VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK (Jack Calder Crime Series #2)

by Seumas Gallacher

  “Grand,” said the Irishman, rubbing his hands in a mock show of anticipation.

  Jack grinned and watched Malky leave the boardroom. He and his mate of twenty years had seen more combat operations than most entire units did in a lifetime. As with Jules Townsend, Jack recalled every scrap of detail on his fighting partner’s background.

  Northern Ireland had suffered the throes of internal sectarian conflict for longer than Malky McGuire could imagine. As part of a rural family on the outskirts of Enniskillen, they’d kept pretty much detached from what his father called “a’ that daft eejit releegion nonsense” mostly the townies got worked up about. Country life was rugged. No matter what the season, the farm wouldn’t run itself. The cattle and the land both needed constant attention. Before and after schooling, the entire family helped get the chores done.

  His mother had them all at the Protestant church on Sundays, dragging along his da, two sisters and another brother come hail or shine every weekend. The family was Protestant more by a quirk of birth and lineage than Godly choice. They would just as readily have been of the Catholic persuasion. At home, by example rather than dictate, the McGuire parents instilled a set of values in their brood, the dignity of each human being paramount, although perhaps not expressed in so many words.

  Malky did well at school until he reached fifteen. His da then gave him the choice to work with him full-time on the farm or carry on with his studies. The lure of the farm won. Even though his exam marks kept him near the top of the class most years, Malky loved the outdoors, with football and running his passions. He stopped growing at five feet ten, but was as fit and strong as any of the lads in the village and enjoyed the time working with his da in the fields.

  He befriended many of the families in the district and socialised easily. Every month produced a barn dance or some other excuse to ceilidh at the local hall. Two weeks before his seventeenth birthday he went with his brother and sisters to the Friday night event. He invited one of the good-looking lassies up to dance. He seldom was turned down, and she blushed when he asked her. Halfway through the waltz, two young men from the other side of town approached the couple on the dance floor. The strong smell of alcohol and their lumbering movements made it obvious they’d been drinking heavily. He knew them both, but not well.

  The taller of the two stood a few inches above Malky. He rasped at him, “What’re ye doin’ dancin’ wi’ yon Catholic scum, Malky McGuire? Are ye off yer head? Here, let me help ye tae get rid o’ her.” The drunk made a grab at Malky’s partner.

  “Get off, ya mug ye,” said Malky, pushing the man in the chest hard enough to make him back off. “Away and sober up, won’t ye?”

  “What? Yer liftin’ yer hands tae me, boy, ‘coz ah’m tryin’ tae get this Fenian bitch away from ye?”

  He shouted to his mate, “Alec, ah think we need tae teach this Catholic-lovin’ asshole a lesson in manners here.”

  The man lurched toward Malky to be met with a direct punch to the chin, sending him sprawling senseless on the dance floor. His pal came forward swinging his fists. Malky let him come up close then grabbed each of his shoulders and butted full with his forehead across the drunk’s nose. The man’s face opened up with blood spattering down his neck and shirt. He slumped to the floor, joining his unconscious pal. Neither would be fighting any more that evening.

  The screaming and shouting were standard entertainment whenever this kind of all-too-often brawl erupted. The bouncers, who knew Malky well, led him quickly from the hall along with his terrified dancing partner.

  One of them, a strapping labourer from the farm two down from the McGuire’s place said to him, “Malky, ye’re a good man. Loved it. But that wasn’t a clever move. These bastards’ll come lookin’ for ye again, and most likely when ye don’t see them comin’. Get this wee lassie to hell home outa here now. Ye don’t want to be gettin’ mixed up in this religious shite. Lie low for a while is my advice tae ye, boy.”

  “Thanks, man. Be seein’ ye,” replied Malky.

  He escorted the girl safely home before turning back toward his own farm, then realised he hadn’t even learned her name.

  Three weeks later, only six days after his seventeenth birthday, Malky signed on with the British Army at the military careers office in Enniskillen. As a raw recruit in the Irish Guards he got all the physical training he desired, including the football and the running. This was the life he’d really been seeking.

  From the start of his SAS service, he buddied up with the Scotsman from Govan. Each of them would gladly go to hell and back for his mate, and often shared times when they thought they were already there.

  As Malky returned to the boardroom carrying mugs of coffee for them, the only difference Jack Calder could make out in the lad he first met as a young recruit was the addition of a few extra kilos of muscle.

  The Interpol guys joined them as Jules appeared and begun pinning maritime charts on the wall. Time for more planning.

  ***

  Ahmed Fadi had several alternative distribution channels for his drugs into the main markets in Europe, and the Kaplani network was the most efficient. His working partnership with Jozef had served each of them well over many years. The recent setbacks would cause some disruption, of course, but no need to panic because of these. Fadi had lost neither shipments nor money. Kaplani’s people lost the shipments, and the payments were always in advance. His approach to Yurev was simple. Try him out to test if he served him as well as he did his friend Jozef. Yurev knew the ropes. He also had guts. Swimming away from the debacle aboard The Constellation had taken some nerve. He could have been popped at any time if he hadn’t been clever enough to stay as long under water as he had. Let’s see how he handles this project.

  ***

  Tangier was unfamiliar territory to Yurev, but he’d instantly felt comfortable as he checked the vicinity around the small hotel near the harbour. His kind of place. No frills or fancy tourist trappings, a seafarer’s billet. A regular haunt for Fadi’s men, they paid cash in advance with no need for any names or passports. The next day and a half would be busy and Yurev needed to be alert. He considered this as much a trial for himself as well as an important commercial run for Ahmed Fadi, with a lot at stake, either way. Strangely, the five-star elegance of The Constellation made him uneasy. He hadn’t used the showers aboard, nor slept more than a restless few hours on the whole trip so far. Here in the hotel, a long hot shower and a good sleep brought a sense of normality. The early dawn light woke him and he felt good as he got ready for the day.

  During the morning and the bulk of the afternoon, Fadi’s men accompanied him to several meetings, mostly near the harbour, and two of them in the hotel. The men were efficient operators in their own way, but Yurev was already tagged as the best in the business. Fadi’s instructions to the others were clear. This was the new man’s show. The suppliers had various quantities of merchandise to offer. The haggling over price was short.

  “Take it or leave it,” was his usual terse approach. Any prior friendly relationships these people might have had with Fadi’s guys counted for nothing. Yurev made a tough, uncompromising negotiator. Only one supplier refused to deal and left without committing his heroin to him.

  “He’ll be back,” Yurev said, as one of his companions raised an eyebrow. By evening, scheduled deliveries were made to the hotel, unpacked, checked and repacked. Policing in Tangier is even looser than in Algiers, but regardless, he waited until darkness fell before ordering the transfer of the drugs to The Constellation in a series of trips. This time there were more than half a dozen of Fadi’s team with him, well-armed. Each man was allocated duties by the new operations boss. The runs to the vessel took a few hours and it wasn’t until the light shivered at the horizon next morning that they were secure and ready for departure.

  Yurev ran through his instructions to the skipper and the crew before feeling satisfied all was in order. He was shuttled back to the port. Later that morning he woul
d take a flight to meet the arrival of The Constellation at the end of its next leg.

  ***

  The signal pinged. Johan Krull was on the early roster watch in London. Noting the time, he tracked the coordinates as the target, eighteen hundred kilometres distant, made its way out of Tangier.

  It was still dark in England.

  CHAPTER 40

  “What’s wrong, Jack?” May-Ling asked him. They’d been in bed for a couple of hours already and she knew he hadn’t slept. Usually he never had any problem in sleeping, but he’d kept her awake with his restlessness tonight.

  He turned on his side away from her and muttered, “Nothing. Just a bit tired out with all the action this week, I suppose.” She touched his shoulder and felt the tension in his body.

  “Something’s eating you. What is it? You haven’t been like this since the first couple of months I met you.”

  All through their early courtship, recurring nightmares of his father’s suicide which he witnessed when he was only a young boy had caused Jack great anxiety. Recollections of horrific scenes of carnage and killings during black operations encounters in the SAS compounded the night visions. Child soldiers bayoneting other children, ravaged jungle villages with women and old men strung up by the ankles and burned alive, bombed out schools and churches with mutilated corpses inside became constant nocturnal hauntings. May-Ling exorcised all of these over time. She had lost her former husband in a botched shoot-out in Hong Kong and suffered her own anguish and turmoil until eventually finding a level of acceptance and peace of mind. This wasn’t a visitation of Jack’s ghosts from the past. Something else was bugging him. Then it struck her.

  “Jack. It’s me, isn’t it?” She recalled when he’d come to her in the room in the hotel in Durres after the attack and rescue there. His body language had been tight. Even during the short exchange of words, he’d been on edge. Not the fighting edge. What she saw in him there and didn’t realise until now was anxiety. Anxiety on her behalf. Later at the farmhouse, he’d switched back to fighting machine mode. In the zone. In control. Damn, why hadn’t she seen that then?

  Jack didn’t answer immediately, confirming her thoughts.

  “Oh, sweetheart, hug me,” she cried, pulling his shoulder to get him to turn toward her.

  “Don’t be silly, of course it’s not you,” he started, before she cut him off by placing her hand over his mouth.

  “Listen, you crazy, wonderful person, you. I’m not so dumb I can’t suss it out. I love you more than anything in the world, Jack. I think I should know by this time how my husband’s mind works, and I guess you’re trying to figure out how to say you don’t want me involved in the front line stuff anymore, right?”

  “May-Ling, I—”

  “Well, let’s set you straight. Do you think I’d be happier sitting at home while you’re out on sorties, getting your ass shot at and God knows what else? Don’t you think it’d be a damned sight harder for me to be waiting here rather than being part of it with you, Jack? When have I ever not been able to handle the field stuff?”

  Jack opened his mouth to speak, but struggled to find an answer. God damn, why was she always a couple of steps ahead of him? Jules was right, she had the lion’s share of the brains in this family.

  “And speaking of handling stuff,” she continued, pushing him down into the pillow and sliding her leg down his body. Her lovemaking never failed to arouse him. Within moments, her caressing eased the tension from his neck. She trailed her fingernails across his nipples, digging more deeply, scratching down toward his pelvis. Pushing her legs in between his, she spread-eagled him, getting him to stretch his arms out above his head. Her fingers moved gently over his groin until he was ready for her. She always controlled this, and he never complained. With a smooth movement she mounted him and they began to push at each other in a slow rhythm, becoming increasingly more violent. He climaxed seconds before she did. They embraced and hugged tight for a long time.

  She understood his protective instinct toward her. Now he’d be able to put the anxiety to rest.

  Within minutes he sank into a deep sleep.

  May-Ling smiled to herself. God, I love this man.

  ***

  “Unless they make an unexpected diversion, I’d say they’re heading for somewhere in northern France, our south coast or even southern Ireland,” said Donnie Mullen. The continuing signals tagged The Constellation as it made its way through the Straits of Gibraltar. It tracked parallel to the Iberian coastline as it headed northwards, but at a distance far enough out to sea, making Portugal an unlikely possible docking destination, before traversing the Bay of Biscay.

  Jules turned from the wall map toward the rest of the squad. Half-eaten sandwiches and mugs of coffee spread across the boardroom table. May-Ling sat among the men, adamant whatever the imminent action, she wasn’t going to be left out. Anyway, Jack was much more relaxed than twenty-four hours earlier.

  “It’ll be somewhere on the English coast,” said Jules in his usual decisive way. “The only real base Kaplani had in the north of France was Cherbourg. These guys’ll be wary of another hit if they revisit old haunts. They won’t know how we’ve been able to find them, but they’ll be steering clear of familiar places until they figure out if we’re coming after them again or not.”

  Donnie put down his coffee cup and replied, “Yes, cool thinking, Jules. Besides, their biggest market’s in England. They’ll still have a network here. Low-lying fruit to get back quickly again, I’d imagine.”

  Brad drawled, “When are we moving then? If we let them land, we’ll be playing catch up all the way.”

  “I’ve had a chat with Alan Rennie at the Met, and Marcel in Lyons,” said Jules. “They’ve agreed we take the first bite at them. We won’t need to move for at least another twelve hours. These lads’ll be aiming to come in under darkness for sure, wherever they decide to head for. Alan would be happier if any assault wasn’t legally within British waters, and that suits us better, too. All the back-up stuff we need they’ll both handle, which keeps it a lot simpler.” He tapped Johan Krull on the shoulder. “Have you guys done a heli-drop recently? Into the bath water?”

  The South African grinned. “We were born with flippers, mate. We’ll take some shampoo along with us. Right, Jeb?”

  Jeb exchanged a high five with his buddy, as Brad Miles shook his head. “Looks like I’m gonna have to buy a new pair of Speedos.”

  “Okay, let’s get some rest. We meet back here in five hours. Move it.”

  May-Ling glanced at Jack with a tilt of her face. The look asked the question. He smiled broadly at her and nodded. “We’re good.”

  ***

  Heavy security surrounded the accused, Madam Ching Fan, and her counsellor, Charles Andrew Parker. They were brought from their separate prison holding cells for court hearings an hour apart. Each session lasted less than ten minutes.

  The Chinese matriarch stood motionless in the dock as the Clerk of Court read out her charges. The female officers who made up the escort into and out of the court dwarfed her while she stared straight ahead through the entire proceedings. A stoic look replaced the scowl and venom which profaned the recent meeting with Bob Granger.

  The second hearing provided more theatre. Charlie Parker demanded bail and was set back on his heels as first DCI Bob Granger, and then the Head of Serious Crimes, Paul Manning, argued the Met’s case for denial of the accused’s freedom pro tem with the charges of so serious a nature the police considered the accused very high flight risk. The judge agreed, remanding the lawyer in custody until the next hearing set for six weeks later. Parker’s apoplectic rant fell on deaf ears. He was taken away as the pair of senior law officers offered him a cheerful wave. Granger and Manning shook hands with a great sense of satisfaction of a job well done so far. Paul Manning’s outlook had improved enormously since a couple of weeks earlier. His day was about to improve even further.

  He answered the mobile phone and heard J
ules Townsend’s voice. “Hello, Paul. I understand the arraignments were today. How did they go?”

  “Just packed off our favourite lawyer to the cells. He won’t be in court again for a month and a half and I don’t think he’s gonna be troubling us for several years to come, Jules. A master stroke from your side baiting him in.”

  “Good. Now I’ve another proposition for you. How would you like to be part of a welcoming party?”

  Paul listened as Jules laid out the strategy for the next twenty-four hours and replied immediately, “I’m in. And, Jules…thanks.”

  “We’ll catch you later,” came the quiet reply before the line cut.

  ***

  With no recorded criminal offences, Yurev never experienced any problem in London, and he passed through immigration with impunity. The car and driver greeted him in the usual parking slot. They headed out of Heathrow on the road toward the south coast, the eternal English rain hammering against the windscreen. Bad weather’s always good cover, he thought.

  The same idea occurred to the ISP boys. The dirtier the skies, the better the surprise. Marcel Benoit had worked his usual manipulations with a manned helicopter on standby in Portsmouth waiting for a trace on the The Constellation’s final destination. In keeping with Assistant Commissioner Alan Rennie’s preference, the intercept would be made outside of the twelve nautical miles legal jurisdiction. At forty miles out, the signal direction indicated an area close to Bognor Regis, thirty land-based kilometres from Portsmouth. Paul Manning had received no objection from his boss to be part of the assault squad, with the caveat Rennie be present on the ground while the operation took place. The Assistant Commissioner had brought Bob Granger with him.

  The kitting-up in night-time black had been completed an hour earlier. The team readied to move. On the water, a turbo-launch waited with Jack and May-Ling, Paul Manning and Donnie Mullen aboard. Two jet-propelled dinghies straddled the deck.