To his surprise, a large grin appeared on the face of the Chinese boss. The sound of laughter as introductions were made brought Jozef Kaplani from his suite. Party time. He moved forward to the sitting area where Ching already had a girl on either side of him. He sat down heavily opposite his new business partner and smiled broadly. The remaining two girls needed no invitation. They knew their roles. Ahmed Fadi only ever had the best escort ladies on board The Constellation. Yurev made clear the girls didn’t interest him this evening and they should attend to the bosses. Instead he played the role of bartender, ensuring the mood of the party continued as it started. In a positive way, this had the signs of a long night.
***
The traffic on the water eased around midnight. This port never slept. The Mermaid, a cruising launch a third of The Constellation’s size, cast off from its mooring and motored slowly out of the harbour on a course some way adrift of Fadi’s vessel. It maintained its slow but steady rate until about a nautical mile out to sea before turning in an exaggerated arc to curve back in the direction of the larger boat. The man at the wheel, the local Interpol head, also had two colleagues on board, their task this evening not engagement, but support. Quite different from their commando passengers being ferried out toward The Constellation. The skipper feathered the engines and held position just beyond the marker buoys surrounding the target. He turned to check on the movement of Jules and his team.
In the half-light from inside the cockpit he barely made out the seven wet-suited figures, the faces indiscernible with wet-proof black grease. They had knives strapped to their legs and waterproofed covering around their waists for machine pistols. Tonight there were no silencers as these made the weapons too long to carry easily in the waterproofs. Jack, May-Ling, and Jeb were the first trio into the sea, followed by pairings of Malky and Jules, then Johan and Brad. From ten metres distance the Interpol agents could see nothing of the water-bound attack squad. The Mermaid and The Constellation remained the only two boats in the immediate vicinity.
***
Any pretence at sobriety had long since been surrendered by both Ching and Kaplani. The girls’ state of half-nudity along with the alcohol and the perfume had their clients playing into their hands. The ladies merely toyed with the drinks offered to them, better able to ply their services with clear heads. At about the same time, Kaplani and Ching decided to take one girl each into their suites, leaving two behind in the lounge. Yurev left them and went forward to get some air. He met a pair of the security guards leaning against the prow rail, smoking. The smaller one offered his packet, but Yurev declined with thanks. He noticed the guy had a couple of fingers missing. Been around the block this one. Wonder how good these men would be in a fight. Pretty useful from the cut of them.
“Where are the other guys?” he asked in Turkish.
“Downstairs. We spell two hours on, two off so our brains don’t get fuddled with the boredom,” the larger man replied with a laugh.
Yurev nodded and walked on several paces, closer to the prow of the vessel, and peered down into the ocean. Nothing to be seen. Even in daylight, the amount of shipping traffic in these parts leaving oil and debris every minute of every day kept the waters murky.
***
Jules Townsend and the others didn’t mind the darkness, every element of cover welcome. The seven approached the stern of The Constellation in chevron formation. A swimmers’ standing board jutted out half a metre and the same height above the surface. Wide rubber-clad aluminium ladders led up on either side to the deck. No sign of guards at the rear of the vessel, a bonus.
From forty metres out they slowed to tread water before gliding forward. Jack touched the strats first and clambered on to the boards. Jeb and May-Ling quickly joined him. They extracted the pistols from the waterproofs and moved forward. The other pairs came aboard after them. Still no security. They must be at the front, Jack signalled to the rest. On each side of the boat they single-filed beyond the swimming pool toward the lounge area and suites amidships.
***
Bringing Jozef Kaplani to a state of arousal was easy for her. She had sensed very quickly he didn’t want the normal tender caressing and teasing, but rougher sex. He made her bite his nipples, and slap his head as hard as she could. Even then he insisted she hit him harder. He turned down on the bed and handed her his trouser-belt signalling to whip his buttocks using the metal clasp end. This was getting far edgier than any client she had ever been with. All the while his face bore a ragged grin and distant unfocused eyes, as if in a hypnotic trance.
“More! More!” he urged. The deep red welts swiftly became large purple bruises. She paused, but he waved for the punishment to continue. Blood began to spill from the torn flesh and spatter on to the sheets. He turned around to show his livid erection. With a sudden movement, he grabbed her hair and forced her head down. He thrust himself violently into her mouth, causing her to gag and her eyes to tear up. She shoved desperately against his thighs with her hands, but he knocked them aside, continuing to push inside her throat. Unable to breathe, she thought she would lose consciousness, until with a roar he ejaculated into her mouth and eased back from her. It was impossible not to swallow some of his semen, the rest she spat out and gasped for breath. To her astonishment the act of spitting out his filth produced a flash of rage in his eyes.
He reached for the belt, making clear he wanted to continue his brutality on her. This was not in her repertoire and she resisted immediately. With a heavy swipe of his fist he smashed her face, breaking her nose and tearing the skin at the side of her mouth. She could feel the blood begin to ooze across her cheek and down her chin. With the shock of the blow, she couldn’t even cry out. Flailing the strap like a whip, he began to lash out violently at her body.
The remaining two girls heard the blows, but didn’t think it strange. Their clients ranged to all types of sexual deviation. What they didn’t hear was the entry into the lounge of three wet-suited apparitions with pistols in their hands. They were shocked when the black-clad figures appeared from nowhere. The leading intruder, a female, silenced their startled squeals by putting her finger to her lips, cautioning them to be quiet. One of the others moved toward the suite of Ching Mak while the third stayed motionless, covering the entrance with his gun.
The female crossed quickly to Kaplani’s suite and turned the unlocked door handle, pointing her pistol ahead of her. She took in the scene in one glance. With the leather belt, Kaplani continued to lash out at the escort who tried to cover her blood-smeared face and breasts in defence against the beating. The girl whimpered like a beaten animal.
Disgust rose in May-Ling’s throat.
“Hey!” she called. Kaplani hadn’t heard the door open and swivelled around in surprise to face this visitor with a gun aimed directly at him, his erection still evident. Whatever he was doing to his captive kept him massively aroused. He froze and gaped at May-Ling who beckoned for the girl to get off the bed and come to her. She scrambled to May-Ling’s side and clutched at her liberator’s left arm, as the right arm held the gun pointing at her oppressor. The split-second look from one woman to the other carried the strongest possible message. May-Ling nodded almost imperceptibly and placed the girl’s right hand to overlap her own trigger finger. Kaplani couldn’t believe his eyes as the double-armed aim let loose the machine pistol. The target was his groin. The deafening noise reverberated in the enclosed space of the suite. He heard nothing as he slumped lifeless on to the floor, his erection a weird marker to his death.
The gunfire echoed back through the lounge and the two ladies on the couch began to scream. At the same time Jeb Zucker kicked open the door to Ching Mak’s suite. Ching lay naked on the bed, looking at his partner, who stood near the window filling a brandy glass with more ice for her client. That simplified matters. The Chinaman’s face flushed heavily from the alcohol. He tried to lift himself from his prone position to be met with a cluster of bullets, ripping out his throat and chest.
The girl joined in the screaming as Jeb backed out of the doorway.
The noise of the shots and the shrieking galvanised the guards into action. Within seconds the two at the front of the vessel moved back toward the lounge area. The back-up pair also reacted to the shots and rushed up from the lower deck, guns in hand. None of them saw the frogmen on either side of them until too late. The man with the missing fingers died first under salvoes from Jules and Malky. The bigger man perished seconds later as the crossfire from Brad and Johan took him down. The second pair met the same lethal onslaught, one of them toppling over the side rail as the bullets smashed him backwards.
Brad’s ears picked up another splash almost simultaneously with the dead guard falling into the sea. The group cautiously moved forward again covering each other as they went. They met no further resistance. The sound reaching Brad Miles was another body entering the water, this time at the prow of the vessel. If nothing else, Yurev was a natural survivor. The sounds behind him added up to too much firepower even for Fadi’s guys to deal with. Sometimes you stand and fight, other times you just get the hell away. That’s called staying alive.
Yurev had no desire to become a dead hero. He dived underwater and swam for as far as he could without surfacing for breath. To make his stroke easier, he’d kicked off his shoes as he entered the water. By the time the attackers had reassured themselves it was safe to sweep to the forward prow, he had swum about seventy metres. To surface for air, Yurev turned on his back, leaving only his mouth and nose above the waves, before swimming even further away under water. In the darkness with the sea filth he was invisible to the men on The Constellation. He veered and tacked on his way to the shore, his mind working overtime.
How the fuck did these guys know where they were? His boss was dead, for sure. The sequence of shots preceding the gunning down of Fadi’s boys meant Kaplani and Ching were history. It couldn’t be a hit on Jozef by Fadi himself, because his own men had just been killed. Interpol? The ISP bastards? At least he was still alive.
“You speak English?” May-Ling addressed the girl Kaplani had abused.
“Yes. We do.”
“Okay. Get your clothes on. If anyone asks you about this, you tell them things happened so quick you didn’t catch any of it. You didn’t see any faces. And certainly not a woman. You understand?”
The girls were badly shaken. They nodded to show they understood.
“Someone’ll take you to a hospital and look after you,” said Jules, breaking across May-Ling. “As she says, you saw nothing. Otherwise you’ll be dead too.” He left his words hanging with a threatening glare at each of them in turn. Jack watched the exchange and knew Jules wouldn’t harm the girls. But they didn’t know that, and they’d just seen these people shoot down six men in cold blood in front of them.
Johan signalled to The Mermaid and they waited for it to come alongside. The transfer from The Constellation took less than a minute. The escort ladies were led toward the stern as Jules stepped into the wheel room to talk to the Interpol leader. He described what happened, with instructions to attend to the girls and to force them to leave town for a while. Threaten them with prostitution charges, anything, just get them clear of Istanbul. Mister Ahmed Fadi would be a very upset man when he learned what had become of his guests.
The officer nodded. “We’ll handle it, Jules, no problem,” he said, as the boat berthed down-harbour away from prying eyes.
“We’re missing the Yurev lad. Brad thinks he slipped into the water during the attack. If he can swim, he’s well ashore by now. Otherwise, you’re looking for a floater tomorrow. Meantime, a concerned-citizen call to the local cop shop about some shooting noise on The Constellation is called for, don’t you agree?”
The Interpol man grunted and smiled. The main men, Kaplani and Ching, were dead. That was going to put a helluva dent in the heroin trade to Europe for a while. A good night’s work.
CHAPTER 36
Charlie Parker’s flight didn’t land until mid-evening. His phoned request to visit his client, Madam Ching Fan, resulted in the frustrating response he wouldn’t be permitted to see her until the next morning. His customary ranting to the officer on the other end of the line about his client’s rights being abused fell on stony ground. There was no alternative but to return home to cool his temper.
Anyway, after the last few days an early sleep wouldn’t go amiss, the pillow a welcome respite. He hadn’t realised how much the recent unfamiliar tension affected his body. Dealing with the police and the courtrooms was easy meat, but this nonsense with guns and fast car escapes wasn’t good for his blood pressure.
Ching Mak remained out of reach on The Constellation for the meantime. He’d get word to him after securing his mother’s release in the morning. His heavy eyelids closed and he wasn’t to know events in Istanbul would ensure he’d never speak again with his new boss.
He woke long before the alarm shrilled seven o’clock. The toaster did its stuff as Parker booted up his laptop and tapped into the account at Cobalt Bank. The screen indicated safe receipt of the first instalment of the money. Excellent. Three hundred and fifty thousand bucks made a decent trade-off for the tension. Give it another couple of months, help Mak to get his shit in proper order, then time to take a break. Caribbean maybe. That’d be good. He hummed some indeterminate tune in his head as he buttered the toast. He ate as he moved around the bedroom getting dressed, ready to tackle Her Majesty’s Metropolitan Police Force in an hour or two.
I hope it’s Mister Numbskull Granger. Took all of ten minutes the last time. Madam Ching and terrorism? Sheesh, how stupid can these dummies be? Should be simple getting a stack of persecution charges against the whole mob of them. Do the racism card as well. They hate that shit.
CHAPTER 37
Kaplani had been with Ahmed Fadi frequently before. It was the first time Yurev was about to meet him. The couple of heavy-set minders sent to collect him did a brisk and efficient body check. No weapons. He didn’t doubt they were armed, as would be the driver and another man in the dark green Lexus sedan. He wondered if he’d survived the shooting aboard The Constellation only to end up back in the harbour with a bullet through his skull from these guys.
The old, walled parts of the city passed by in a sequence of stone parapets squeezed in beside new and aging buildings spread out from the tourist gluepot constantly jamming up the traffic. The inner rings of streets in Istanbul constantly resembled an extended car park.
The saloon nosed on to a wider main thoroughfare and picked up speed. The men with him in the car didn’t engage in small talk. The signposts pointed north out of the metropolis, up toward Kilyos, a coastal suburb on the edge of the Black Sea. From his seat in the rear he watched as the city’s jumble of stone, steel and glass gave way to lusher green en route to the suburbs.
A sharp left turn took them toward a walled enclosure with heavy, wrought-iron, studded wooden gates. The driver pressed the horn in a coded burst, two long, one short, and waited for a few moments. The doors swung open, with a man on each half-gate, Uzi machine guns strapped over their shoulders. Behind them Yurev counted several men inside guard posts situated beyond the entrance. A well-paved driveway led to the impressive house a hundred metres further on. The meticulously maintained grounds and sweeping lawns were bordered with red and white flowers, the colours of the Turkish national flag.
Nice touch, thought Yurev.
The car slowed to a halt opposite the main entrance. The doors led into a wide marbled hallway. The men waited for their guest to alight and flanked him, with the third following behind. The rhythmic whirr of electric fans was barely audible from the high ceilings as they entered and made their way inside. Polished wooden floors in the ante-room fed into a broad, deeply-carpeted sitting room. No connoisseur of textiles, Yurev guessed these rugs and floorings cost a fortune. Elegant paintings, traditional Eastern art, adorned the walls, easy on the eye but not on the wallet. Four large couches formed an extended square
in the middle of the room, with smaller tables at the sides. In the centre, several plates with dates, biscuits and confections rested on a glass-topped table. Floor-to-ceiling windows gave ample light from outside, shielded only by lace drapes.
His escorts stopped, still in a loose semicircle around him. They remained standing and he did the same. No-one spoke. If this was intended as intimidation, he thought, they’d need to try harder. Yurev had been through too many scary situations over the years to be put on edge with this nonsense. Five minutes passed, then ten, and fifteen. Still no conversation. The guards made no eye contact. Yurev watched and waited for any movement from his minders. After twenty minutes of silence the sound of approaching footsteps in the hallway preceded his host, Ahmed Fadi.
Three other men accompanied him, all carrying sub-machine guns. One careful guy, thought Yurev. Jozef Kaplani never used this kind of cover. He’d heard the stories about how many aliases Fadi allegedly had. He was off the radar screens to most of the rest of the world, a figure in the shadows, a legendary human chameleon.
That made the appearance of the person in front of him all the more startling.
“Hello, Yurev, welcome to my home. Good to see you again after all this time. Please, take a seat.”
VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK (Jack Calder Crime Series #2) Page 17