by Guy N Smith
‘I see. A brothel?’
‘Sort of. There will be others there.’
‘That's fine by me.’
‘You’d maybe like to join us, there's quite a crowd.’
Mayo’s pulse raced. Had he found what he was seeking already?
‘Our leader owns a house deep in the hills.’
‘Tomorrow night then?’
‘Fine. Make it late, after all the boozers have gone home and there's nobody about. Some way out of town there's a big island with a chocolate factory close by. Wait for me there. My name's Donna by the way.’
‘I'll be there.’
‘Marvellous, see you then.’ With that she vanished back into the alleyway.
Mayo lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply. Events had moved faster than he had dared to expect. Where was Donna going to take him? That tumbledown house which Charlie Wells had referred to? Well, he would find out on the following night.
It was after 11 o'clock before Mayo started out on the long walk to the arranged meeting place with Donna. The night was dry and cold with the threat of a frost before morning.
He was reluctant to reveal either his accommodation or the whereabouts of his parked car. As far as Donna was concerned he was a drifter who had moved into the area like those drug dealers whom he had passed in the streets. Whatever the motive of those whom he was about to meet he would soon discover if they were allied to the master criminal whom Wells had mentioned. It was certainly going to be an interesting night. Instinctively he checked his .38, nestled in his pocket.
A somewhat battered Fiesta was parked just off the island. The headlights from a passing car revealed a girl with long fair hair sitting in the driving seat. Donna had arrived and was waiting for him.
‘Hi there,’ she leaned across, opened the door on the passenger side. ‘Glad you decided to accompany me.’
‘I wouldn't have missed it for the world,’ he settled back in his seat. ‘Where are we headed?’
‘Just leave it to me,’ she let in the clutch. ‘We're going to have one helluva night. I believe that our esteemed Master will be paying us a rare visit. In some ways it's rather scary.’
‘Oh?’ Mayo was curious. Apparently, this was to be no ordinary gathering of those who were currently infiltrating this area. He was comforted by the weight of his handgun in his pocket.
She turned off the main road and the aging car shuddered under a steep climb on a single-track road. The headlights showed thick hedges on either side with sparse unkempt woodland beyond.
It was some time before she spoke. ‘You're a strange one. Why do you wear that big hat?’
‘It protects my head from the rain and wind and hot sun in summer.’
‘Fair enough,’ she laughed, then added, ‘I'm going to Syria in a few days.’
‘Oh?’
‘To join the Al Qaeda Jihadists.’
‘From what I've read in the papers they're fighting a losing battle, likely to be wiped out.’
‘Nevertheless, I am going.’
‘If you survive and are taken prisoner you are unlikely to be allowed to return to the UK, who will doubtless cancel your passport.’
‘It's a chance I'm willing to take. And yourself?’
‘I don't have any plans.’
She hesitated, slowed the car momentarily as they approached another bend in the pot-hole ridden road. ‘What's your name?’
‘Just call me John.’
‘John, I'm... I'm scared.’
‘Of going to Syria?’
‘No... you see, our leader is visiting us tonight. He's a terrible man, even his own followers are frightened of him.’
‘What's his name?’
‘It sounds Russian to me,’ she paused, ‘Zinovsky.’
Mayo tensed, turned his head away in case his expression reflected by the headlights revealed his shocked surprise. ‘Can't say I've ever heard of him,’ he lied in a matter-of-fact tone.
‘I've only ever seen him once before,’ Donna's voice trembled. ‘That was a year or more ago just after I had joined the group. He came to organise the setting up of the place. One of his top agents brought this tumbledown farmhouse and the land surrounding it. He was probably British, claiming to be a farmer. The place is virtually hidden by the surrounding wood and there are no rights of way so any walkers straying on it are trespassing and one of the guys living there tells them to sod off. You couldn't have a better place to get together and hide up.’
So, it wasn't the Farmhouse to which Wells had referred, instead another one so far unknown to the Department. Maybe a decoy also brought by this guy Zinovsky. If Williamson had discovered it then he had not been able to inform his employers. It was all decidedly sinister.
‘Tell me more about this guy Zinovsky,’ Mayo said, still with his face turned away from his young companion.
‘God, the very look of him sends shivers down your spine,’ she negotiated another sharp bend. ‘Hunched body like he's deformed but it's his face which is so frightening. Like the flesh has wasted down to the bone but worst of all are his eyes, sunken deep in their socket, boring into you. They seem to glow. He's like... like I would expect Satan himself to look! And there are rumours that he has connections with the devil!’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ Mayo grunted. ‘I don't believe in any of this occult rubbish. It's an act put on to scare the living daylights out of folks.’
‘Well I believe it,’ her voice trembled. ‘Our group is shit scared of him, as are others elsewhere in the world. There are stories which I'd prefer not to go into.’
‘In which case I'll make my own mind up when I see him.’
‘He's got an agent who checks on us regularly,’ she continued, ‘and he's enough to scare the shit out of you. He brings knives and pistols, bombs, too. Then he orders us to 'go out and kill'. I've known some of the group travel the length and breadth of the country to blow themselves up and as many citizens as possible with them. The cops have forestalled a good many but there's always the odd one which breaks through the net. I'll tell you this, John, before long we shall rule the world, civilization will no longer be as it is today!’
John Mayo did not reply. Donna had been radicalised sure enough. She had just one aim in her twisted thinking, to assist the jihadists in whatever way she could, even if she died doing so.
‘Here we are,’ Donna announced as they swung onto a rough tree-lined track and the headlights revealed a sizable stone house nestling in a hollow below. Donna parked her car alongside a Range Rover, switched off the engine and lights. ‘It seems that Zinovsky has already arrived,’ her voice trembled slightly. ‘We'd better go in. Follow me.’
The house was sizable, built of stone sometime in the early twentieth century and in need of major restoration work. An unlit hallway led through to a sizable kitchen. The latter was crowded mostly with scruffy youths and around half a dozen teenage girls. The atmosphere was rank, a mixture of pot smoking and unwashed bodies. Heads turned to view the new entrants, but nobody spoke. There was a general sense of unease.
At the far end a raised platform had been erected with pallets, and on it stood a wizened figure whom Mayo had no difficulty in recognising from Donna's earlier description. Leonid Zinovsky was in the process of addressing the gathering.
Mayo tensed as the other’s eyes centred on himself, sunken orbs that seemed to glow, a skull with withered flesh that had the appearance of rotting, a wide mouth with just a couple of teeth remaining.
‘Another convert to our cause,’ his voice crackled in the silence. ‘There will be many more throughout the world. One of you,’ his gaze switched to Donna, and Mayo felt her clutching his arm; she was trembling. ‘One of you is booked to travel to Syria in a couple of days. The news there is not good, the town of Baghouz is under heavy siege by forces from America, Britain and Europe. It is the final stronghold of Daesch, one of our most loyal Islamic State groups. Hundreds of civilians have either been killed or have fled. But we shall regro
up, make no mistake about that. The enemy's victory is only a temporary one. Before long we shall rule the world. In the meantime, my message to you here is to go out and kill. We have a stock of knives, firearms and bombs. First, though, you must witness the fate which awaits our enemies who attempt to seek us out. Follow me.’
Zinovsky stepped down from the platform, shuffled towards another corridor at the end of the room, one that was dimly lit. At the far end was an open cellar door with rough steps leading downwards.
Mayo joined the throng, noted its atmosphere of fear. Donna's grip on his arm had tightened still further. His other hand gripped the .38 in his pocket, not that its six shots would be much good in this crowd. All the same it was comforting.
The onlookers huddled in the confined space of the damp cellar, its walls streaming with condensation.
That was when John Mayo drew in a sharp breath at the scene which greeted him, lit up by flickering candles.
Zinovsky stood to one side, bony fingers pointing to an inverted crucifix fixed to the stonework. On it was a human figure in torn clothing, still alive and moaning faintly with pain.
Mayo experienced a sense of nausea; Donna buried her face against him. He stared in horror and disbelief at the inverted crucifix, the victim’s hands and feet were crudely nailed to the wood of the cross, blood seeping from the wounds.
Zinovsky stood to one side, a gloating smile on his withered face. Spittle seeped from his stretched lips.
‘One who almost infiltrated this small coven of true believers,’ his voice was a hiss now, a combination of anger and gloating. ‘Our Master delivered him into our hands and now he must pay the supreme penalty!’
From beneath his cloak he produced a heavy bladed knife. He held it aloft for all to see and then, with one sweeping downward stroke, he slashed the crucified man's throat from ear to ear. Blood spurted, saturated the ripped clothing, dripped to the floor.
There were gasps from the audience, somewhere somebody was vomiting. A female screamed. The body shuddered and then became limp.
‘Master, accept our offering of this traitor,’ the executioner's voice was shrill. ‘Others will follow, many will be slain on the streets, bombs will blow gatherings to a mulch of unrecognisable flesh and bone. Islam will rule the world!’
Anger and revulsion seethed within John Mayo, his fingers gripped his handgun. He was tempted to destroy this vile leader of a growing revolution across the globe.
Then, suddenly, he recognised the bloody features of the man who had just died on that vile inverted crucifix. A shockwave that sent his whole body tensing, rigid. He recalled the photographs which Detective Inspector Wells had shown him.
The crucified body was none other than that of the missing Bill Williamson!
Chapter Three
A shriek of maniacal laughter came from Zinovsky, his heavy bladed knife uplifted in a bizarre salute to the crucifix and that which it represented. Amidst the gathering some were vomiting.
‘Thanks to Satan who delivered this enemy of the Islamic State into our hands!’ Zinovsky's cackle echoed in the packed cellar.
An uneasy fearful silence followed. His glowing eyes roved around his followers, finally settled on John Mayo who stood at the foot of the steps. An upraised hand, a claw-like finger beckoning. A summons.
The others pushed past the one who wore a black fedora, stumbling up the flight of broken steps in their terrified haste to be away from the scene of terrible death, until just Mayo and the slayer, along with his assistant, remained.
‘What is your name? From whence have you come to the temple of jihadism?’
Mayo took a deep breath, squared his shoulders. This Devil from the dark must see that in no way was he afraid.
‘I just drifted in, chanced to meet one of your followers who brought me here. I have spent months in London, a loner following your cause... until now when I decided it was time to move out elsewhere. By sheer chance I met Donna which is why I'm here now.’
‘I could use a man like you,’ Zinovsky's gaze dropped onto the bloody corpse behind him. ‘You see what happens to our enemies!’
Mayo nodded. ‘You need have no worries about myself.’
‘Good. I have an important role awaiting somebody like you but to enrol your services in a scattered community like a rural Welsh town would be a waste of talent. These youngsters are doing a good job and Matthew,’ he referred to his local organiser of this small cult who stood on the top step, ‘is a fine ambassador for our cause. I have a special, much bigger, role to offer you.’
‘I'm willing to consider it.’
‘That is an excellent start. As you doubtless know our main activities are in London where there is a death most days, knifings, shootings, bombs. A few have been arrested but the police cannot cope. I am more than happy with the situation which is increasing daily. Second only to the capital is the West Midlands, almost five hundred slayings so far this year. Drug gangs work for us. However, we need somebody to oversee certain towns other than Walsall and Wolverhampton where major strikes would be a devastating blow to democracy. I refer to the city of Lichfield with its famous cathedral, Dr Johnson's birthplace, the former residence of Erasmus Darwin. I could go on, there are other major targets, all attracting visitors from the UK and abroad.’
‘I see,’ Mayo maintained a stoic expression. ‘So what's my role to be?’
‘We have a small group in the area but not sufficient to carry out the attacks where systematic multiple killings would bring an important community to its knees. Our man there, Richardson, has organised a cult of our followers but he is not up to major attacks. I will put you in contact with him, work with him. Our success there would be another major factor in destroying UK democracy.’
‘I'll do my best,’ John Mayo recognised an important role to be played on behalf of Counter Terrorism Command. He had already infiltrated the terrorists.
‘Good. I will give you details of where to contact Richardson before I leave.’
It would have been all too easy for Mayo to have shot Zinovsky and his assistant there and then but it would not have solved the Lichfield situation. And, in any case, he would have been unlikely to have escaped alive from this hidden den of anarchists. Another time, there surely would be one.
Mayo became aware of a movement behind him. He had not heard the burly dark clad man, cloaked in a black gown, a hood partially covering pallid features, move from the shadows. The latter stepped down onto the floor and in his hand, Mayo saw a huge knife. He stood before Zinovsky clearly awaiting instructions.
‘Get rid of this body,’ a grunted order, a bony hand indicating the blood-soaked figure on the upturned cross.
‘Yes, Master,’ the other moved forward, began wrenching the victim's hands and feet from the woodwork so that the corpse crumpled into a heap. He bent forward and started sawing at the neck until the head rolled free, then moved onto an arm.
Mayo turned his head away, was close to spewing. His companion seemed oblivious of the gruesome amputations, began ascending the steps, motioning to Mayo to follow.
Upstairs in the kitchen, the group huddled in silence. Even for those who had already slaughtered innocent citizens on the streets this was too much for them.
‘You have witnessed what happens to our enemies who fall into our hands,’ Zinovsky addressed them in a gloating tone. ‘Now I must be taking my leave of you.’ He beckoned Mayo to one side. ‘As I told you,’ he lowered his voice, ‘I will instruct you briefly on the role to which I am assigning you.’
‘Sounds fine to me. I'll do my best.’
‘It is important that you do. First you must travel to Lichfield and make yourself known to Richardson. I will advise him of your mission. Where are you staying here?’
‘I've been sleeping rough,’ the other lied, ‘in a hay barn just beyond the town.’
‘Needless to say you do not have vehicular transport.’
‘No,’ Mayo lied. ‘I hitched a lift on thr
ee lorries up from London. I'll do the same to travel to Lichfield.’
‘That will be fine,’ Zinovsky's eyes narrowed, ‘I am curious about your headgear…’
‘I found it outside a second-hand clothing store so I took it. I fancied it.’
‘A mobile phone?’
Mayo produced one, added ‘I took it from a guy I attacked down in London. Don't worry I've fixed it so I cannot be traced by it.’
‘Excellent. I shall be able to contact you when necessary.’
‘By the way, is there any chance that I could take Donna, the girl who brought me here.’
‘No!’ A sharp reply. ‘She goes to Syria shortly. Her nursing services are needed there.’
Mayo shrugged his shoulders.
‘You are welcome to stay here tonight, though. There are ample sleeping arrangements,’ his slit of a mouth twisted in what could only be interpreted as a grin. ‘Use her for your enjoyment if you wish. It will be your only chance if that is what you have in mind.’
‘I'll see.’
‘Here are my contact details,’ the other produced a folded slip of paper. ‘Memorize them and then destroy this. Only Richardson has the means to contact me but you may wish to do so without his knowledge. He is a a devoted servant of the jihadist cause but I feel that the forthcoming plans for Lichfield are beyond his capabilities. I am relying on you.’
‘I won’t let you down.’
‘You will forfeit your life if you do!’
Zinovsky's servant had completed his task, Williamson's body was a heap of bloody, barely recognisable joints. They were loaded into plastic fertilizer sacks. Mayo guessed that there was somewhere where they would be dumped, maybe a river far from here. He tried not to think about it
Shortly afterwards Zinovsky and his servant drove away. There was no mistaking the sense of relief amongst those remaining in the house as the drug addicts began smoking.
Mayo eased himself onto a vacant bed in the adjoining room, wrinkling his nose at the scent from the filthy blanket spread upon it. Clearly he had no option but to spend the night here.