by James Quinn
The target paused to look into a boutique window. It was all the opportunity that the sniper needed. He fired. Heard the silenced phut of the condensed air as the pellet left the barrel of the high-powered air rifle, and saw, through the telescopic sight, the impact as it hit the target on the side of the neck. He saw the target's hand instantly reach up to feel what had hit her.
For the sniper, the job was done. Now it would be in the hands of the kidnap team. Oh yes, he was very happy.
Eunice felt a sting on the side of her neck. Nothing really, something similar to a mosquito bite. She winced and looked around. She knew what it was; knew straight away. She'd been shot – but this wasn't a bullet in the classic sense of the term. This was something smaller. More discreet and low impact. An air pellet. A small pea of lead. The streets were busy, it could have been anyone, anywhere.
But within a few seconds, she knew… knew she had been hit with a fast-acting chemical agent, a poison. Already, she could feel her hands going numb and she had no doubts that in a few minutes, her legs would start to go as well.
The hotel. She knew she had to get back to the hotel… to Jack… to her Gorilla…
Her vision started to swim, her focus going in and out. Whatever it was that was coursing through her bloodstream was fast-acting and potent. The crowds around her on the street were swaying. In the distance, she managed to make out the upper part of her hotel. It became a beacon that she aimed her body towards. Left foot… right foot… left… right… foot… foot…
She felt her knees buckle and then strong hands lifted her under her armpits, which was just as well, because her legs had given out completely. By that time, she didn't care, she was just so sleepy… so sleepy….
She felt herself being lifted, then there was the familiar noise of a van door being opened, the smooth burr of rollers as the door moved. Then she was thrown onto a dusty blanket in the interior, which became pitch dark as the doors closed. Then came the gunning of an engine and the jerking movement as the van drove away.
She knew all this because it was something that she had done herself – something she had organised many, many times. It seemed strange that one of the best bounty hunters in the business had been taken using tactics that she herself had perfected. But of course by this time, she didn't care. She was just so sleepy, so tired.
A woman collapses and is thrown into the back of a van. It didn't even raise an eyebrow. It was a normal day in Mexico City.
The local SDECE man was called 'Marcel', or at least that was the name that he had given Gorilla. This Frenchman was no refined, dandy intelligence officer. Gorilla looked at his hands and the scars. This man had been a soldier and had a no-bullshit attitude about him. Gorilla suspected that Marcel had been a part of the Action Service at some point, maybe even one of the feared Barbouzes from the 1960s. He had the look of a tough Marseilles drug dealer, complete with moustache and long hair.
They were in a restaurant not far from the city centre. But it was in enough of a side street to enable them to spot any hostile surveillance easily. Both men were nursing a cold Mexican beer and ignoring some burritos that they had ordered. Marcel was talking and Gorilla was listening.
“Our agents in the Mexican police say that he operates out of a place called Puerto Vallarta. It's a sleepy town on the coast. They say that in a few years' time it will boom, due to the tourists discovering it. But for now, it's quiet and discreet enough for Alvarez to run his little illegal operations, like the snuff movies he makes and the fights to the death. Plus, if he's laundering and moving money for someone on the scale of Caravaggio, then he's connected in all kinds of ways.”
“So where do we find him? How do we narrow him down?” asked Gorilla, taking a sip of the beer.
“Alvarez and his people are understandably cagey, they don't want to be caught doing what they are doing. But even they recognise that, at some point, they have to tell someone about where the fights are happening, otherwise they would have no customers! The police soon get wind of it, but don't seem too eager to act on the information.”
“They being bought off?”
Marcel laughed. “Of course, this is Mexico. Everything and everyone can be bought. What we know is that the next fight will be held in the fighting pit in a few days' time. If we hurry, we can make it. I have the address.”
“If I can get close to him, I can make him talk,” said Gorilla.
“Or maybe your current partner, Nikita, can. Perhaps she could infiltrate his inner circle? I'm told that she is an expert at getting close to a target,” said the SDECE man.
Gorilla was about to tell the Frenchman to mind his manners, but then thought better of it. The longer he kept his private relationship with Eunice a secret, the better. Instead, he grunted something non-committal.
“I can get you all the details by tomorrow. Do you need me to come with you? La Piscine said that whatever it is you are doing, it is to be given the highest station priority,” said Marcel grumpily.
Gorilla thought about the offer. For the moment, he wanted the operation to be carried out by just himself and Eunice. They had started it. He wanted the two of them to finish it together.
Finally, Gorilla shook his head. “For the moment, no. But just stay by the phone in case the situation alters.”
Marcel nodded in understanding. Less than three hours later, the SDECE man would think back to how prophetic the words of this English gunman had been.
The moment he touched the door to the hotel suite, Gorilla knew – he just knew – that something had gone badly wrong. When he pushed the door open wide and saw the scattered clothes and overturned furniture of their suite, it had been confirmed. “No, no, NO!” he cursed.
He didn't think, he didn't pause, he just blasted into the room. He didn't care if there was physical danger there, he just had to find Eunice. The room had been expertly ransacked. Gorilla suspected it had been done more for show than for actually searching for anything. He drew the curtains in case of a sniper or surveillance, pulled out his ASP and did a quick security check of the suite, to make sure that no unwanted visitors were still present. Nothing.
He scanned the room, trying to organise the visual chaos in his mind, all the time looking for a clue or some tiny piece of evidence as to what had happened here to Eunice. He didn't have to look far. The evidence that he needed had been left in the perfect spot for him to find it. There was a beautifully folded note waiting for him on the centre of the bed's rumpled sheets.
The note was printed in a clear, strong hand. It read: Find Alvarez and he will lead you to Nikita Brown. Good luck. Caravaggio.
Chapter Eighteen
Twenty-four hours later, Gorilla was still in a rage.
He was furious with whoever had kidnapped Eunice, furious with this job, and most definitely furious with himself. He had taken his eye off the ball and allowed himself and Eunice to become distracted with each other. It had cost them dearly. His woman had been kidnapped and he was now in a position of weakness. His enemy, the unseen phantom, had outsmarted him. And that was a position that Gorilla Grant didn't like being in.
To calm himself following the ransacking of the hotel room and the discovery of the kidnap note, he had tidied the room and put in an emergency call to the SDECE agent who was handling him.
“I need to find Alvarez now!” he had barked into the phone. “Get me a car, on a plane, or on a fucking boat! I don't care what you have to do, but get it done quickly! What? I don't care that you're busy! Any problems, contact Sassi at the Action Service. This mission takes precedence over anything that you have on at the moment. Understand? And no, I don't care what your boss says… Oh and by the way, you're coming with me. So start packing!”
Then he had slammed the phone down and waited, cleaning and oiling the ASP to help focus his mind. The action of disassembling and cleaning the gun helped to bring his heart rate down and calm him enough to start thinking clearly. For now, anyway.
That e
vening, Marcel, the SDECE agent from the Mexico City Station, arrived in an anonymous Embassy car. “Get in! We have a flight to catch,” said the French intelligence officer.
Gorilla flung a small holdall in the backseat and off they had set; one in sullen silence because he would far rather be dealing with his own agents that night on the diplomatic cocktail circuit, and the other simmering with barely contained rage at having his woman kidnapped and his mission blown out of the water. Well, almost.
The SDECE man was to be his guide, get him into the fighting pit and help him find Alvarez. He threw a stapled-together paper file into Gorilla's lap.
“Read this,” he said. “That's all we have on Alvarez. But we do know where he'll be tonight. One of our sources in the police keeps a track on illegal fights. Alvarez is the main organiser. He takes a cut himself and likes to gamble heavily on the bouts.”
The SDECE man didn't want Gorilla travelling with French documentation – the less of an official French trail, the better, in his opinion. “Do you still have the diplomatic papers that the Americans gave you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. Use them. If it all goes to shit, we can always claim that you were working for the Yankees,” grumbled Marcel.
The journey south to Puerto Vallarta only took a few hours but, to Gorilla Grant, it was an eternity. His mind was a whirlwind of 'what ifs'. How had she been taken? Was she even still alive? How had she died? Had she been assaulted? His mind ran through all the nightmare scenarios.
He knew that if he was to have any hope of getting her back, of finding her, he would have to remove the emotion from his thinking. They had left a note saying that they had her, so it was unlikely that they would kill her. He tried his best to think logically. Eunice was being used as bait. She was the next step in a chain that was drawing him closer to Caravaggio.
The rest of the flight passed in a blur with Gorilla being lost in his own thoughts. He barely remembered getting off the flight; hardly remembered the car that picked them up at the airport or the journey to the SDECE safe-house.
“Get a few hours' rest,” said Marcel, checking the apartment. “We leave later tonight. You'll need to be ready.”
Gorilla lay down on the bed. He closed his eyes, but he did not sleep. All he could see was the green eyes of Eunice Brown and, in the background, in the darkness, was the shadowy figure of Caravaggio towering over her.
That night, there was a storm in the Puerto Vallarta area, causing flooding in several streets. For the criminal element of the town, that was good; it kept the good and righteous people off the streets, leaving it open to the street rats and gangsters.
The fighting pit was an underground car park in a disused office building in the centre of town. It was one of several disposable venues that were used to run the knife duels. Within hours, bodies would be removed and they would be cleaned and returned to their usual state of dilapidation.
Gorilla arrived a little after midnight and the place was heaving. Gamblers, fighters, voyeurs, hookers, even a few off-duty policemen. The atmosphere was one of tension, sweat and money, a lot of money, and the gamblers and bookies were doing a roaring trade.
The fighting pit was full of Mexicans, the odd adventure tourists and a group of over-the-top Texan businessmen who were flashing the cash and being loud. Gorilla and the SDECE agent made their way along to the circle of bodies that were fighting in the latest bout. They edged near to the front and spent five minutes watching the combat.
Two whip-thin Mexicans, stripped to the waist and drenched in sweat, were at a standstill and held traditional Navaja blades, ready to make the next cut on their respective opponent. He watched as the two fighters went through a series of thrusts, parries and slashes. There were the inevitable cheers from the ramped-up crowd as one fighter began to take cuts again and again. Gorilla started to walk away. He knew how these things played out; the fighters would close the distance, grappling would take place and, sooner or later, one would dominate and start pumping the blade into the other. Death would follow.
Both men moved along, glancing at the various bouts. It didn't take long to ID Louis Alvarez. The SDECE man spotted him first and pointed him out to Gorilla. “That's him,” said the Frenchman. “It fits the mugshot that we got from Mexican Police Intelligence.”
Gorilla glanced over to a thin, lanky figure at the centre of the crowd. The man looked like the epitome of a dandy gambler, pimp and lounge lizard. Once they had ID'd the Mexican, Gorilla told the French agent that he could go.
“You've been a great help,” he said. “Wait outside for me in the car. As soon as I know how this is going to play out, I'll let you know. You don't want to be here when things start going south.”
The agent nodded and left Gorilla to his own devices. He had better things to do up in Mexico City, and transporting a crazy Englishman around wasn't high on his list of intelligence priorities, so sitting outside seemed like a fair compromise.
Gorilla watched Alvarez for the next thirty minutes. He appeared to be gambling big and large amounts of cash were exchanging hands with the bookies. The Mexican clearly knew his fighters, judging by the amount of dollar bills he had pocketed.
An hour later, Alvarez decided enough was enough for one evening and pushed his way through the crowd to the car park exit which was guarded by two armed crushers. He nodded to them on the way out and exited onto the street.
Gorilla followed the same route and quickly caught up with the three men.
The crushers were the first to go, thanks to the silenced ASP. A single shot to the head of each dropped them without any worries. Then Gorilla headed straight for the dandy Mexican, hoping to intercept him before he made it to his Cadillac that was parked on the outskirts of the disused car park.
Gorilla moved fast – he knew he had to, if he was going to keep the initiative.
“Alvarez?” Gorilla went straight in, no build-up, no talking, just violence. He grabbed the tall Mexican by the fancy shirt front and started throwing punches into his face, not even giving him time to answer.
“Where is Nikita Brown?”
The punches turned to elbow strikes and when the Mexican's body began to drop to the floor, they turned to kicks.
“Where is Nikita Brown?”
The Mexican was huddled in a ball on the floor with Gorilla standing above him, his face red with rage and his hands clenched, ready to deliver more beatings. He looked around the empty street and noticed a collection of empty beer bottles. He picked one up, tapped it firmly against the wall and watched as the body shattered, leaving a handle with a jagged edge in his hand.
Gorilla pushed it dangerously close to the Mexican's eye.
Alvarez held up a hand to protect himself and screamed, “I have a message for you! The woman! Caravaggio has the woman!”
“Where? Tell me now or I'll fucking blind you!” roared Gorilla.
“No, no… don't do that! I can get you there. There is no need for that.”
“Bullshit. You've got one chance. So talk!”
“Caravaggio is expecting you. That is the message. He has your woman. He wants to meet you.”
“Where?”
“You have to go to him, to his island,” said Alvarez.
“What island?”
“La Isla del Diablo. The Devil's Island!”
“Where is that?”
“It is off the coast, here at Puerto Vallarta. It is Caravaggio's private island. I am the man that can get you there. Please put the bottle down. There is no need for this!”
“How do I get across?” said Gorilla, pushing the bottle into the other man's face, drawing blood.
“Ahhhhh… please stop! I have arranged it all. I was expecting you. Talk to the ferryman, he will take you there!”
Gorilla looked at him and growled, “If you try to fuck me over, Alvarez, I will find you. You read me?”
Gorilla told Alvarez to wait in the Cadillac and he went off in search of the SDEC
E man. The agent's car was parked two blocks away and he was sitting inside, smoking a cigarette. Gorilla climbed into the rear seat and took a breath.
“How did it go?” asked the French agent cautiously, glancing at him in the rear-view mirror.
“Good. Okay. I got what I needed.”
“Excellent! Then we can go?”
Gorilla shook his head. “Not exactly. You can head back to Mexico City, but I have to go a different route.”
The SDECE man frowned. “Monsieur, I'm not sure that is a good idea…”
“It doesn't matter. It has to happen. Can you do me a favour?”
“But of course.”
“Get in touch with Sassi at the Action Service. Tell him that Gorilla is still in play. Tell him to let the CIA know that Nikita has been kidnapped, but that I'm tracking her down. I can't tell you where I'll be going as there are risks involved for other people, but if it plays out like I think it will, then tell him I'll be able to get close to the target. If I can get close to him, I can finish the mission. Do you understand?”
The SDECE man nodded.
“Oh, and make sure he gets this,” said Gorilla, unhooking the ASP and holsters from his belt and passing it across to the agent in the front seat. “Tell him to return it to the USA cache.”
“But monsieur… you are going… wherever… unarmed?”
“I've got a feeling that where I'm going, it won't be needed,” said Gorilla and with that, he got out of the car and walked away into the darkness of whatever fate had decided for him.
Chapter Nineteen
Alvarez was as good as his word and drove Gorilla to a small harbour three miles down the coast. During the drive, neither man had spoken. Gorilla had sat and fumed, barely containing his anger. Alvarez had sweated and kept his eyes on the road. Gorilla wondered who the Mexican gambler was more frightened of; him or Caravaggio.