Who Dares Wins

by Vince Vogel

  “But you can’t end it,” Dorring almost shouted. “You’re still doing it. Still killing. Carving that shit into people.”

  “It’s a weakness, you could say. I was always a big fan of the SAS. Always liked the motto. Who dares wins! ”

  “What about Conner? When did he figure things?”

  “Huh! Conner. Of course. I was so glad I got to him in the woods before he spoiled my surprise. I was so desperate for it to be me who told you. He figured things in Helmand. The night we’d been at the market, I thought I’d lost him for an hour. Enough time to return to a body I’d secured earlier and mark it.”

  “He saw you do it?”

  “No. But he saw me coming out of the building they found the body in. He didn’t say anything until after Jane. Came at me with it. Said he was going to make sure they locked me up for good. That’s when my brother went to see him. He was in Helmand at the time, testing a new weapon on the hillsides there. He offered Conner a lucrative contract with a new pharmaceutical company he was setting up. One he wished to take into a defense direction.”

  “This has all been a trap,” Dorring said. It was almost said for his own good. A kind of loud thought.

  “Yes. I can’t say your timing is welcome. But it’s good that you’re here, Alex. Now, if you don’t mind. It’s time to begin proceedings.”

  Kevin lifted off his hooded jacket. His pale, naked torso shone in the light of the bulb. On his belt was an SAS dagger. He lifted it up into the light.

  “I believe I speak from experience,” Kevin said, stroking the scarring on his stomach with the dagger, “that this will hurt like hell.”

  And with that, he swooped forward, pressed the knife into Dorring’s flesh, and so began the first line of the W. Dorring became rigid but didn’t struggle on the chain. To do so would make it worse. Could force the knife deeper. Stab him. No, he had to stay still. Stay still and hope for Abigail to break free. Kevin was too engrossed in his work, digging the knife through the flesh of Dorring’s stomach, the latter doing his best to push the pain back as the blood fell onto the floor. Mo was grinning wildly, watching her brother’s work with gleeful animation. Neither had an idea what was happening behind them.

  Dorring gasped when the blade came away.

  ‘W’

  “Mirror,” Kevin said.

  Mo tugged one from the back pocket of her jeans. It was a small makeup case. She popped it open and handed it to Kevin. He held it to the work, so Dorring could see.

  “What do you think?” he asked, glancing up at Dorring, who scowled down at him.

  “Get on with it,” Dorring snarled.

  “Keen,” Kevin said.

  He plunged the end of the dagger back into the flesh, close to the W. Dorring flexed his abdominal muscles, but a sharp pain erupted in them. The dagger was cutting through the muscle tissue, splitting the sinews. Any deeper and it would reach through to his stomach and intestines.

  He glanced desperately at Abigail. She was wriggling on the spot, her hands moving frantically, Mo and Kevin none the wiser.

  “Aitch!” Kevin announced, taking the blade away.

  When he began on the O, he was in a much more relaxed mood, seemingly over his initial excitement and now merely a skilled worker doing his job. He began to talk.

  “For what it’s worth, Alex,” he said. “I liked you. Mo did, too.”

  “Fuck you,” Dorring grumbled through the pain.

  “No, it’s true. Tell him what you told me, Mo.”

  “Ah, come on, Kev,” she said, blushing and hiding her eyes from Dorring, whose own blank ones stared out into the room at nothing in particular.

  “Go on,” Kevin prompted her.

  “Okay.” She looked directly at Dorring. He practically didn’t see her, the pain in his stomach so intense. The whole of Who finished. Now onto Dares. “I asked Kev if we couldn’t keep you, somehow,” she said. “I wanted to have you around the place for… well, you know what… I, well.” She stopped. The blushing became too much.

  “Maybe we can still keep him,” Kevin said. “Maybe a bang on the head might change him. Make him docile.”

  “Like Ma?”

  “Maybe. We could try it. Hit him real hard on the head and then…”

  The blade came away from Dorring as Kevin staggered back. He was holding his head. The dagger dropped from his hand. Mo turned around sharply. Abigail was standing there, her feet still bound, but her hands free. Free and holding onto a crowbar she’d found leaning in the corner. She swung it once more, this time catching Mo in the face. The barmaid went down in one go, her head hitting the floor hard. She was out cold. Kevin was staggering to the stairs. She came behind him, raised the crowbar and let its full weight hit him hard in the back of the head. He collapsed instantly to the stairs and lay motionless on the bottom rungs.

  Abigail hopped to the dagger. She dropped the crowbar, picked it up and began cutting away the tape on her ankles. Then she lowered Dorring from the chain. His legs were weak from the pain and blood loss. He collapsed onto the floor and she ran over to him. Quickly she undid the clasps on his wrists attaching him to it. This done, she helped him to his feet.

  “The knife,” Dorring said.

  Abigail handed it to him and he went straight for Kevin. But as he did, the body moved. Kevin sprang to his feet on the wooden steps and hauled himself up them before Dorring could weakly stumble to him.

  He threw the knife up the steps at Kevin as he reached the top. It missed and instead stuck into the wall at the top. Dorring tried to run up after him, but his stomach hurt so badly that it cramped up the moment he went to do it, the pain forcing him down so that he lay on the steps in agony.

  Abigail jumped over him and went after.

  “Abigail, no!” he cried.

  She too disappeared at the top of the stairs. Dorring pulled himself up off the ground and clambered after her. At the top, he removed the dagger from the wall and lurched unsteadily down the hallway, holding onto the walls for support. The front door was open. He heard the sound of an engine. Screeching tires. The door to his right opened. It was the lounge. The grandfather. Dorring used what strength he had left to thrust forward and connect his shoulder with the door. It smashed into the face of the grandfather and he fell back on the floor, holding his mouth.

  “Where are my guns?” Dorring snarled down at him.

  The old man pointed into the lounge. Dorring limped into it. On the coffee table was the bag of weapons.

  “Kevin was here!” the invalid mother cried out. “Kevin! Kevin! Kevin!”

  She went on like that as Dorring made his way out of the house, stepping over the old man, the bag over his shoulder, a pistol in his hand.

  He staggered into the street. Abigail was there. A whistle was blown at the end of the road. Another behind them at the other end. Dorring came beside her, tucked the pistol into his jeans, grabbed the assault rifle from the bag and held it aloft in the air. He split the rain-filled sky with a loud burst of bullets. The whistling stopped instantly as the men ran for their lives.

  “He got away in a car,” Abigail said, staring down the road.

  “He’s going to see his brother,” Dorring said. “Let’s go ruin their party.”

  Dorring got to a car. He broke the window to get inside and quickly hot-wired it once he was. Abigail jumped into the passenger seat. Then he put it in gear and screeched the tires on the wet road as he motored away.

  38

  Dorring drove the car through the rain and the night with his teeth gnashed together and pain burning his stomach. He was sitting in a pool of his own blood. His own hot, sticky blood. He looked down and checked the wound every so often as it seeped out and ran into his underwear, down his legs and into his shoes, some of it even seeping down into the footwell.

  But none of that bothered him. He had only one thought now. One prime directive. Kill Kevin Yates.

  Nothing else mattered. It felt to Dorring like this was what his
whole life had led up to. If he died tonight, it was supposed to be. The same if he lived.

  Beside him, Abigail stared ahead through the windscreen with a hollow look. She was shaking all over from the longest day of her life. And it wasn’t even over yet.

  They hadn’t spotted any brake lights yet, but the roads were windy and the grass verges high, so it was unlikely that they would see anything unless they got within a hundred yards. Still, both of them knew where Kevin was going.

  Appleby Manor.

  Plans went through Dorring’s brain. None of which seemed to lead to anything. He tried to remember everything he’d seen at the manor when he’d gone to Conner the day before. There wasn’t a gatehouse. He remembered that. Just a gate that was unlocked from people inside the manor. Would there be men on it now? What about the rest of the property? Any back entrances? It would all be guarded. Every square inch. Especially now that they were expecting trouble.

  Dorring felt weak. The wound was bad and he’d bled a lot. He wondered if he’d be up to it. He could hardly walk, let alone run. A part of him was begging to turn around. But he couldn’t.

  Jane, he said in his head.

  Dorring turned to Abigail in the passenger seat. For a split second, he saw his former love sitting there instead. She turned to him and smiled and he was sure that it was Jane, Abigail’s wavy red hair now straight and brown. Only the eyes staying the same shade of green.

  No, I won’t be turning back, Dorring said to himself. Not until I’ve killed him.

  Then he thought about Abigail. What about her? Surely, she won’t survive this either.

  “You know you don’t have to come with me,” he said. “It’ll practically be suicide.”

  “Don’t do that,” she said, turning away from the night and the rain, her green eyes glowing at him.

  “Do what?”

  “Patronize me because I’m a woman.”

  “I’m not. I’d be warning the toughest guy just the same as I’m warning you. And my bet is you’re tougher than him. But my point is simple. This is probably going to get us killed. I don’t think your superiors at the NCA would think too much of you getting killed.”

  She shook her head at him. “This is my revenge as much as yours,” she said. “He killed my parents. Same as he killed your girlfriend. This isn’t about my investigation anymore.”

  “Maybe we should both turn around,” Dorring said. “Come back for them another day.”

  “No!” she said sharply. “The slippery bastard will get away. They always do.”

  “But if you die, he’ll surely get away anyway.”

  “That’s if we die.”

  “Just the two of us going in there? I can hardly hold my arms up to shoot. The odds aren’t good.”

  Abigail was about to speak when she saw something in the near distance.

  “Pull over,” she said.

  “So you agree?”

  “No. I’ve got an idea.”

  Dorring pulled underneath the canopy of a small petrol station. Due to the curfew, it was abandoned. It was also very old fashioned. So much so that the old pumps had revolving numbers instead of digital displays. Parked in the corner of the lot was a fuel delivery truck with a tanker at the back of its cab.

  Abigail ran out of the car and up to it. She pulled a lever on a tap at the side of the tank. Petrol spurted out and hit the floor. She turned to Dorring and smiled as he looked at her from the driver’s side window, the engine of the car still running.

  “I have an idea,” she called to him from the rain.

  39

  Kevin sat in his brother’s study, holding a bag of frozen peas to his head in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other. He was breathing deeply, gazing at the window at his own reflection, the rain striking the pane on the other side and threatening to wash it away. Behind the despondent face was a view of the driveway leading all the way to the gate. He was expecting Dorring any moment. And he was scared.

  Absolutely terrified in fact. When he was under the hood, he felt safe. Felt like the predator tracking his prey. But now it was the other way around. Now that he was unmasked, he felt like a simple man. He felt like Kevin. And Kevin was scared.

  The door opened. It was his brother.

  Bruce Appleby came in and immediately shut the door behind him. Standing before Kevin, he shook his head.

  “Oh, little brother,” he said. “What will we do?”

  Kevin glanced up at him. Something inside him was afraid of his older brother. Probably because Bruce was so much like their father. Groomed to be a lord, while Kevin had lived on the mainland with his terrible aunt and uncle. The old woman continually beating him for wetting the bed and the old man largely ignoring him. Then there was their father, Patrick Appleby. He was so strange and had scared Kevin, but at least he felt a level of love from him. The gentle half smile he’d wear when gazing at him.

  “Hey!?” Bruce cried out.

  Kevin snapped out of it and turned sharply to him. Glaring into his eyes. His own burning with fire.

  “Well, the Russkies are gone,” Bruce said. “So at least that’s done.”

  “Yes,” Kevin said. “I saw their helicopter leave.”

  “Thankfully, you haven’t managed to turn that into a major fuck up.”

  Kevin tipped the rest of the scotch down his throat, gripping the glass between his teeth.

  Who dares wins, he said in his head and stood up sharply.

  But before he got the chance to say anything, he spotted the flames in the distance. Frowning, he came away from Bruce and went to the window, just as his older brother noticed too.

  For a few seconds, they glared outside at the surrounding fields of Gordon’s Heather in utter shock. They were on fire. The flames rose up into the rain and illuminated the night. Then further along, they saw more fires lighting up the island in glowing beacons.

  “What the bloody hell!?” Bruce Appleby yelled out, his wide eyes looking at all the money going up in smoke.

  He came away from the window and dashed outside the room. Kevin remained standing, watching the fire. A wry smile on his face.

  As Bruce Appleby came out onto the landing, one of his men was jogging up the stairs towards him.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “It’s happening all over the island, sir,” the man said. “They’ve set fire to the fields.”

  “Get out there!” Bruce Appleby shouted from his red face. He turned to other men who lined the stairs and hung about in the hallway below. “All of you! Get out there now and put those fires out. Get everyone. I’ve just signed it all over to the Russians. They’ll kill us all if we can’t deliver.”

  “Yes, sir,” his man said and he bolted down the stairs, signaling to the others to follow him.

  “All of you!” Appleby cried out. “Get every man, woman and child out there. Stop those fires!”

  In the hallway, men darted out the doors. On the carriageway at the front of the manor, car wheels screeched in the shingle and the Toyota pickups darted off down the driveway, the fires lighting the night sky all around.

  Kevin watched them from the window and realized something.

  When his brother returned into the study a few minutes later, he turned away from the view and said coolly, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  He himself didn’t care. He only wanted it to end now.

  Bruce Appleby ignored what he said and pointed a finger at his younger half brother.

  “This is all your fault,” he snarled. “You’ve brought this on us. If we lose our crop, Rogozhin will kill us all.”

  Kevin came away from the window and turned burning eyes on Bruce.

  “Don’t fight me, brother,” he said in a low voice. “Remember the first summer I visited. I was five and you were seven. You took me out to the barn. You remember?”

  “Yes. I meant to beat you to a pulp,” Bruce replied blankly.

  “But what happened?”

&nbs
p; “You grabbed that chisel and knocked two of my teeth out.”

  “Exactly. You may be the smarter one, Bruce, but I’m the stronger one in a fight. Do you remember what father called us?”

  “Yes. The ego and the id.”

  “That’s right. I’m the id. The one who does. The body. And you’re the ego. The one who thinks. The brain. I do. You think. Remember what father said?”

  “He said that we were stronger together.”

  “He did,” Kevin said. “So stop being weak.”

  “But you make me weak,” Bruce said. “You’ve brought that animal Dorring here for no other reason than you’re insane. You’ve destroyed us. How will I explain…”

  His head exploded and sprayed Kevin with warm blood. It got in his eyes and he recoiled backwards, hitting the window with his back.

  Wiping his hands frantically down his face, the blood pouring off his chin, he glanced about the study.

  Lying on his front about a yard from his feet was his older brother Bruce. He had a huge hole in his head and you could see all the way through to the carpet. Glancing up from that, he saw Dorring standing in the doorway. He was holding a pistol. Kevin was holding a glass.

  He went to throw it, but Dorring shot the thing while it was in his hand. The shattering glass cut his fingers. Then he felt like someone had hit his knee with a sledgehammer. It was the pistol again. Dorring had shot his right knee. It sent him down onto the floor. With a dead look on his face, Dorring shot the other knee. Kevin began crawling along the floor towards his brother. Bruce’s suit jacket was open. His gun was sticking out.

  Dorring blew away three of his fingers as he reached for the sidearm. Kevin clutched the wrist and held the withered hand in front of his face as he turned over onto his back.

  Dorring came over him with his feet on either side. Kevin looked up at the gun barrel pointed at his face.