by Ted Denton
‘We always understood that you are a good egg, Hemmings. And it is formally acknowledged and appreciated that you’ve kept our chaps informed on what’s really going on from inside ‘the bubble’ over the years. Insight into the Foreign Office’s agenda has certainly been useful, particularly given some of the peculiar sensitivities of interdepartmental rivalry. In many ways, you’ve really been spying for us internally to help the machine work better. I suppose one could say, Hemmings, that you’ve become the spy you never were.’ Chortling to himself, he continued, ‘Good title for a Bond film that, don’t you say?’
‘Oh very droll, Simon. Very droll,’ fired back, acerbic, laced with heavy sarcasm. ‘Well now it’s me that needs you. And I don’t just mean a good lunch and a clandestine tour of the field armoury. I’m a desperate man.’
‘Go ahead old boy. I’m all ears.’ He raised his eyebrows quizzically.
‘Ever come across a Russian businessman and erstwhile gangster named Boris Golich?’ It was a rhetorical question. ‘Well I need to find out everything I can about him and his money and the dealings of his privately owned energy company, Rublex Corporation. I have two days to ratify a massive commercial deal for the government to the tune of a seven billion pound investment in the Falkland Islands and the creation of over seven thousand British jobs to support the exploration, extraction, and deployment of natural gas around the world.’
Simon whistled.
‘Personally, I think the whole thing could be a ploy to launder vast sums of mafia money and that Great Britain should stay well clear of it. But the bloody PM himself seems hell bent on driving it through and has now got his pet Scottish pit bull, Andy Bartholomew, on my case; ensuring it all goes ahead for signature on time with no proper due diligence being conducted whatsoever. They’re pushing for the positive headlines it will generate in the short term before the election and I’m afraid my conscience is taking a bloody battering.’
He cast his eyes to the sky. Paused for dramatic effect.
‘Imagine the gross contamination of the UK’s trade portfolio and our international relations if this deal is proved a sham and the selling of Golich’s energy nothing but a front for organised crime. The deal goes live at the end of the week and I’ve looked into it as far as I can. Something is deeply wrong about this agreement. Every instinct and fibre of my very being is screaming out that we have to protect British interests. I have to do the right thing. Help me to do the right thing here, Simon.’ Derek looked down and noticed for the first time that whilst he had been talking he had been unpicking a thread from a button on his suit jacket, worrying it loose. Alice would certainly not be pleased at having to stitch it back on. He turned to face the river, shoulders drooped. ‘We can’t find anything substantial enough to halt this deal and I’m actually beginning to think perhaps we never will.’ His words hung in the air, desperation palpable until his companion cut through the silence.
‘Alright. I can confirm that we do know Golich indeed, Derek. Have done since the little thug first popped up, illegally seizing oil wells in Uzbekistan with his own private army. Set about displacing ordinary folk from their homes to make way for infrastructure development. Corrupt politicians looking the other way in exchange for his hired muscle conjuring up the right number of votes in their local elections. Fast forward twenty-five years and he’s still doing the same thing—only on a far grander global scale. He’s a billionaire now who dines and plays golf with world leaders including, I may add, our very own PM. He entertains and influences the great and the good. Has even ploughed millions into the European Golf Tour in order to broaden his reach and legitimise his brand.’
‘What else is he into other than oil and gas?’
‘Our chaps on the ground in Moscow inform us that he has strong ties to the historic network of Russian Mafia gangs. We’ll do some proper digging on his activities now he has become a person of significant interest. I tend to agree with you. This is indeed a critical situation.’
‘Thank you, Simon. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that this matter is under the strictest departmental security classification. Very few people know about it. The government wants to steal a march on the opposition and on our foreign rivals. We have apparently lifted this investment from the table of a state run Chinese energy company and the PM is delighted with the coup. The good news announcement in Parliament will be the first sign that this government has cemented the progression into sustained positive fiscal growth with austerity and the mess of Brexit far far behind us. And it couldn’t come at a better time to influence the voters.’
‘You have my word on behaving with the utmost of discretion old boy. I’ll be in touch shortly.’
Derek blinked back the emotion. The two old stagers stood together in the quiet for a short while on the bank of the river Thames, bathing in the morning sun. Letting the moment resonate. A final hand-shake. Turned then left in opposite directions, each in their own ways resolute to claim the morning.
Chapter 22
SPAIN. EUROPEAN TOUR. DAY FIVE. LATE AFTERNOON.
The breeze dropped the temperature by five degrees at least. It sucked into the back of the open lorry, gently brushing Daniel’s face, stirring him awake again as he oscillated in and out of consciousness. It also served to accentuate the sticky, pungent stench in which he lay baking. Daniel wretched as he came round. He worked his blistered lips over the tight gag and listened hard for sounds outside the truck. It felt like they had been stationary for hours but the truth was that any sense of time had become completely distorted.
A single voice spoke now. Talking in rapid bursts, punctuated by equal periods of silence. The seemingly urgent and rising inflection at the end of his sentences indicated he was asking a rapid series of questions. Then nothing, a period of protracted silence. A sudden scuffle. A muffled shout. And in quick succession the snap of a single gunshot shattering the air, the sound of a body crumpling to the ground. Daniel winced and held his eyes tight shut.
Moments later, two men in black leather jackets, one of them the vicious man with bad breath who’d spat into his face, sprang into the back of the lorry. They grabbed his feet roughly and without warning. Dragged him fast over the wooden truck floor, ripping his shirt and tearing the skin on his back over jagged splinters. Above his head the bloodied pig carcasses twirled from the roof like a gruesome oversized baby-cot mobile within some macabre nursery.
Hoisted to the ground and slung limply over a broad shoulder, the hostage was now transferred to the open boot of a gleaming black Mercedes. Lying dumped on his back. Still bound and sucking in what air he could, Daniel stared helplessly up at the colossal expanse of azure blue sky strewn with wispy strips of cotton-wool cloud suspended high above. The view was destroyed when a body was levered unceremoniously into the boot and dropped directly on top of him. His face splattered with globules of blood, sharp particles of sand stung his eyes. The boot slammed shut descending them at once into pitch darkness. The forehead of the dead man nestled against Daniel’s cheek causing him to twist furiously to free himself of the touch. This, he thought, must be Hell itself.
How long the car drove for or in which direction he had no idea. Daniel was completely disorientated with no anchor to fix him in neither in time nor space. He was squashed tightly by the stout and heavy body on top of him. Running low on oxygen in the cramped boot, an unpleasant, syrupy pool of blood now formed on the nape of his neck, dripping intermittently yet relentlessly. By the time the car pulled to a final halt and its human cargo— both dead and barely living—were unloaded, it was cooler and dark outside. Both bodies were dragged inside up broad tiled steps, upon which the back of Daniel’s head bounced roughly in near-comedic rhythmic succession. They were laid out onto the stark marble floor of an opulent entrance hall. Only here were the two travelling companions finally separated from their enforced period of haunting entwinement. A period during which Daniel had felt the slow tightening of the dead body pressing upon him unti
l it had finally turned hard and rigidly inflexible.
A full bottle of cold water was poured over the hostage’s head. He opened his eyes and soon began to take in the splendour of his surroundings. The palatial Hacienda-style entrance hall was encased entirely in white marble. Heavy gold-framed mirrors lined the walls and tall potted palm trees flanked a yawning white spiral staircase stretching up to the solid wooden minstrel gallery and beyond.
‘You awake, lazy boy? Yes, lazy boy, you wake up now,’ taunted one of the black-leather-jacket-men in heavily accented English as he slapped his bloodied victim callously around the face. Daniel was pulled upright, his feet and thighs at last freed from the bite of their tight bonds. As the blood flooded back into his legs he collapsed to the floor. A hand, now gripping his throat, pulled him to a standing position again. ‘Get up little bitch. You stay here with us now, Daniel.’
And then he was shoved hard in the back from behind and Bad Breath Man dragged him away by the upper arm through a blurred series of doors and rooms and finally into a cold back passageway at the rear of the villa. A thick metal-studded door, a small bare windowless cell, paint peeling from the interior walls. The grind of key turning inside heavy lock.
Chapter 23
SPAIN. EUROPEAN TOUR. BAYFIELD MANDARIN GOLF RESORT. DAY FIVE. 17.00 HRS.
I’d noted practice areas earlier, stamped at intervals around the golf course: putting greens, chipping areas, practice bunkers, driving ranges. I walked briskly towards a cluster of them from the parking lot following the basic logic that I’d likely find Bob Wallace, a golf coach after all, probably located in the areas where golf was taught. At the very least it would be a good place to start. I dialled into HQ as I moved and Ella picked up on the first ring. ‘Hunter, how’s it going? What’s happening on the ground? Everything okay? You haven’t had any more flashbacks, have you? I get worried about you.’ She spoke as if delivering a single stream of consciousness.
‘All good, Babydoll. You missing me then, are you? I think I promised you dinner back in London when we got through the last job. Sorry it had to be postponed. I’ll try to make it up to you.’
‘Dinner? Mmm. Okay. Sounds nice. You do appreciate that I’m not some cheap date though, don’t you, Hunter? It takes quite a lot to impress a girl like me.’ It was a sassy reply. ‘Anyway, what can I do you for, soldier?’
‘Patch me through to Bob Wallace, can you? You guys have his mobile on record right? I want to ask him a few questions about the Target and some of the rats out here that I’ve already encountered. A few of the pieces are starting to make some sense. I need to assess the level of threat and perhaps squeeze some information out of a few people to help me figure out what’s happened to Ratchet.’
‘Patching through now Hunter. Be careful, okay?’
The long international dial tone played out repetitively down the line. Although I was probably within less than a kilometre of Bob Wallace in person, the untraceable call was routed via our Unit’s headquarters out of a little Victorian cottage in Barnes, South West London, England. Its size and quaint old fashioned frontage, replete with little red bricks and creeping ivy façade, belied the high spec interior. Charles Hand had decked the base out with the very latest computer equipment and military technology. To our knowledge they didn’t even possess some of this kit yet at the Pentagon. There was little doubt that being able to access feeds from a massive range of varied global satellite communications enabled us to keep one step ahead and contributed to our efficiency on the ground. Hand always maintained it fuelled our ferocious success rate on jobs and was an investment worth making.
The call hitting Bob Wallace’s British mobile phone was now being bounced across various different international exchanges and European time zones. The tone rang out and finally an answerphone message tripped into play. A gruff Scottish voice said, ‘Leave your message for Bob after the tone. And remember: always keep your head still and eyes down when you strike a putt. If you haven’t heard your ball drop in thirty minutes, then I’m afraid you’ve missed.’ Beep.
I hung up. Leaving a message wasn’t a good idea. Who’s to say that Bob would want to speak to me right now anyway? And besides, if his phone fell into the wrong hands it would just alert them to my presence and compromise any advantage of surprise. I was contemplating my next move when a text message from Ella buzzed through:
Honour is what no man can give you and none can take away.
Honour is a man’s gift to himself.
(Robert the Bruce)
I shrugged. You can’t argue with that.
I needed to move quickly, avoiding contact with other people as far as was practicable. An Indian man in his mid-thirties was working on a series of putting drills on the practice green. He was wiggling his putter back and forth like a pendulum between square set shoulders. I approached from behind. ‘Know where I can find Bob Wallace round here, mate?’ I called across to him from outside the ropes.
‘Yes, certainly. We finished our session together here not one hour ago. Mr Wallace can usually be found in the Halfway House hut off the ninth green about this time. He likes to be alone, save only for his whiskey and his thoughts.’
‘Much obliged, friend,’ I replied but by the time I had finished thanking him, the head was bowed once more in fixed concentration, golf balls firing off the blade in snappy order, sinking into a cup over six feet away. I continued my way down the paved pathway, following signs towards the ninth green.
The Halfway House was a smallish, boxy hut beautifully carved out of wood from local cedar trees. It was staffed during the main part of the day by a team from the hotel, serving refreshments to golfers as they plotted their way around the course, offering welcome replenishment after their hours under the hot sun. Bob had presumably claimed it as his own when the golf course emptied. It was easy to see why a man who wanted to be alone with his thoughts would select it as a hideaway. Out here in the middle of the deserted golf course, eerily silent and set back amongst a small copse of gnarled olive trees, the hut sat squat in defiant isolation. The low-cut and thick wooden door was ajar, but I rapped on it anyway out of courtesy. No response. Eased it open, slow, cautious. Stepped inside.
What I encountered hit me like a smack in the face—it was savage. Total juxtaposition to the tranquillity of its setting. A man, only partially recognisable as Bob Wallace from his photograph in the briefing file, was slumped in the corner tied to a chair. His bloodied face had been smashed in entirely on one side revealing the hollow remains of his cheek and jaw. Discarded on the floor next to him lay a pitching wedge, the blade stuck with pieces of grizzled flesh and splinters of bone. His throat had been cut. The deep gaping wound told of a single swift and well-practiced motion. His head lolled to the side lazily, exposing the inside of his neck from ear to ear. Flies buzzed over the body, dizzy already from feasting on the sweet and sticky blood. I studied the room. A small square table in front of him, age-worn with the chips and marks and the scars of a purposeful existence, was littered with playing cards. It was dominated by an overflowing ashtray crammed with a mixture of tatty rolled-up butt ends and blackened cigarette filters. A half empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label was accompanied by a single stained glass. Next to it lay a small square of coarse sandpaper and a wet rag. I grimaced. Searched for the telltale patches of torn skin and exposed bone on the underside of elbows, knees, knuckles and finger tips and was bitterly rewarded. Whoever had done this knew what they were doing. Had taken their time to sand away the skin on particularly sensitive portions of the anatomy, using the alcohol to increase the suffering. I wondered at what stage of the ordeal they had broken him. What the old soldier had finally told them. I hoped, for his sake, that he’d been able to retain his personal sense of honour and integrity before his demise. I would never forget the haunted look of realisation in the eyes of the men I’d watched betray their friends.
I held the grubby glass aloft and swallowed the last inch of amber liquor from
the bottom. A risk of contaminating the crime scene perhaps, but the dead man, one of the Hand of God’s fallen comrades, deserved a final toast. With the glass wiped free of my prints, I carefully backed out of the hut. This was someone else’s mess to clean up now. I wasn’t certain that whoever was responsible wasn’t still lingering and preparing to ambush me in situ. Plus I figured that if anyone else happened upon the scene then a big, heavily armed and uninvited trespasser stumbling upon a bloody murder on this refined and exclusive golf course would not be easy to explain.
I needed time to think. There was no further information available and the figure central in explaining Daniel Ratchet’s disappearance was dead. The who and why didn’t matter as much as the where in our job. But time was essential if the Target was still alive and often the most efficient method to get a lock on the hostage location is to assess the context of their disappearance. Get an understanding of the background to the take. Perpetrators routinely leave trails of information. Packets of data to be assessed so we can interpret the situation we are dealing with on a job. As such, the technology deployed back at HQ can tap into real-time transactions from the use of any specified bank and credit cards, vehicle GPS systems, toll booths, and has even been known to lock onto IP addresses and therefore identify the whereabouts of computerised devices and smartphones utilising public Wi-Fi for internet connection. We can quickly build up the profile of a suspect and assess their movements so as to get an idea of their intentions and capability. Whatever the underlying reason for the crime, the planning and actions taken leading up to the execution of a kidnap will also provide an evidence trail that inextricably leads us to where our Target can ultimately be found. Alive or dead.
But that’s for the gumshoes. The smart way to do it. And if you have the time, of course. My job is to find the Target. Recapture them if they’re still alive. Document the body if they are dead. We get paid either way for reaching the Target but there is a sweet financial incentive for getting them back still breathing. I don’t ask questions about who they are or why they are in whatever predicament they’re in and I don’t need to bother myself with the fallout. Solving crimes is for cops and if there is collateral damage from my work, then so be it. The Unit operates off-radar and I take my orders straight from the Hand of God. Nothing else matters.