by Ray Timms
When their paths crossed in the lobby of the Grand, Gent going out and Sven just about to check in, they instantly recognised each other but made no show of it.
Outside the hotel Gent was seething with anger when he called up his handler.
‘What the hell is going on Q? I just saw the Swedish Meatball checking into my bloody hotel.’
Q gave a short laugh, ‘yes, funny that. I heard that Sven was in town. Fancy that. The two of you checking into the same hotel.’
‘It’s hardly amusing Q, it’s damn inconvenient to say the least.’
You want my advice?’
‘No.’
‘Go find another hotel and make the hit today, before the Meatball beats you to it.’
Sven took a room on the second floor of the Grand near the fire escape. In preparation for his meeting with Scotland’s First Minister at five he took a shower. Twenty to five, two men in a government car called to collect him. Four minutes to five, without knocking, the Swedish Meatball walked into Mary Dewar’s office.
Mary looked up in alarm. She’d never encountered a meaner looking man. Cruid got up out of his chair and backed off three paces.
Sven didn’t wait to be offered a chair. He sat in Cruid’s.
‘It is very kind of you to come at such short notice Mr Johannson, or do I call you Mr Meatball?’
Sven a man of few words, principally because he had few, shrugged.
‘Its just Meatball.’
‘Huh?’
‘I said, its just Meatball.’
Not wishing to further provoke his irascible mood, Mary said.
‘Just Meatball, I have heard it said you are the best, and the most expensive. Hitman in the world.’
Coldly, Sven said. ‘My name: it is, “Meatball”, you can forget the just bit.’
‘Great… that’s just great, ‘Mary said, at a loss how to deal with the man. ‘That makes it so much simpler and I can see that you are a simple man… I mean, you are a man of action and few words. I like that. Can we talk rates?’
The look on Johannson’s face scared her. He reminded her of a Rottweiler. There seemed to be an inordinate number of teeth crammed into his broad mouth when he snarled.
‘Why do I need to talk rates with you when I already have your signature on a contract?’ Johannson said, giving Dewar a penetrating look. ‘I can get very, very angry with clients who try and cheat me, and you really don’t want to make me angry.’
‘Sorry Meatball,’ Mary said, backing off. ‘I hadn’t meant to. It’s just five million quid… sorry… US dollars is a lot of money and I was hoping there might be some wriggle room in your fees?’
‘I don’t care to wriggle,’ Sven said, clenching his huge fists. ‘Have you not read the contract?’
‘I confess I only had time to skim over it Meatball.’ Mary hesitated. ‘Now, please don’t overreact but does the contract mention anything about a seven-day cooling off period?’
Sven brought his massive shoulders up to their fullest height. His head rolled back so that he could look down on her. ‘Would you talking about an opt out clause?’
‘Ah, yes an opt-out clause… that would be good,’ Mary said, thinking, Meatball seemed to be cool with the notion. ‘But only if that doesn’t cause you a problem.’ Mary managed a smile.
‘There is an opt-out clause,’ Sven began. ‘It states: should a client be in breach of the contract– the people wanting to opt out,’ Sven looked round at Cruid who flinched. ‘Will be terminated.’
‘Sorry!’ Mary said and leant forward to hear him better. He had quite an accent. ‘Did I just hear you say: the contract will be terminated?’
‘You did not. I said: you both will be terminated. Read the small print.’ Sven said flatly.
Mary gulped. ‘N, n, no Meatball. It’s really not a problem. We can manage five million, can’t we Cruid?’ Mary said, and flashed a look at her Minister who looked like he had just aged ten years.
‘What… oh yes. The money? It shouldn’t be a problem… no, not at all, Mr Meatball,’ Cruid said, having found his voice. ‘Getting the job done is the priority here.’
‘Ok, Meatball, lets be clear on this,’ Mary said. ‘You are to assassinate the King before noon this Friday. If you that don’t happen, I am sorry but whole deal is off and you don’t get a bean. Is that understood?’
When his hand shot out, the speed of it taking hold of hers was more of a shock than the painful crushing handshake.
‘As stated in the contract, I look forward to seeing the down payment of one million US dollars showing up in my Cayman Islands Bank account later this morning. Now are we done? I need to set my people to work.’
‘We’re done.’ Mary said.
Sven got up from his chair and then walked out the room.
The minute Johannson left the room, Cruid turned to face Mary. He was about to say something when Meatball poked his head round the door.
‘Which way is out?’
Mary arranged for security to collect the big oaf and escort him out the building. When she looked over at Cruid he looked about to have a heart attack.
‘Will you stop worrying Cruid, by the end of the week it’ll all be over and Scotland will be free of the clutches of that megalomaniac.’
‘I’m really sorry Mary.’ Cruid said, wringing his hands.
‘Don’t be. So you slipped up on the contract. We all make mistakes.’
‘I’m saying sorry, Mary, because we don’t have the money.’
Mary shot him a look. ‘ What do you mean we don’t have the money? Of course we have the money, you arranged for it to come out of the defence budget… didn’t you?’
‘I did. The money was supposed to be transferred to your bank account first thing this morning and then transferred across to Meatball’s Cayman Islands bank account by midday. I then learned that the banks, scared of the King’s nationalisation plans, have imposed a cap of ten thousand pounds on any one transaction.’
Mary eyes bulged and her face grew crimson. Cruid thought that she might self-combust. Perhaps that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
‘Big deal,’ Mary said, finally with a shrug. ‘By Friday afternoon he will have killed the King and I will immediately notify the authorities who did it. What’s he going to do shoot us?’
Having left the Scottish Parliament building it took the Swede a while to get his bearings. He wandered across the road and stood in the Place courtyard watching the tourists queuing to buy tickets. He looked about him, his brain making mental sketches of the layout of the Palace and the positioning of the armed police. Looking beyond the walls he noted there were a few buildings tall enough to allow him a shot over the walls. His people in Oslo tell him the King hasn’t been seen in days.
In his blonde wig with a matching beard and moustache, Gent thought he was well disguised as he watched the huge Swede step out of the Grand hotel.
Keeping out of sight behind others climbing the Royal Mile, Gent kept the big man in sight. As they reached the High Street and headed up towards Edinburgh Castle, Gent reached inside his fleece coat and adjusted the gun tucked inside his waistband. Gent was planning to walk right up behind the Swede and – then, “pop-pop,” put two bullets in his back. People would scream when the big oaf went down and in the confusion Gent would simply melt away.
He was trying to find his way back to the Grand Hotel. Sven, checking his map, was looking for a street name or a landmark that would tell him where he was. He’d been climbing all the way so the hotel had to be downhill. Sven stopped to look in a shop window. He wasn’t interested in the tourist crap. He used the window as a mirror to get a look at the blonde haired man on the other side of the road. The guy had been tailing him since he stepped out of the Grand. Sven’s lips curled into a snarl, Gent!
Walking on, acting like he was interested in the architecture, he came to an alleyway. The, narrow, twisting steeply descending gap between two ancient crumbling buildings seemed like an ideal place t
o ambush the Englishman. Halfway down he found what he needed. There was an opening, roughly four feet deep. Back in the shadows the door had been boarded up for centuries. As Meatball stepped into the shadows he took out his 9mm-Glock 43-Semi-automatic and fitted it with a silencer. After waiting half a minute Sven heard approaching footsteps. They sounded, light, as if the person was in a hurry. Maybe, trying to catch up with him. Sven grinned.
Gent had been keeping the Swede in sight from the other side of the High Street. From over the heads of the crowd watching a fire- eating act he saw him slip into the alley called Old Fisherman’s Close.
Having lost sight of the Swede who had stepped into an alley, Gent was thinking, if he set off now he could still catch up with him and finish him off.
When a tour bus came trundling up the hill he used this as cover to dash across the road. He hesitated at the alley entrance. In the gloom he could see nothing. He figured Johannson must have gone out the far end.
As he waited in the shadows of the doorway with his Glock held in both hands, Sven heard approaching footsteps. The person was in a hurry, light on his feet. When the figure hurried past, Sven stepped out and in one fluid movement pumped two shots into the back of the victim who fall face down on the ground. Sven ran over to the man and flipped him over. He cursed in Swedish. The dead man didn’t have a blonde wig and beard. Sven shrugged and then stuffed his gun inside his shoulder holster. At the end of the alley he came out on Princes Gardens. Over to his right, two blocks away he saw the Grand Hotel.
As he hesitated at the end of Old Fishmarket Close, Gent heard the unmistakable thud of two silenced gunshots. Taking out his Berretta M9, Gent sprinted into the alley and almost fell over the dead body of a man. Gent didn’t hesitate. Turning on his heels he ran back up the alley and melted into the thronging tourists on the High Street. Walking calmly now he was thinking he had better change hotels. And he still needed to deal with the Busboy, the thief and the cop. And if that wasn’t enough, he still had the Meatball to worry about.
Sven, having put aside, for now, his determination to kill Gent, went in search of a cashpoint machine. Outside the Santander bank on Castle Hill, he slid his card in the slot and then punched in his pin number. He then tapped on – account services and located his Cayman Island bank account. He stared at the screen for some time and then slammed his fist against the glass causing it to shatter. ‘Those double-dealing, lying Scot’s!’ The Swede snarled in his native tongue.
Cruid, in his office about to close down his computer was seriously reviewing his position. He was tired, tired of politics, tired of public life, tired–tire–tired. Winnie was right. He should get out of politics. If he retired now he and his wife could go buy that house in Cornwall, keep a hive of bees, and grow plums. Cruid loves plums. On the drive home, in his head, Cruid was composing his resignation letter.
He steered his Ford Mondeo car onto the driveway of his modest detached house located on the quiet Broadway Estate. Before he had time to turn off the engine, the passenger door flew open.
‘Drive!’ That was all Sven said as he climbed into the passenger seat and rammed a gun in the Minster’s ribs.
Cruid wasn’t going to argue. He guessed the Swede had discovered his money hadn’t been paid into his bank account. Cruid wasn’t surprised the man was upset… really upset. This was all Mary Dewar’s fault and now because of her, l will most likely end up being shot dead.
‘Ok, please don’t shoot.’ Cruid pleaded, reversing the car out of his driveway. Winifred watching from the bow window saw the huge man climb into the passenger seat and then saw her husband back the car out. She was worried.
‘It wasn’t my idea,’ Cruid lied, happy for Dewar to take all the blame. Which was fair enough seeing as it was her idea to hire someone they could never afford. ‘Mary didn’t have the money in the first place.’
Pointing his Glock out the windscreen, Sven snarled. ‘Drive.’
‘It wasn’t my idea,’ Cruid almost cried.
‘You are both in breach of our contract, now take me to where that conniving bitch lives.’
‘How about I drop you off at the end of her road and tell you her house number?’
‘Uh huh, the two of you will pay my fee or you both die. It’s that simple.’
It didn’t sound at all simple to Cruid.
The drive to Mary Dewar’s house took twenty minutes. Cruid was sweating buckets as he pulled up outside her house on Circus Lane.
‘Out.’ Sven barked, keeping the gun aimed at Cruid’s head.
Cruid didn’t argue.
‘I want you to go to the door and ring the bell,’ the Swede said, stepping to one side of the doorway, keeping out of sight the spyhole in the door. ‘I want her to see that its you.’
Cruid rang the doorbell. They waited. ‘She’s not at home.’ Cruid lied. Sven dug the gun in his ribs making him yelp. Cruid pressed the doorbell again. ‘I told you, she’s not at home.’ Cruid said, hoping the Swede was so stupid he wouldn’t have spotted her car on the driveway.
‘Ring it again.’ Meatball demanded.
Not wanting Sven to give him another dig in the ribs with the gun, Cruid kept his finger on the doorbell until he thought he heard movement inside the house.
To Mary’s mind, men are mostly weak, feeble-minded creatures, operating on a pretty basic- sex-driven agenda. Marriage was never something she would ever contemplate. Occasionally, she had been out on dates with men but couldn’t see the point in all that small talk crap, when all that they both wanted was to get laid. It was so much more convenient to have her neighbour, Tommy Castro, who was also her occasional gardener come round when Tommy’s wife Betty was at work. Betty, a nurse at the local A&E had warned her husband many times. ‘I don’t want you ever going over to Mary Dewar’s house while I am at work. I don’t trust her. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”
Tommy always laughed at the suggestion.
‘I promise you Tommy, I ever catch the two of you at it,’ Betty, would warn her husband. ‘You will never see your children again.’ Betty was a bit like that, comes at you all guns blazing, taking no prisoners.
Irritated at the intrusion, in her dressing gown, Mary cracked the door open as far as the security chain allowed.
‘Cruid! What the hell are you doing here?’ Mary said smoothing her hair back. ‘It is not convenient right now. Go home. Come and see me in the morning.’
One minute Mary was telling Cruid to go away, the next moment she was flat on her back in her hallway with her Minister For Internal Affairs lying on top of her. So much for security chains that are only effective if they are properly secured.
Cruid wasn’t sure which was the more embarrassing, him lying full length on top of Scotland’s First Minister, or him looking down on her naked body after her housecoat had flopped open?
Dewar was about to scream for Cruid to get off her, and demand that he tell her what the hell he was doing, molesting her, when Sven grabbed hold of her arm and hauled her to her feet. She found herself slammed her up against the wall with the Swede’s huge hand choking her.
When Cruid, still shocked, managed to get to his feet he saw that Sven had his gun under Marys chin. Her head was forced back at a painful angle. He winced. The sight had wrested his eyes from her nakedness.
Sven then explained what was going to happen: ‘you will do exactly as I say. The price just went up. You now owe me ten million US dollars and you will have this money wired to my Cayman Island account and so you don’t try to stop the transfer, we will sit quietly and wait while the money to goes through.’
‘It wasn’t my fault you didn’t get paid.’ Mary said. ‘It was Cruid who screwed you over.’
Cruid looked round at her shocked, but then he shouldn’t have been.
Sven allowed Mary to tie her dressing gown across her body.
‘Where is your computer?’ Sven said flatly.
‘It’s in the dining room, through there.’ Mary pointed to
a doorway that led into the kitchen that was far too big and pretentious for a house of such modest proportions and having just one occupant.
‘Lead the way.’ Sven said waving the gun at them both.
Mary was worried. She’d good cause to be. She had no means of paying the money.
‘Smart kitchen, but not as good as Ikea,’ Sven said checking out the double sink, the water softener system and the central island with both a gas and a ceramic hob. Above the hob was a stainless steel rack with a collection of heavy copper-bottomed pans. Mary only ever cooked in a microwave oven so the twin Aga’s never got used.
Sven shoved his gun into Cruid’s back and said, ‘keep moving old-timer.’
The far end of the kitchen there was a pair of glazed French doors that opened out onto a square dining room that had a circular glass and chrome dining table and four leather straight back chairs.
Pointing to the laptop on the table, Sven, keeping his back to the kitchen doors, said to Mary. ‘Open the laptop.’ When Dewar hesitated, with the barrel of his gun, he gave her a shove in the back. ‘If the money doesn’t show up in my bank account in the next five minutes I will shoot you both in the head.’
Mary was thinking there was no way she could access that kind of money. And in five minutes he was going to lose patience with them.
Stood at the top of the stairs in just his underpants and socks, Tommy Castro was listening to this conversation. He was caught in two minds. The rest of his clothes along with Mary’s dress and underwear, were in the lounge, which was at the back of the house. He and Mary, in a frantic sexual rush to get naked, had left their attire on the floor, before rushing up to the bedroom. He quickly discounted option one which entailed him rushing out the house semi-naked. This meant running the risk of him being spotted by one of his nosey neighbours who would undoubtedly pass this information onto Betty. On top of which Tommy felt obliged to do what he could to save his lover’s life. Which only left option two: This involved him sneaking downstairs and disarming the man, a man he had yet to clap eyes on. With any luck he could be a little chap, easily overpowered?