The Demon Club

by Scott Mariani

  ‘I have to be back at work in less than half an hour.’

  ‘It’s an emergency. Be creative.’

  ‘Why should I do any of this?’

  ‘Because I’m asking, Grace. It’s vitally important that you take this seriously and do what I say.’

  Another long, hesitant pause. Grace plainly didn’t like being told what to do, but she was having to balance that with the reality of her situation. She said, ‘There’s a wooded valley only about ten minutes’ drive from the station. I go jogging there sometimes. You never meet a soul.’

  ‘Sounds perfect. Call me on this number as you’re getting close.’ Jeff read off the burner number again.

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘You’ll be safe,’ he promised her. ‘You won’t see us, but we’ll be there.’

  ‘Please. You have to tell me what this is about,’ she implored him.

  ‘I will,’ Jeff said. ‘I swear. Now get going.’

  Jeff ended the call and let out a long breath.

  Tuesday asked, ‘Think she’ll do it?’

  ‘She has to, mate.’

  And she did.

  Three minutes after the call ended, Jeff and Tuesday watched Grace emerge from the pub and walk to her Land Rover. She appeared quite composed despite the quickness in her step, and made no attempt to glance around the car park in search of anyone who might be watching.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Jeff said with a smile.

  ‘Sexist,’ Tuesday said.

  ‘Give me a break. What are you, a snowflake now?’

  Grace got into the Landy and rumbled off in the usual cloud of diesel pollutants. The black Range Rover remained motionless until she’d turned out into the road, then pulled sharply out of the car park after her and followed at a distance, like before. If Grace had noticed it, nothing showed in her driving body language. Jeff waited a few moments, then fired up the Transit and pulled a U-turn in the road to give chase.

  ‘Not too close,’ Tuesday warned as Jeff accelerated to catch up.

  ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  Grace headed back in the direction she’d come, passed by her workplace and continued for a mile or so up the bypass before she followed a series of turnings that led onto progressively smaller, narrower, twistier roads. Soon she was into deep countryside, pine forest, heather moorland and hazy mountains all around. The more remote they became, the harder it was for Jeff to keep the black Range Rover in his sights without getting spotted. The watchers were having the same problem, not knowing that Grace was aware she was being followed. The little caravan was stretching further and further apart by the second.

  Nine minutes out, Jeff’s burner rang with an incoming call from an unknown mobile number. He answered immediately. ‘Grace?’

  ‘I’m seeing a black Range Rover on my tail, about a hundred and fifty yards back.’

  ‘Ignore them. How close are we?’

  ‘Less than a minute from the woods,’ she said. ‘There’s a little lane on the left that leads to a clearing in the trees. That’s where I always park.’

  ‘Copy that.’ Jeff ended the call. Daring an extra surge of speed, he rounded a twist in the road to catch a glimpse of the green Landy far ahead and the black Range Rover a long way behind. He saw Grace’s brake lights flare as she slowed for the turn. The Landy disappeared into the woodland lane. The Range Rover accelerated hard to narrow the gap, then followed.

  ‘We go in there after them, we’ll be like three little peas in a pod,’ Tuesday said.

  Jeff frowned and was about to reply when he spotted another track coming up sooner on the left, which seemed to wind up through thick forest towards a ridge of higher ground. He twisted the wheel and sent the Transit bumping and lurching off the road onto the track. It was so narrow that pine branches raked the van’s sides, and so badly rutted that the suspension swayed wildly and rocks crashed against their underside. Jeff kept his foot down and pressed on determinedly.

  Moments later, Grace called again. ‘Okay, I’m stopped in the clearing.’

  ‘Can you see the black Rover?’

  ‘No, there’s nobody in sight. What now?’

  ‘Now call me back right away, using your own phone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To test if I’m right that someone’s listening in, Grace.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just do it, okay? I won’t answer, because I want you to leave a voicemail.’

  ‘What do I say?’

  ‘You say, “Ben, is that you? Your message said to call you. What’s wrong?” Say it nice and loud and clear. Make it sound like you’re worried.’

  ‘I am worried. I haven’t got a clue what’s happening here.’

  You and me both, Jeff thought.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘But you better give me one hell of a good explanation afterwards.’ She hung up.

  Jeff forged ahead up the bumpy track, nervous that the van wasn’t up to the bad terrain – but then he saw that his instinct had been right. Jeff Dekker could read the lie of the land like a professional hunter reads animal tracks. Up ahead the trees thinned out and the track led up onto the ridge of high ground that perfectly overlooked the patch of forest where Grace was parked. He skidded to a halt and killed the engine. ‘Grab that rifle, Tues. We’re on foot from here.’

  Tuesday snatched the bag from under the rear bunk and followed Jeff, who was already out of the van and sprinting for the ridge. By the time Tuesday reached him, Jeff was lying flat on his belly among the coarse grass near the edge, where the high ground fell away to the wooded valley below. He had the binocs trained down the slope and had already marked his target. Tuesday dropped to the ground next to him.

  Jeff said, ‘I see her. She’s making the call.’

  At that instant, Jeff’s phone began to burr on silent ringer. He didn’t answer. Now it was up to Grace to leave the message that would lure the enemy into believing that she and Ben had been in contact.

  ‘Now if that doesn’t draw these beauties out, nothing will.’

  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking?’ Tuesday asked.

  Jeff nodded. ‘Yup. Time to gear up, mate.’

  Tuesday could field-strip and reassemble a sniper rifle in moments, and it took him no time to snap together the Remington’s component parts. He planted the bipod feet in the loose dirt close to the edge and peered through the scope, scanning left and right.

  ‘Got her,’ he said as he pinpointed Grace in the high-magnification lens. He could just see her through the trees. She’d finished leaving her message, had put her phone away and was now leaning against the side of her Landy gazing anxiously around her. Tuesday mentally gauged the range at 325 metres; then he clicked on the scope’s inbuilt laser range finger and saw his estimate was off. By a whole half metre.

  They waited. Two minutes passed. The enemy would be relaying information backwards and forwards. Reacting to their new intelligence. Deciding on their next course of action. Which, if Jeff’s hunch was correct, would be to take advantage of the remote forest location and make their move on Grace, quickly and efficiently, before she could leave. That would be the confirmation of all Ben’s secretive movements and proof that someone out there was targeting her to get to him.

  Another half-minute ticked slowly by. Then Jeff muttered, ‘Bingo. Incoming, three o’clock. Hello, boys.’

  Tuesday swivelled the rifle a few degrees right to the spot Jeff was watching through the binocs. He saw the two men from the Range Rover walking up the forest track in Grace’s direction, about forty yards from her. They weren’t talking. There was a purposefulness in their step. It wouldn’t take them long to reach her. She was facing the other way and hadn’t yet noticed their approach.

  Not taking his eye off them, Tuesday unlocked the rifle’s bolt and drew it smoothly back. A long, tapered .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge snicked up from the magazine. He pushed the bolt closed and locked it. In battery and ready to rock.
/>   From behind the binoculars Jeff muttered, ‘Steady as she goes, Tues.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me. You worry about those guys.’

  ‘To hell with those guys,’ Jeff said.

  Three-two-five was short range for Tuesday Fletcher, as short as if he’d walked up and pressed the muzzle to the target. Like plinking coconuts off a stand at a funfair. His image in the scope reticle was as clear as a mountain spring. The tall, bulky guy on the left, the nearer of the two, was a slow-moving barn door centred rock-solid in his crosshairs. He slipped off the safety catch.

  The two men kept walking towards Grace, now just thirty or so paces away. She still hadn’t seen them. Then one of them must have called her name, because she suddenly whipped around to face them and froze, staring.

  Jeff tensely watched as the men kept on coming. Grace reached into a pocket and pulled out something Jeff guessed was a police warrant card. He could see her lips move but it was too far away to hear. He thought she said something like ‘Police officer. Stop right where you are.’

  The men kept walking towards her.

  Jeff muttered, ‘Keep it sharp, mate.’

  Tuesday said, ‘Don’t crowd me.’

  The men approached another step.

  Then another.

  Then they reached inside their jackets and pulled out pistols. They raised them to aim at her. The one who’d spoken now spoke again. Grace shrank away in alarm at the sight of the weapons.

  Jeff said, ‘Engage.’

  And before the word was even out of his mouth, a pink mist burst from the head of the tall, bulky guy on the left and he folded to the ground like a wet blanket cut from a washing line.

  Tuesday had the bolt back and forward and the next round chambered before the weapon had even finished recoiling against his shoulder. The second man was covered in the blood and brains of his associate, and stood there stunned and motionless just long enough for Tuesday to pin him in the crosshairs and touch off another round.

  It was a rushed second shot from a warm barrel, and thus liable to be fractionally less accurate. The bullet struck a whole quarter-inch off its intended point of impact, which for Tuesday Fletcher was a poor performance. But the recipient would never know the difference. His world ended like his buddy’s, in a violent white flash with the contents of his skull instantly reduced to a fine particulate spray by the devastation of the high-velocity conical missile and the hydrostatic shock it left in its wake.

  ‘Top banana,’ Jeff said.

  ‘Pulled that one a bit. Now what?’

  Jeff swivelled the binocs away from the two dead bodies towards Grace. She was standing there by her Land Rover, gaping and paralysed with horror.

  Jeff said, ‘Now we run down there, try to explain to her what little we know about whatever the fuck is happening here, and convince her to come with us. Then I need to make a phone call.’

  The time was one p.m. exactly.

  Chapter 37

  West Sussex

  1.07 p.m.

  Wolf answered Ben’s phone. ‘Yeah?’

  The caller said, ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Wolf,’ replied Wolf.

  ‘Who the fuck’s Wolf? Is Ben there? Put him on.’

  Wolf passed the phone to Ben. ‘You’d better take it.’

  Ben only wanted his bottle, but he reluctantly took the phone and recognised Jeff Dekker’s voice saying, ‘Hello? Hello?’

  Ben’s thoughts were jumbled and confused from too much whisky. His first reaction was a chill of alarm that Jeff was calling him from Le Val’s almost certainly tapped line; then the bad thought came to him that it didn’t matter any longer if Saunders was listening in, because Saunders already knew the score. But then he realised that the incoming call was from another mobile, one whose number he didn’t recognise. Why was Jeff calling him on his burner, anyway? As far as anyone was concerned, it was still locked up in his safe at home.

  Nothing seemed to make sense, except his certainty that he’d caused Grace’s death.

  ‘Ben? Is that you?’

  ‘Jeff? What are you calling for? Where are you?’

  ‘I might ask the same question,’ Jeff said. ‘Nobody’s got a clue where you went after you disappeared the other night.’

  ‘I’m … it doesn’t matter where I am.’ At that moment, Ben didn’t even know.

  ‘You okay? Sound like you’ve been at the sauce, mate.’

  ‘I screwed up, Jeff,’ Ben said. The sound of his old friend’s voice made him want to spill out his emotions like a confession to a priest. ‘They’re going to kill her and there’s not a thing I can do to stop it.’

  Jeff could have responded in a hundred different ways, but a chuckle wasn’t what Ben would have expected. Jeff said, ‘You’re talking about Grace?’

  Ben couldn’t believe that his friend could find this amusing. ‘What the hell’s so funny?’

  ‘Got to see the bright side in everything, mate,’ Jeff said. Then he added, ‘Such as the fact that she’s just fine and nobody’s going to lay a finger on her any time soon.’

  Ben’s mind reeled at what he was hearing. He shook himself and blinked his eyes to clear the confusion from his brain. ‘Jeff. Are you joking around?’

  ‘Serious and sober as a judge at a Quakers’ convention.’

  ‘Then why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because she’s standing just a couple of feet away from me right now, looking very much alive and trying very hard to grab this phone off me so she can talk to you.’

  Ben sat up bolt rigid in the car seat. The bottle fell out of his hand and spilled over.

  Jeff said, more sternly now, ‘Two things, mate. Firstly, did you think you were fooling us? Second, did you think we wouldn’t do whatever it took to help?’

  ‘She’s with you?’ Ben blurted. ‘She’s okay?’

  Wolf was looking at him intently, trying to glean as much as he could from the one-sided conversation. A huge golden grin was splitting his face. He punched Ben’s shoulder and gave him a double thumbs-up.

  Jeff replied, ‘She’s a little shaken. Which is kind of understandable, after finding out she was under surveillance, then seeing the two arseholes who were pointing pistols at her get their brains blown out, courtesy of our very own Mr Fletcher, who came up with me to Scotland for the ride. Our boy doesn’t do things by halves. Nailed ’em like rabbits at three hundred metres, pop pop.’

  Ben was almost speechless. He managed to say, ‘Tuesday’s there, too?’

  ‘You try keeping him away. And before you ask: no, whoever these pricks are you’ve been ducking and diving to protect her from, they never saw us coming. Officially, Tues and I never left Le Val. Covered our tracks every inch of the way.’

  As Jeff’s words sank in, the whisky fog cleared from Ben’s mind like an ocean mist blown apart by a squall. The overpowering sense of relief and gratitude was almost enough to make him weep. But the time for emotions could wait, because this thing wasn’t over yet by a long shot.

  Jeff went on: ‘Now she’s safe, though I presume she ain’t going to stay that way long if we leave her alone here. Took a little persuading but she’s agreed to come back to Le Val with us. Quick plane ride back over to France and we’re home and dry. Who’d have thought the old Cessna would come in so handy, eh?’

  Ben said, ‘No, Jeff. Not home. Take her to Kaprisky’s place.’

  Auguste Kaprisky was an eighty-something-year-old eccentric billionaire who lived in a fairytale chateau on a very large private estate near Le Mans surrounded by high walls and armed guards. He was also a former client of Ben’s, and a devoted ally who would do anything without question to help, in thankfulness for the rescue of his beloved grandniece Valentina from Russian gangsters a couple of years earlier. Kaprisky’s luxurious home would be the safest place on earth for Grace to lie low until this was over. Not least, because Saunders’ people would have no idea where to find her. Even if they did somehow find out, they’d have
Kaprisky’s small private army to deal with. They were all ex-military and received their advanced close protection training at Le Val.

  ‘Good thinking,’ Jeff replied. ‘The old fart’s got more security than the Pentagon. He can send his chopper up to collect us from the airstrip. Better still, his Gulfstream.’

  Ben said, ‘Call him right away. Now let me speak with Grace.’

  ‘Yeah, before she rips this phone off me with my hand still attached.’

  ‘And, Jeff? You know I can’t ever repay what you’ve done, don’t you? I don’t even know where to begin to say thanks, my friend.’

  ‘No thanks needed, mate.’

  Seconds later, Ben heard the voice that he’d thought he was never going to hear again. His knees felt trembly and his eyes were moist and stinging, but he had to keep it together in front of Wolf.

  On the other end of the line, Grace was having an equally hard time containing her own emotions. She was a strong-willed and fiercely independent-minded woman but he could tell from the tremor in her voice that the fear and worry and confusion were overwhelming. She kept asking, ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I am, now,’ Ben replied, and he meant it. He couldn’t stop smiling like an idiot. Wolf was smiling, too, and making fist-pumps in the air.

  But even through his joy, Ben still felt a deep sense of shame for having brought this trauma on Grace. It tripled and quadrupled his rage against these soulless, corrupt men who’d exploited his feelings for her, and now had caused her whole life to capsize. Because of him she was now going to have to leave her home, jeopardise her career, place her trust and welfare in the hands of people she’d never met, and face a period of anxious uncertainty before he could be with her again.

  He tried to explain to her what was happening, but there was so little he could say. All he could do was keep repeating how sorry he was, and reassure her that she was safe now. That his friends were her friends, that there was nobody in the world he trusted more, and everything was going to be all right. As he spoke he felt the tenderness of his love like warm salted tears welling up in his heart, but at the same time he could sense the power of his fury mounting up inside him like an engine of destruction, ready to wreak molten hellfire and terrible retribution on those who would have taken her from him. There was no limit to the suffering he would bring down on them.