Tiburon
I shivered in the sodden jumper, lying in a pool of freezing seawater, looking down at the bodies by my feet. My hands were bound behind my back, but I gripped a rope tightly to avoid being pitched out of the dinghy and into the swell. From down here, laid in the bottom of one of Tiburon’s two tiny inflatable lifeboats, the waves were enormous. Black walls towered above, plucking the little boat up, throwing it skywards again and again. Though the waves weren’t breaking – the boat was buoyant enough and wouldn’t be swamped – my concern was being capsized or thrown clean out of it.
The sound of an engine gradually rose above the waves, powerful marine diesels but more refined than those of the Tiburon. They’d be homing in on the bright lamps strapped to the sides of the dinghy or the even brighter pulsing strobe sticking up at the top of the pole. The flares fired from the Tiburon had long since died but they’d put the yacht right on top of me.
I strained at the ropes, managing to crane my neck around far enough to see a sleek white hull towering above me, a jolt as the inflatable sidewall bumped against the yacht. Shouts from above, my neck ached, I dropped back into the freezing water and waited.
I felt something hit my leg, more shouting, a boathook scratched for the cleat on the side of the dinghy. It pulled, I managed to roll sideways to see a silhouette leaning over the railings, pulling the dinghy down the side of the yacht. More silhouettes shouted along the railings, figures moving in the bright lights of the flybridge. The dinghy banged against the low stern of the yacht, someone muttered close by. A hand shoved me roughly, I felt them tying off a rope.
The dinghy bobbed and rocked violently, I realised someone had jumped down in with me. They shouted up to the people above in a language I didn’t understand, almost sounded like Russian but as I tuned in I could tell it wasn’t. Wasn’t Branko Serbian?
The hand grabbed my leg again, turning me over, I yelled in pain as the rope bit my wrists, threatening to dislocate my shoulders. Hands pulled at the rope, suddenly I was free.
‘Who are you?’ the man asked.
I rolled over, blinking in the lights, rubbing my wrists. ‘The crew call me Poubelle,’ I said quietly, English with my best Marseillais accent.
‘You are the one who stopped the engines?’
I nodded.
The man in the boat was young, shaved head, ugly scars on his face. Tattoos ran up from the neck of his T-shirt. He picked up a rope, pulling a knot tight, I realised he’d tied the bodies. Strong hands hauled them up into the light.
‘Who is he?’ came a shout from above.
‘Frog crew. He was tied up.’
I shielded my eyes from the bright lights and tried to see the man.
‘Throw him overboard,’ said the silhouette on deck.
The man grabbed my shoulders, I twisted and shouted out, he dragged my legs.
A gunshot cracked, torn off by the wind, a rush of air as one of the dinghy’s inflatable cells collapsed. The man in the boat stumbled back.
‘Leave him, get back up here,’ the voice above shouted. The dinghy shifted as the man jumped out, onto the rear deck of the yacht.
‘Wait,’ I shouted. ‘I helped you.’
‘And?’ The dark figure above didn’t move.
‘I disabled their engines. I…’
The gun flashed, another cell exploded, the dinghy leaned over in the swell. I climbed unsteadily to my feet as seawater rushed around my ankles.
The man above laughed. ‘Are you strong swimmer?’
‘I can help you!’ I shouted, trying to balance as water reached my knees, the inflatable boat was rapidly becoming a misnomer.
‘We don’t need any help.’ He took aim again. Before he could fire someone else shouted, the man turned and looked behind him. He barked instructions to his unseen team, voice rising until he was shouting rapidly, slipping into his native language.
He looked down at me and pointed the gun at the steps. ‘Get up here.’
I jumped onto the slippy swim platform, easier said than done, up the rear stairs of the rolling yacht as the engines spooled up beneath me. By the time I hauled myself through the gate in the railings and up onto the polished teak main deck it was empty. Figures moved behind blinds in the full-length windows in front of me, more on the flybridge above. I leaned out, looked down the graceful hull, all the way to the waves slicing cleanly across the bow, as if the yacht was meant to be here, unlike the ungainly Tiburon, trespassing in these waters.
I looked back across the stern as we turned, caught a flash of Tiburon’s running lights in the distance as she rose on a wave. I couldn’t tell if she was still floundering or under way.
‘You!’ I turned. Branko’s huge frame filled a glass doorway a couple of metres away, still waving his gun. ‘In here!’
I swayed around an outdoor dining table and followed him through the door into a plush, polished lounge, straight into a punch that sent me staggering sideways. As I blinked, hands moved up and down, into pockets, grabbing everywhere. I pushed them away and steadied myself.
‘He’s clean.’ It was the young guy that’d climbed down to the dinghy.
Behind him, Branko lowered himself onto a puffy white leather sofa, huge arms folded, glaring at me. Several other men were positioned around the room, each sad twat bigger and uglier than the last. Five of them in total, dodgy tattoos, muscles filling out black T-shirts, leg holsters and knives in sheaths, big boots. I looked round each of them, weighing them up. One was holding his gun all wrong, no problem there. Another was standing like he thought he was tough but had never been in more than street fights, a slap or two and he’d be out of the running. I recognised a couple of the security guys from their chalet, the better ex-military ones. I’d wiped out a good chunk of the security team the night before last. How many more on the bridge or belowdecks though?
One of them was uglier than the others, his face a mess of tiny cuts. His arm was held in a sling. He looked strangely familiar, I realised the last time I’d seen him he’d been hanging out of the rear window of that BMW M5 in La Rochelle.
The main focus in the room was no longer the huge TV on the wall behind Branko, or the large, well-stocked bar in the corner. Next to a polished wood and glass coffee table, ruining an otherwise spotless cream rug, lay the two corpses I’d come across in the dinghy with.
Branko leaned forward, hands on the table. ‘You are the one they call Poubelle?’
I nodded.
‘The crew member Sébastien told us about?’
I nodded again. ‘He needed my help to sabotage the ship. He said you’d pay…’
‘Who is this man?’ Branko leaned to the side, grabbed a handful of Fields’ top and pulled him up into a sitting position with one hand. His lifeless head lolled forward.
‘That’s John Tyler,’ I replied. ‘Some British merc who hired us to…’
‘I know all about his mission. Who killed him?’
‘The captain. Tyler tried to double-cross us, wasn’t going to pay.’
Branko dropped Fields with a thud, I winced as his head bounced off the teak. He stood, eyes burning through mine. He crouched by the second body, the man I’d bundled into my boot in the Alps and driven to La Rochelle, one tiny step ahead of these guys all the way.
Branko moved the orange ski jacket, grasped the handle of the knife and slowly pulled it from the man’s chest, it made a sucking sound as it slid free. He turned the knife over, looking down at the corpse, and took a breath through gritted teeth.
‘And who…’ he held the dripping knife out towards my face, turning redder even as I watched, and pointed his other hand down at the body. ‘Who the FUCK is this?’
I tried to look puzzled. ‘This is the man Tyler brought aboard in La Rochelle.’
Branko roared, threw the knife in my general direction, I stepped out of the way and saw it miss one of his crew behind me by inches before thunking into the wall. There was a smash of glass, I turned back to see Branko h
ad put a bottle of whisky through the TV and was now holding one of this team by the neck. Everyone in the room tensed and took a step back, I took several, using the distraction to reverse right up to the wall.
Branko’s face was by now almost the colour of a para’s beret. ‘Take the bodies below,’ he screamed in the man’s face, shoving him backwards. He stumbled and fell, Branko kicked him, and turned on me, eyes on fire, chest heaving with huge panting breaths. He looked round at his team, all shuffling nervously and looking at the deck. He kicked the coffee table with a huge boot. The leg splintered, the table toppled, the glass top cracked. ‘NOW!’
The crew sprang into action. Most of the men started picking up the bodies, another held the door. Branko watched them disappear into a passageway, door swinging shut behind them. His shoulders dropped, chest deflating, he ran a huge hand over his stubbly head and turned back to look at me. His breathing had almost returned to normal. I shuffled half a step closer to the knife embedded in the wood panelling.
A woman opened a door to my left, which I guessed led to the bridge. She walked straight to Branko. She looked familiar, her hair was pulled up in a ponytail that showed off a shaved patch that’d been glued back together, and a large dressing had been applied to a bloody-looking wound on her cheek.
I looked down at my shoes, rubbing my eyes to cover my face as I remembered who she was. The driver of that BMW in La Rochelle. She’d seen me – only briefly, speeding through those narrow streets, but if I’d recognised her then she could recognise me. I shuffled sideways again, could see the black blade sticking from the wood in the corner of my eye. Branko was clearly unstable. A knife was better than nothing.
‘The freighter’s moving away again,’ the woman said in a Brummie accent.
Branko grunted. ‘Are they holding course?’
‘Yes, running for Plymouth.’
I wondered how quickly I could reach up and pull the knife. I’d have to be fast.
‘We follow,’ Branko said. ‘Keep me updated.’
I heard the door slam and looked up to see the driver had gone, leaving just me and Branko. He was gazing down at the bloodstained rug. This is it, this is my opportunity. I pictured pulling the knife from the wall, spinning round, launching it at Branko. One fluid movement, I’d be across the room and on him in a second, he’d be dead before he hit the deck. I edged closer again, tensed my right arm, ready to grab the knife.
‘You!’ Branko shouted. ‘What did you do to their engines?’
I paused. Branko was looking at me, I flexed my fingers. ‘I removed the electrics.’ Everything depended on how quickly I could rip the knife from the wood and bury it deep into his throat before he could shout, move, or realise what was happening.
‘Your sabotage obviously didn’t work.’
‘I just wanted to slow them down so you could catch up. It worked fine.’
‘Who is on board? How many?’
‘Four left. Captain, the doctor, the radio operator, and the first mate.’
‘And the others?’
Branko turned away, grinding bits of coffee table into the bloody rug with his boot. This was my chance. I kept talking normally as I reached for the knife. ‘Tyler killed some of the crew. We killed him and his mercenaries.’
The far door opened, I dropped my hand as three of Branko’s team entered the room. Branko walked towards me, reached up and pulled the knife from the wall. He wiped it on his trousers and put a meaty arm around my shoulders. ‘Come below, we’ll get a drink, and then you can tell me more about the crew while we chase down that ship. It’s going to be a long night, I think.’
Chapter Fifty-five
Outskirts of Poitiers
Early hours of this morning
The balaclava was itchy but I didn’t want to get complacent; I hadn’t seen any CCTV cameras in the rest stop but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. I heard Ringo’s zip in the darkness, he muttered something.
‘You can piss with the bag on your head,’ I whispered.
I was in no rush to get back in the car. After so long in the bucket seat, the stiff suspension and droning exhaust was taking its toll. I savoured the cold night air and sound of the wind in the branches. Ringo was handcuffed to a tree while I stood silently to one side in the bushes, one eye on him and the other on the path back to the layby. The bag on his head twitched at every sound: an owl deep in the woods; the occasional rush of tyres as lights sped through the trees, whistling along the autoroute beyond. Whispers flitted past my ears, shapes behind the bushes in the darkness, gone every time I turned my head. I stopped, screwed my eyes shut, breathed deeply.
The voices were getting louder, the shadows closing in. I needed my tablets. I reminded myself this was merely a patch of wasteland next to the motorway, a pocket of that strange hinterland separating industrial units and business parks, verges between motorways and the undergrowth behind superstores. Or in this case behind a toilet block and a few picnic benches. A pocket humans had allowed nature to reclaim. It was not the cursed woods of horror films, no matter how much a mind marinated in adrenaline and starved of sleep wanted it to be.
I’d hit the outskirts of Poitiers without incident, my satnav told me there were several petrol stations in easy reach. Just over an hour out from La Rochelle and bang on target, time-wise – not a bad job, all things considered. I’d had to stop for petrol twice on the run from Geneva but I hadn’t seen a tail.
Although thirty seconds ago a car had pulled in to the rest stop.
I hadn’t noticed at first. Stupid of me, negligent. Potentially deadly. Holderness had been right on both counts, I was slipping, though I’d never agree aloud.
The car’s lights blinked back on, it reversed, beams briefly sweeping the trees in front of me as it turned. At the end of the car park it accelerated, red lights disappearing as it rejoined the autoroute.
I pulled my balaclava up, scratched my nose, pulled it back down again.
‘Lock your hands again.’
Ringo followed the instructions without a second thought, I unlocked him from the tree. Another push and he was shuffling back through the undergrowth and along the path as I hung back, pistol in hand, eyes scanning the car park for any more visitors.
As we approached the edge of the trees something indistinct crept along the wall of the toilet block, a huge demon, limbs all splayed across the brickwork. Over twenty-four hours since I’d had a tablet, it didn’t even phase me. I knew it was a hallucination, they were more frequent now, especially in the dark. I carried on walking, tried to focus on the now, on the journey I still had to make to reach the ship, before hot food and a bed.
I rushed forward, grabbing a handful of Ringo’s ski jacket and bringing my pistol up quickly as the shape by the toilets suddenly took form, a man hiding in the shadows, watching, waiting for us.
‘You move and he dies,’ I said, holding the pistol up under my captive’s ribs.
The man froze, then slowly stood upright as we emerged from the trees, gun held firmly in one hand.
He stepped forward into the moonlight. It was Branko, the big Serbian, and he did not look happy. I realised he’d been looking the other way, watching my car. The car I’d just seen leaving must have dropped him off.
Branko smiled. ‘Where do you think you can go?’
Ringo flinched in my grasp, twitching, I held firm, pistol out slightly so he could get a good look at it. It didn’t seem to bother him a great deal, he just kept that big Desert Eagle on us. Thankfully, since I’d switched their clothes, he didn’t realise the man under the hood was not the same man I’d kidnapped from him.
‘Back away,’ I said. ‘Slowly.’
His smile glowed in the moonlight. ‘You need him alive, I think.’ He didn’t move.
I squeezed the trigger, just enough to take up some pressure, angling myself behind Ringo, using him as a shield though knowing full well that big .50 calibre bullet would rip through both of us.
‘One
less white supremacist in the world, the only difference to me is the valeting bill for my car. Back away or I perforate his lungs.’
Branko took a step backwards, still holding the gun rock-steady. I ground the barrel of my HK deeper into the ribs under the stupid orange ski jacket so he couldn’t see my hand shaking.
He continued to back away, I sidestepped, edging across the grass towards my car.
I reached the kerb and risked a glance behind, nothing, we were alone. Not for long; the car that’d dropped him off couldn’t be far, I looked up the slip road onto the autoroute. Nothing there.
I turned back to see Branko had his head tilted, whispering into a mic. Radio or hands-free phone. Either way, I had to move. I put my left hand in my pocket, holding down the button to unlock the car. Amber light flashed across the car park. I’d made it halfway, Branko still watching me with an amused look on his face.
‘We will find you,’ he said. ‘And when we do, we will not kill you.’
I reached my car, held down the unlock button, all the windows lowered. I felt behind me and opened the boot. Now was the tricky part.
I edged round the far side of the car, holding my captive at arm’s length as I extended back as far as I could, putting the car between us and Branko. Eyes on the big man, right hand gripping the pistol in my captive’s ribs. I pushed him sideways into the boot.
Branko’s gun flashed, something pulled on my hoody. I jumped behind my car, thrusting my left hand through the open rear window and grabbing the MP5 from the back seat. I pulled the trigger inside the car, a burst of automatic fire ripped into the toilet building. Branko ducked as chips of stone and plaster exploded across the grass. I pulled the submachine gun out of the car, another burst with it plus five rapid shots with the pistol saw Branko retreating behind the building. I slammed the boot lid shut. Lights flashed in the trees from the approach road. His ride was coming up, fast.
I stumbled as I ran to my door, pain flared through my side, dropping me to my knees. I put a hand on my ribs and winced. Branko appeared and fired again, I squeezed the trigger continuously as I yanked the door open, the MP5 ran dry. I threw it into the car and turned, firing my pistol five times in the direction of the approaching car. It skidded to a halt.
Black Run Page 27