Tidal Rage

by David Evans

  “And they didn’t do DNA checks in those days,” Stahmer added.

  “That is correct, but they do keep evidence in vacuum packs on all unsolved cases. I even know the evidence number and location,” Fabienne said with a slight air of satisfaction.

  “Have you been able to trace a DNA sample from McKenzie?”

  “No, he has never been arrested in the US, so we have no DNA, even if we access the evidence. You must understand that a lot of the evidence we have collected is not legal and would not stand up in court. We may have identified him, but we have no reliable evidence to have him arrested,” Fabienne ventured.

  “We need a sample of his DNA, and we need that evidence. I can get a sample from McKenzie if you or Cutler can use your influence to get the DNA extracted from that evidence,” Stahmer said.

  “Even if you get his DNA, the years may have degraded the DNA on the water bottle, although I’m sure with the advancement in technology that if there is DNA on the bottle, it will be able to be isolated and identified.”

  “Cutler needs to know now,” Stahmer interjected.

  “Sorry, Robert, I’ve been overruled by Cheryl. She says that Cutler has enough on his plate at the moment and she doesn’t want him side-tracked. She says he will still be there next week, when the timing will be better.”

  “Well, it must be significant, as this was the news Cutler has been waiting for. I am not going to take the chance. McKenzie is still on the Classical Canta Libra, and looking at this schedule, they are due to lay off outside Capri the day after tomorrow. I’m going to be there.”

  “Why don’t you wait for Cutler? You have no legal authority over there, and what can you do?” she asked.

  “Get a sample of his DNA. Secondly, interview him with the facts, then wait for Cutler to see how he wants to progress the case.”

  “Take care, Robert. It sounds to me as if you’ve made your mind up.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Cortez visited several non-tourist bars in the Kusadasi area, seventy miles from Akbuk. He had mixed with several unsavoury characters and had expressed an interest in hunting, and maybe hunting boar in the hills around the resort. It had taken long, several bottles of Efes beer to be exact before Mehmet had taken an interest in him.

  Mehmet was of Kurdish descent and had moved to the area when the Turkish government had flooded the area he had once lived.

  First, he tried to sell Cortez a villa in the local area, then he attempted to sell him an apartment, which was several thousand euros cheaper, all to no avail. Cortez made his situation clear; he was only interested in hunting.

  For over twenty years, Mehmet had relied on his charm and sales skills to survive. He had his fingers in lots of little pies, and he had maintained a comfortable life on the back of these skills. For a hundred and fifty euros, he would take Cortez on a guided tour further north, and they could do a little hunting there. Again, when he heard Cortez’s reply, he had to change tactics to ensure a sale.

  “You want a gun to go shooting wild boar. You do not want any guides, and you want the guns quickly. I must admit this is not a normal transaction we get asked for often; Turkish baths, gulet trips, yes; but weapons, not so much,” he stated.

  “Not one gun but four guns, as I have three friends who want to go hunting with me as well,” Cortez replied.

  “How do I know you are not going to use the guns for a robbery? How do I know you are not hitmen?” he asked in excellent English.

  “If we were going to do a bank raid, it wouldn’t be in Turkey for several reasons. The main reason is we would be nuts, as your prisons are shitholes. We would pick Switzerland or Austria; nicer prisons and the police don’t shoot on sight and ask questions later. As for being hitmen, if we were professional hitmen, we would not be very good at our job if we needed to trawl bars to get some guns,” Cortez said.

  “You do make some good points. Let me make a call and see what I can do,” Mehmet said, as he left the bar with the phone already to his ear.

  Twenty minutes later, as Cortez finished off his Efes in the corner of the bar, Mehmet returned and ushered him outside, as the bar had become busier with locals and he did not want to be overheard.

  “My cousin works in the armoury in Soke barracks. For two thousand euros, you can have four SR-25 semi-automatic special application sniper rifles. They will kill many boars, and if you don’t want to be heard, we can give you four suppressors for another thousand euros,” Mehmet said.

  Cortez knew the rifle, as it was the counterpart to the American M-16. “Seems a fair price,” Cortez said, knowing they were worth much more on the open market.

  “No, not buy. They are for rent for one week only. Today is Saturday, and they must be back in the armoury before the weekly stock inspection,” Mehmet replied.

  “Fair enough, I’ll take them.”

  “We need a deposit to ensure you give them back,” Mehmet said, expressionless. “You sign the papers for apartment. It is twenty thousand euros. You bring the weapons back you get the deposit back, less my commission on the sale.”

  “And how much is the commission?” Cortez asked, resigned to being ripped off.

  “Twenty percent or four thousand euros, plus an extra hundred dollars for every bullet you use. We have accessed twenty magazines and you can use the lot. My cousin can put the bullets down to training.”

  “That’s a lot of money just to go hunting,” Cortez stated.

  “It is if you are hunting boar,” Mehmet replied.

  “Give me an hour and I will sort your cash. It is cash you want, I gather,” Cortez said, already knowing the answer.

  Cortez gave Mehmet the money only after they met his cousin in the market parking lot, which was large enough for them to be isolated while they did the deal.

  “We meet back here Friday at noon,” Mehmet ordered, and Cortes nodded.

  If I am alive, he thought.

  Cortez took it easy in the rental car back to Akbuk, as the last thing he needed was to explain away four SR-25s belonging to the Turkish army. On the way back from Stoke, Cortez made a stop at the new outlet village and picked up four large sports bags to put the guns in.

  Less than an hour later he was back in the villa in Akbuk. He found Cutler at the telescope, and Shultz monitoring the listening station.

  Cutler joined Cortez in the kitchen area while Shultz was filling three cups with chai, the aromatic Turkish tea. They sat around the small, round table, and Cutler noticed the four sports bags, aware of their contents.

  “Why four bags, Cortez? I have already told you this is my problem to sort. This is way beyond the scope of your and Shultz’s contract of employment.”

  Cortez shrugged his shoulders and looked at Shultz.

  “Don’t remember getting a contract; how about you, Manfred?”

  Manfred put both his hands up in the air. “No, I didn’t get one.”

  “Look, I appreciate your loyalty, but we’re talking about killing a German delegate, plus anyone who gets in our way, not to mention Werner. They’re not coming out of this alive,” Cutler stated coldly.

  “Well, we didn’t think you were going to give them a ticking off and ‘Don’t do it again’ speech,” interjected Manfred.

  “We are in this together, no arguments. We need to start discussing how we are going to get in there unseen and out again,” Cortez suggested.

  “Okay, I appreciate this, and I won’t forget it. But why four bags when there are only three of us?”

  Cutler’s question was answered almost immediately as Tuck and Colton walked in through the open door.

  “No party without dumb and dumber,” Tuck said as he entered.

  “I must be dumb,” Colton said, “because you are definitely fucking dumber,” he said to Tuck, lifting the atmosphere immediately as they all laughed.

  Tuck introduced Colton and Shultz and in return, Cutler did the introduction for Cortez.

  “Sorry, Colton, thought it was ju
st Tuck on his way over. I have only purchased four guns,” Cortez explained.

  “Not a problem. I take the gun off the first fucker we come across in that house,” Colton said emphatically.

  “Next time you get the guns, Tuck. Cortez didn’t buy guns, he bought a Turkish villa, and the guns were fittings!” Cutler stated, adding to the laughter.

  ***

  Fabienne sounded strange when Cutler made the routine nightly telephone call to the Geneva office; to Cutler she seemed as if she was hiding something from him. Fabienne had accessed the drawings for the two villas earlier in the day and had sent them over a secure Internet line to Cutler. She had also obtained the security company’s drawings of the services, including telephone wires.

  While Cortez was tied up in Kusadasi, Shultz monitored the conversations in German between Werner and the delegate, and each night Ghislaine would translate the recordings and produce a written transcript over the Internet to Cutler.

  Although Fabienne would never admit it, she was pleased that Ghislaine had been reassigned to assist her in the Geneva office. She had enjoyed the Palestinian’s sense of humour and sharp brain.

  Fabienne also enjoyed her company each night when they would finish at 10 pm and enjoy a pleasant meal at her favourite restaurant. She was a little jealous when Ghislaine would kiss her farewell and the head waiter would fuss over Ghislaine. The handsome, thirty-something head waiter had never shown an ounce of interest in Fabienne in the two years she had frequented the restaurant, but he had been like a cat on a hot tin roof as soon as Ghislaine arrived on the scene.

  So, both Fabienne and Ghislaine, for different reasons, were not overjoyed when Cutler told them he wanted the office manned twenty-four hours a day over the next week. Fabienne volunteered to do the night shift.

  Meanwhile, Cutler redirected Matt Rice back to the Everglades. No matter how small the risk, he wanted Cheryl to have some protection, even if it was Basmati, who was more proficient with a camera than a gun.

  It was Monday, and the plan was to launch the attack on Wednesday. Cutler put Shultz on the exit plan; Cortez maintained visual and auditory surveillance on the villa. Tuck reconnoitred the area above the villa for an attack plan. A frontal assault was out of the question, as they would be spotted halfway up the hill by Werner’s henchmen. Werner maintained a constant lookout at the front of the villas, a duty carried out by his Turkish minders and Delegate Frau Uebering’s minders.

  The pictures Cortez had taken of the delegate’s minders had been sent to Fabienne for identification. Cutler had no appetite to kill agents of the German government, if indeed they were. Cutler and Cortez agreed it was highly unlikely she would have brought her official minders, in case one of them recognized Werner.

  Fabienne confirmed their suspicions; the bodyguards were hired minders from Dresden. Ex-East German agents, Stasi thugs in their forties, who had been in the delegate’s employ from before the Berlin Wall was demolished. Fabienne had done her research thoroughly. She produced a report for Cutler with their names, and a synopsis of what they had been up to before and after the wall came down. All four were killers; two had been torture specialists for the Stasi during the 1980s.

  “The world would be a better place without them,” Cutler had confided to Colton.

  Cutler had utilized Colton as a sounding board, and as he got to know him better and began to build up a healthy respect for the man and for his knowledge of tactics, he sought his guidance on the attack.

  On Tuesday night, Cutler left Cortez to monitor the surveillance. The rest of the group travelled twenty miles through the mountains on the way to Mugla. Fabienne accessed satellite images of the area, and this was the nearest spot she could identify that had no dwellings or activity. The area was a self-sufficient area of olive groves straight out of a scene from the Bible, with rocks interspersed. The area would be flooded with olive pickers when they ripened, but Fabienne informed them that that was months away.

  Over the next two hours, they used four of the twenty magazines of bullets. They realigned the sights for their individual use. They set the weapons from semi-automatic to single shot; the targets were not boars, but Coke bottles. Cutler had spaced the bottles at intervals of two hundred yards, seventy yards, and at close quarters.

  The only one who would be firing without adjusting the gun would be Cortez. While this was not perfect, Cortez had received excellent training on multiple weapons by the German police, and Cutler was sure he could adjust his firing position rapidly to hit his targets.

  Once Cutler was satisfied, they drove back, stopping at a bay along the way for Turkish mezze and pizza. Cutler ordered an extra portion for Cortez, who ate gratefully on their return.

  The group sat at the kitchen table until 2 am on Wednesday morning. Tuck outlined his plan for the entry points, and Shultz explained their exit strategy, including clean-up operations. Colton and Cutler apportioned responsibilities and divisions of attack.

  Cortez, Shultz, and Tuck agreed with the strategy that Colton and Cutler had come up with to attack both villas simultaneously. Were they just to attack one, they would put themselves at risk of being flanked and cornered by the secondary villa?

  Cutler assigned their duties for the following day. There was still equipment to be purchased, as well as other supplies identified to complete their plan.

  Finally, when the others had all retired for the night, Cutler telephoned Fabienne.

  “Hi, Fabienne, thanks for the latest reports, they’re a big help.”

  “Just doing my job, Herr Cutler,” she replied, addressing him as she always did, despite protests from Cutler to just call him by his surname.

  “Good, now do your job again and tell me what you didn’t say last night.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Glancing over his shoulder to bid the flight attendant goodbye, Stahmer took a deep breath as he descended the aircraft steps. The sharp, acrid aroma of jet fuel was lost on him; the only thing he could smell was blood in the air.

  The scent of the hunt was always the same to Stahmer; he thought he had a sixth sense when it came to investigations. No one was more aware than he that facts make a case, not intuition. However, during the final stages of the Houses of Parliament investigation, the quest to catch his wife’s killer and latterly the pursuit of Sebastian McKenzie, Stahmer had that elevated consciousness that he was close to an answer.

  Classical Canta Libra was moored off the coast of Capri, as the majority of the guests were no doubt enjoying a trip to the beautiful Blue Grotto, a sea cave illuminated by sunlight from an underwater cavity; or having tea in cafes and restaurants once used by the stars of Hollywood.

  Stahmer had flown into Naples Airport Capodichino and took a taxi for the short trip to the port of Molo and Calata Porta di Massa. Sean Wright had informed the captain of the Classical Canta Libra that Stahmer was on his way, and he organized for a tender to transfer Stahmer to the ship.

  During the two hours it took in the calm azure blue of the Tyrrhenian Sea, Stahmer recollected quite clearly his last trip to Naples. For their wedding anniversary, he had arranged a long weekend in the city, followed by a day in Pompeii and the last couple of days in Sorrento. They had spent all day in Pompeii together, traversing the ruins and looking at the magnificent artifacts.

  Too soon, the tender had been expertly guided alongside the massive hull of the Classical Canta Libra. Even though the sea was calm, the small tender still rose up and down on the swell a few feet, Stahmer needed the strong arm of a general seaman to assist his boarding the ship.

  Stahmer was escorted to the palatial quarters that housed the captain’s day and night cabins. The captain greeted him in a cordial and professional manner and engaged him in some trivia before getting down to business.

  “I believe you wish to re-interview a crew member. Sean Wright reported he had no idea who the crew member was,” the captain said, a little perturbed at being kept out of the loop.

  “
Sean doesn’t know. We have only just found a particular piece of evidence; could be something, could be nothing. We wish to re-interview Sebastian McKenzie.”

  The captain paused for several seconds, trying to put a face to a name, as he had nearly a thousand names and faces to recollect.

  “The piano player with the bad hair,” he finally said.

  “Yes, the piano player. First, I would like to see his cabin, obviously with Mr McKenzie not there,” requested Stahmer.

  The captain leaned back in his leather chair, swivelled it around, and opened the oak cabinet that was directly behind his desk. Stahmer could see the rows of files with little tabs on them, denoting a crew member’s name. He extracted a file from the middle row, Stahmer thinking that must be the row for anyone with M at the beginning of their surname.

  “Cabin 17a, sole occupation due to his status as one of the entertainers,” the captain stated, as he picked up the phone and dialled the number for the entertainment manager. Several seconds later he asked for Sebastian’s schedule and present whereabouts.

  “You’re in luck, Mr Stahmer; McKenzie is playing classical background music for the next hour in the main restaurant for those guests that find the food much more appetizing than the delights of Capri.”

  “That is good news, Captain. If you could allocate a guide to show me his cabin, I would be most grateful.”

  “The subject of a guide, as you call it, has already been taken care of, Mr Stahmer. Much to my annoyance, my rather pleasant lunch was interrupted by a direct telephone call from your Mr Cutler.”

  Stahmer raised his eyebrows as the captain continued.

  “I got the impression that by coming here alone you are breaking with your company protocol. Mr Cutler has requested, and I have granted you, a personal bodyguard while on this ship. Once your interview is completed, you are to return to your hotel and wait for Mr Cutler, who will be with you in the next several days.”