence while Sign did his best to lighten the mood.

  As he ate, Sign said, “People say I was the most successful MI6 officer of my generation. It’s certainly a flattering observation. And it’s fair to say that I’ve had a number of significant successes. But, for every great success, there can be ten other operations that end in failure.” He smiled. “My goodness me, I’ve had some stonking failures. We all have. I’ve been caught in rough places by rough men and had to escape or blag my way out of the situation. I’ve run agents that turned out to be double agents, working for the other side. I’ve targeted individuals who I thought had access to secrets I needed, paid them money, until I found out they were fraudsters.” His smile faded. “And on more than one occasion I’ve had loyal foreign agents simply disappear. They were my friends. I tried to track them, day and nig
ht. But they were gone. Vanished in Russia, the Middle East, Asia, places like that. Of course, deep down I knew what had happened to them. Snatched; interrogated; executed; bodies dumped in the sea, or similar. But I didn’t give up looking for them until I finally accepted the inevitable.” His smile returned. “Ask any intelligence officer, cop, fireman, doctor, or soldier, and they’ll all tell you the same thing – no matter how expert we are there will always be matters that fall through the cracks. A foreign spy successfully persuades an MI6 officer that he wants to defect to Britain, wherein the truth is he wants to steal our crown jewels. A specialist police unit spends months observing a drugs warehouse, based on information from a snitch; armed officers raid the warehouse; it’s empty; the snitch had tipped of the drug gang. A highly experienced team of firefighters try to rescue a mother and daughter from a blaze in their home; but they’re too late. A senior doctor gives CPR to a man who’s collapsed on the street; the man vomits in her mouth and turns green; he was dead before she could get to him. A sergeant and his eight-man commando unit come under heavy fire in Afghanistan; they’re trained to deal with this; they fight bravely; but ultimately they have to beat the retreat or die. Failure. It permeates the sharp end of life.”

  “Win some; lose some.” Knutsen finished his bap. “You’re saying we should chalk this up as an inevitable failure?”

  Sign leaned forward, his expression earnest. “I never accept failure. Nor do you. I know all about your incredible police record as an undercover operative. Men like you and I never walk away until the job is done.”

  “That doesn’t mean we succeed.”

  “Then, sir, we die trying.”

  Knutsen nodded. “We need a lucky break in the case. We’ve already agreed that we can’t tear the islands apart, knocking on the door of every Tom, Dick, and Harry who lives here. We have to try to remain under the radar. Right now we have to be reactive, not proactive.”

  Sign leaned back. “We are being proactive. Remember, we believe there is a four person Argentinian assassination unit on the ground. Possibly it’s comprised of two men and two women, based on our analysis of the flight rosters. I’ve ensured that all routine police and military patrols west of Stanley are temporarily suspended, save for emergency situations. That frees up the assassination unit to cause mischief. We’re giving them enough rope to hang themselves. And in the process, they’ll lead us to the fifth man. As far as I can see that’s anything but being reactive.”