The Solitary Man (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  Winter jabbed the lit cigar at him. ‘Don’t rain on my parade, Hutch.’ He was smiling but there was nothing jocular about his tone. Hutch shrugged and looked away. It wasn’t the time to pick a fight. Winter ripped off the gold foil and eased the cork out with a casual twist. ‘That’s the mark of an expert,’ said Winter. ‘No loud noise, no spillage: that’s for amateurs.’ He took four fluted glasses from the hamper and deftly filled them. He gave them each a glass, then raised his in the air. ‘To crime,’ he said, laughing.

  Bird clinked glasses with him. ‘To crime,’ Bird echoed.

  Winter walked over to Harrigan and touched glasses, then did the same with Hutch. ‘Drink up, boys,’ he said. Hutch and Harrigan did as they were told. Winter watched them both raise their glasses to their lips and drink. ‘That’s better,’ he said.

  CHAU-LING SAT IN STUNNED silence. Tim Carver leaned back in his chair and toyed with his lighter. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I really could do with a cigarette. Do you mind?’ He held up his pack of Marlboro. Chau-ling made a small waving motion with her right hand. Everything she knew about Warren was based on a lie. Everything. Carver lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke up to the ceiling. He tried to blow a smoke ring. It was a dismal failure, more oval than circular, and it dissipated within seconds.

  ‘What did you say his name was?’ asked Chau-ling.

  ‘Chris Hutchison. His friends call him Hutch.’

  ‘His friends?’ hissed Chau-ling. ‘His friends!’ What am I? I thought I was his friend, yet I didn’t even know his real name.’

  ‘You have to look at it from his point of view,’ said Carver. ‘He’d left his old life behind. Hong Kong was a new start for him.’

  Chau-ling shook her head violently. ‘I was part of a cover story, that’s all. The kennels, his friends, me – we were all a lie. He was living a lie and he made us all part of it.’

  Carver said nothing. He blew another smoke ring towards the ceiling. It, too, fell apart quickly.

  ‘I think I will have that coffee,’ said Chau-ling.

  ‘Cream and sugar?’

  ‘Black. One sugar. Thank you.’

  Carver left the room. Chau-ling put her head in her hands. She felt as if the floor had disappeared from underneath her, as if she were standing over an abyss and about to fall into it. She’d known Warren Hastings for almost three years, she’d worked alongside him, she’d fallen in love with him, and yet everything she knew about him was a lie. Chris Hutchison? Hutch? The names sounded strange; they certainly didn’t belong to the man whom she knew. He’d been in prison, Carver had said. He’d been sent to prison because he’d killed a man and then he’d escaped and he’d run away to Hong Kong and from the day that he’d arrived he’d lied. It explained so much. It explained why he’d never talked about his past; why he was so vague about his life in Britain; why he seemed to have no friends outside Hong Kong.

  Carver returned with her coffee and one for himself. Chau-ling composed herself. She didn’t want the DEA agent to see how upset she was. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She sipped it. It was a machine coffee, bland to the point of being tasteless. ‘You said before that he was helping you. What exactly is he doing?’

  ‘It’s a classified DEA operation. And I’ve told you enough already.’

  There was a knock on the door to Carver’s office and it opened before Carver could say anything. It was Ed Harris. He mimed putting a telephone against his face. ‘Secure Communications Room,’ he said. ‘That call you were waiting for.’

  Carver apologised to Chau-ling and told her that he had to take the call. ‘I’ll be right here waiting for you, Mr Carver,’ she said.

  HUTCH CLIMBED INTO THE back of the truck. Winter threw in the cushions from the sofa and three pillows that he’d taken from the bedrooms. ‘These’ll help,’ he said.

  ‘How long will we be in here?’ asked Hutch. He had changed out of his prison uniform and into a baggy sweatshirt and jeans, doing so in the bathroom with the door locked so that there was no chance of the hidden transmitter being spotted.

  Harrigan scrambled up with a grunt and Winter climbed in after him. Harrigan was wearing a black polo shirt and chinos. Hutch had claimed the sweatshirt because the polo shirt was fairly small and wouldn’t have concealed the transmitter.

  ‘It’s twelve hours to Fang,’ said Winter, straightening the creases of his trousers. ‘We should be able to get across the border early tomorrow morning.’ Winter turned to Bird who with another heavily built Thai was lifting cardboard boxes into the truck.

  ‘It’s going to be hot in here,’ said Hutch. The vehicle was a big diesel truck with wooden sides painted in reds, greens and yellows, with the name of a haulage company on the side, and a tarpaulin roof. The heavily built Thai had arrived with it just as they had been finishing the contents of Winter’s hamper. The back of the ten-wheeler had been filled with boxes and they’d all pitched in to unload them. They contained sanitary towels, which according to Bird were much in demand in Burma and were regularly smuggled across the border.

  Winter handed Hutch a small battery-powered fan and a flashlight. ‘Don’t I think of everything?’

  ‘If you’d thought of everything, I wouldn’t have spent almost a year in that hellhole,’ snapped Harrigan. It was the first time he’d spoken in almost an hour. Winter didn’t reply. ‘Bird, pass up the water, will you?’

  Bird pushed a carrier bag containing half a dozen plastic bottles of mineral water along the floor of the truck.

  Winter looked around to check that he hadn’t forgotten anything. He nodded, satisfied. ‘Okay, Bird, we’re set. You can pack them in.’

  Bird and the truck driver began loading the boxes into the truck. They left a space about four feet wide so the three men could sit in relative comfort. As the first boxes were put in place, Winter strung strips of webbing across the truck so that they wouldn’t topple when the truck was moving, then he sat down next to Hutch. ‘We can use the flashlight during the day, but not at night, just in case any of the light leaks out,’ he said.

  ‘Whatever,’ said Hutch, leaning back against the wall of the cab. He folded his arms across his stomach and felt the hardness of the transmitter. He still hadn’t decided whether or not he was going to activate it.

  CARVER MADE HIS WAY to the Secure Communications Room. He went through the first door and pressed the button to switch on the ‘Do Not Enter’ red light then keyed in his security code to open the second door. A green button was flashing on one of the consoles. He picked up the receiver and pressed the button.

  ‘Tim Carver,’ he said. There was an echo of his own voice and then a full second’s delay.

  ‘Tim. This is Jake Gregory. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you but I had a few kinks to iron out here. You have something for me?’

  ‘Affirmative,’ said Carver. The satellite delay and the echo of his voice were distracting but he forced himself to concentrate on the director’s voice. ‘Our man is off and running.’

  ‘That’s good to hear, Tim. Were there any complications?’

  ‘Two guards killed, and two prisoners,’ said Carver.

  The delay was longer this time. ‘Sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘Has it caused any problems?’

  Only the presence of a very angry Tsang Chau-ling in his office down the corridor, thought Carver. ‘Not so far,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, if there is any flack, let me know and I’ll get you some help on damage control. Our man has the beacon?’

  ‘That’s affirmative.’

  ‘Well done, Tim. Good job.’

  ‘There is one thing . . .’ said Carver. The words tumbled out before he was even aware of phrasing the question. ‘The helicopters. Are they Apaches?’

  The pause was even longer this time, and there was a suspicious edge to Gregory’s voice. ‘Why do you ask, Tim?’

  Carver knew immediately that there had been no mistake. ‘Because Apaches are attack helicopters. They’re not the sort of h
elicopters that would be used to ferry Rangers. They’re two-seaters. And they’re tank-killers.’

  ‘You know your choppers, son.’

  ‘I nearly joined the army as a pilot. My eyesight wasn’t up to it. But that’s not the point.’

  ‘I know what the point is,’ said Gregory. His voice was harder, his words clipped short. There was a delay of several seconds. ‘What is it you want me to say?’ Gregory asked eventually.

  ‘You’re not going to bring out Zhou Yuanyi, are you?’

  ‘No, son. We’re not.’

  ‘You’re going to blow him away, aren’t you? You’re sending in Apaches to destroy his headquarters and everybody there. Including Hutch.’

  ‘Hutch? Did I hear you right? What’s Hutch?’

  ‘Hutch is the man I persuaded to carry in the beacon,’ snapped Carver. ‘Hutch is the man who’s going to be standing there when the Apaches arrive. Hutch is the man I’ve sent to his death.’

  ‘You told me he was a convicted murderer,’ said Gregory. ‘He’s hardly an innocent bystander.’

  ‘You lied to me,’ said Carver.

  ‘I’d watch your tongue if I were you, son.’

  ‘Why? I don’t understand why you had to lie to me.’

  Gregory’s reply was garbled and Carver had to ask him to repeat himself. ‘If you knew, he’d know,’ said Gregory. ‘You had to be able to look him in the eye and give nothing away. Look at it this way: how would you have felt knowing that you were sending him into a war zone?’

  Carver didn’t say anything.

  ‘Did you hear me, son?’

  ‘I heard you.’

  ‘Well, think about it. If it helps, think of it as me protecting you from yourself. Now you’ve done your job, and you’ve done it well. Let me get on with mine.’

  The line went dead. Carver couldn’t tell whether Gregory had hung up or if they’d just lost the satellite connection. Either way, it didn’t matter. He put down the receiver. He sat staring at the console for several minutes before going back to his office.

  Chau-ling looked up. ‘Is there something wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘What makes you think there’s something wrong?’ His Zippo and cigarettes were on the desk where he’d left them and he picked them up.

  ‘You look terrible, that’s why.’

  Carver paced up and down. He lit a cigarette. ‘I think you should go,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t agree,’ she replied. ‘It’s something to do with Warren, isn’t it?’

  Carver drew cigarette smoke deeply into his lungs. Hutch was on a suicide mission, and Carver had sent him on it. A war zone, Gregory had said. Apaches. Tank-killers.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Chau-ling, her voice soft and persuasive.

  ‘Miss Tsang, I can’t tell you anything. You’re going to have to go now.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said determinedly.

  ‘I’ll have you escorted from the building,’ he said.

  ‘Why don’t you do that,’ she said. ‘In fact, why don’t you have them escort me to the office of the chief of police? I don’t have an appointment, but I’m sure he’ll want to hear what I’ve got to say.’

  Carver rubbed his jaw. He was still trying to come to terms with what Gregory had done. The last thing he needed was to be blackmailed by Tsang Chau-ling, but it was clear that she intended to carry out her threat and Carver was under no illusions as to what would happen if the police did find out that he had been behind the attack on the prison bus. Relations between the DEA and the local police were strained and they would relish the opportunity of putting him through the third degree. At best it would be the end of his career, at worst he could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

  Carver threw up his hands in surrender. ‘Look, your friend Hutch and I have both been lied to. I’ve been used as much as he has.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  The DEA agent went over to the map behind his desk. He pointed at the area on the map where Burma, Laos and Thailand met. ‘The Golden Triangle,’ he said. ‘Somewhere in here is a Chinese warlord called Zhou Yuanyi, a major heroin producer. We don’t know where his base is, but Hutch is going to find out for us. The men who broke him out of jail are going to try to get him out of Thailand, him and another guy called Ray Harrigan. We’re pretty sure they’ll be taken to the warlord’s base.’ He lit another cigarette. ‘Hutch is carrying a transmitter. When he gets to the base, he’ll activate it.’

  ‘And then what happens?’

  Carver took a long pull on his cigarette. He held the smoke deep in his lungs for several seconds before exhaling. ‘They lied to me,’ he said.

  Chau-ling looked at him anxiously. ‘You have to tell me,’ she pressed.

  Carver leaned back against the map and folded his arms. ‘Because if I don’t, you’ll go to the cops?’

  ‘Because you owe it to Warren,’ she said. ‘To Hutch. Because if he’s in trouble, I want to help.’

  Carver laughed harshly. ‘Oh, he’s in trouble, all right.’ He took another drag on his cigarette and spoke to her through the smoke. ‘They told me they’d be sending in a team of Rangers to bring Zhou out. Hutch was supposed to be brought out with them, that’s what I was told.’

  Chau-ling sat back in her chair. ‘But?’

  ‘But they’re not sending in Rangers. They’re sending in Apache helicopters.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Apaches don’t rescue people, they blow things up, big time. Missiles, high explosives, bullets, they’re attack helicopters. They’re going to destroy Zhou’s camps. And everybody there.’

  ‘But Warren’s going to be in the centre of it all,’ gasped Chau-ling. ‘He’s going to be holding the transmitter.’

  Carver blew a thin plume of smoke through clenched teeth. He didn’t respond.

  ‘You have to warn him,’ she pressed.

  ‘I can’t.’

  Chau-ling stood up, her fists clenched defiantly at her sides. ‘You don’t have any choice,’ she said. ‘You can’t let them kill him.’

  ‘It’s too late, he’s on his way.’

  ‘It’s never too late.’ She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘He trusted you, didn’t he? You asked him for his help and he trusted you.’

  Carver sat down and toyed with his Zippo. ‘I promised him a new life. I told him that the DEA would get him a passport, a new identity. And money.’

  ‘And instead you’re going to kill him?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Carver defensively. ‘It’s not me.’

  Chau-ling glared at him. ‘Oh yes it is, Tim Carver. If Warren dies, it’ll be on your conscience. Can you live with that?’

  Carver stared at her but didn’t reply.

  HUTCH HELD THE FLASHLIGHT down so that the light pooled on the floor of the truck. They were rattling along a rough road and the cardboard boxes pushed against the webbing straps with each jolt and lurch. Billy Winter saw Hutch looking up at the boxes. ‘That’d be a laugh, wouldn’t it?’ he said. ‘Crushed to death by sanitary towels.’

  ‘They can’t get them in Burma, you say?’

  ‘The country’s in a shambles,’ said Winter. ‘Sanitary towels, detergent, batteries, all the basic stuff that we take for granted, they can’t get. The Thai smugglers send them in, and in return they get heroin and teak. That’s about the only thing of value they produce.’

  ‘When did you get to be such an expert on South-east Asia?’ asked Hutch.

  ‘Picked it up along the way. I’ve been out here a few times over the past few years.’

  Harrigan took one of the plastic bottles of water out of the carrier bag and screwed the top off. He drank deeply and then splashed some over his face. He offered the bottle to Hutch and Winter but the two men shook their heads.

  ‘So what do you think of the E-man?’ Winter asked Harrigan.

  The Irishman frowned. ‘E-man?’

  Winter gestured at Hutch. ‘That’s what Hutch was in Parkhurst. An E-man. He was on the e
scape list. Not that that did the screws any good, he still got out. There isn’t a prison can hold him; isn’t that right, Hutch?’

  Hutch shrugged. ‘Leave it out, Billy.’

  Winter wouldn’t be deviated from his train of thought. ‘How many prisons did you break out of? Three, wasn’t it? Parkhurst, Whitemoor and . . .’ He shook his head. ‘What was the other one? Wasn’t the Scrubs, was it?’

  ‘Frankland,’ said Hutch.

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s right. Frankland was the first one. Slipped out in a delivery van, right?’

  ‘Sort of. There was a bit more to it than that.’

  ‘But they caught him and threw him in solitary. Then they started moving him around from prison to prison, figuring that he wouldn’t have time to work out a way of escaping before being moved on. Then he goes and breaks out of Whitemoor. That really pissed them off, didn’t it, Hutch?’

  Hutch couldn’t help smiling, though at the time he hadn’t thought it was funny. After his second recapture he’d received half a dozen beatings and spent several weeks in solitary. The prison officers didn’t like to be made fools of and they were experts at administering punishment without leaving marks.

  ‘That was when they sent him to Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight,’ continued Billy. ‘Couldn’t take a leak without someone watching him. They reckon that someone on the E-list stands as much chance of escaping as winning the lottery. But Hutch here proved them wrong. Got out and got clean away this time.’

  ‘How?’ asked Harrigan.

  ‘Hutch slipped out of the gymnasium during a weight-training session one evening. The screws were lazy, they spent most of the time in an observation box. They could see the gym, but there was a blind spot and they couldn’t see a door at the back. Hutch had made a key.’

  ‘Same as you did in Klong Prem?’ Harrigan asked Hutch.

  Hutch nodded. ‘Took a bit longer, and I had to take a bit more care hiding it because of the strip searches.’

  ‘Hutch got to the training workshop where they teach welding and metalwork and stuff. The same key opened all the locks. It makes life easier for the screws, you see. Once inside the workshop, Hutch had everything he needed, right?’