One Step to Danger

by John Gubert

  “In my world,” said Di Maglio, “Things do not work that way. If I renege on my word, then nobody will trust me again. I do not do this to satisfy Rastinov. He is scum. I do not trust him. He fights using women and children. He does not fight man to man.”

  His voice was raised. He went red in the face. “No. I will fight according to our code of honour.”

  “What is your code of honour?” I spat. “How can you talk about a code of honour? You kill people with your drugs. You murder people who cross you. You seek to destroy people who anger you. You buy power. What honour can you talk about?”

  He now exploded with anger. “You, a financial terrorist, dare talk of honour. You also kill to achieve your way. You destroy to make your billions. You are like us. For drugs, you use money. How dare you talk about me in that way? How dare you doubt my honour?”

  “Your honour is worth more to you than your flesh and blood. You would sacrifice your daughter for your honour.”

  “Yes,” he shouted interrupting me, “My honour is worth more. She surrendered her honour. She soiled herself when she slept with you. No decent man in my family would touch her then. Yes I love her. Yes I will try to save her. But she is impure. She has no honour. She let the family down.”

  “She couldn’t let this family down. Your honour is nothing. I know what we have done is wrong. It is a means to an end. Once we have achieved that end, we will live within the law.”

  Again he interrupted me, “Don’t be stupid. You say that now. But tomorrow you will see your chance and you will break another law. She, as well, will do that. She likes the thought of working in your world. She sees it as purer than mine. But my world of drugs equates to your world of money. Don’t pretend you are better than I am. We are both lawbreakers. We just work in different fields.”

  Aldo intervened. “Stop it, both of you. Who cares about right or wrong? We need to do two things. The first is to find out where the Russians are holding Jacqui. Then we try to rescue her. Then we need to destroy them or they will destroy us.”

  I was breathing heavily. My head was buzzing. I was almost crying in frustration. He looked at me. He was very angry. His eyes were full of distrust. His whole body challenged me.

  I stood up. Aldo moved to my side. “Sit down. You need not be friends. But you have to be allies. Perhaps, when you have worked together, you will respect each other. You are bound by one thing. In your different ways, you both love Jacqui.”

  Giovanni nodded. “I have spies out watching for the Russians. I suspect they have Jacqui somewhere in the South of France. They like that area for it is close to Marseilles. And that is the port they use.”

  Di Maglio said, “Let’s eat. It’s stupid to quarrel. We need to work together. Aldo’s right. And Giovanni’s men are good. We’ll find out where Jacqui is. Till then we can’t plan our strategy. We can only remember our end game.”

  The room started moving around in front of me. I saw two Di Maglios. Then there were two Aldos. I steadied myself. Aldo was looking at me; “You need to eat. Otherwise you’ll be ill.”

  Someone placed a bowl of broth in front of me. I started to eat greedily.

  “Eat more slowly” said Di Maglio. “Or you’ll be ill.” Those first words of kindness hit me. I looked at him and saw he was being sincere. I smiled wanly and he smiled back. His face appeared to be smiling, but not his eyes. We would never be friends but at least the smile said we did not need to be enemies.

  Five long days passed and we still heard nothing from the Russians. Giovanni announced he had some information that the Russians may be in a town called Uzes in Provence.

  He told us, “They have a large estate there and it is usually well guarded. But I am getting information that it is even better guarded than usual. We are trying to infiltrate it to get better information.”

  They surveyed the estate for several more days. Still we heard nothing from the Russians. I was getting worried and one evening asked Aldo what he thought.

  “I can’t be sure, but it may be nothing to do with Jacqui. It may be that Rastinov is waiting for something to happen before he delivers us his terms.”

  The next day we knew what that something was. We were eating lunch when a message came for Di Maglio. It was simple. One of his planes had landed at a private airstrip in California. It was a big shipment. The plane had been attacked and the drugs on board taken. The plane had then been blown up. A message had been given to the pilot. It was simple. It was outright war.

  Give over the right to distribute drugs on the West Coast to the Russians. If this were not done in the next week, the Russians would show how serious they were. They would send a finger of Jacqui for each plane that landed after that week. And when they finished with her fingers, they would send some other part of her. And ominously, they said that they would remove the fingers without anaesthetic. She would be in pain as well as mutilated.

  “What do you do now?” I asked. “We have a week.”

  He looked at me. “We pretend to negotiate. But first we need to see if Jacqui is alive. We’ll ask for proof.”

  He turned to Giovanni, “Do it!”

  The next day we made contact. We had them on the speakerphone. In the room were just Di Maglio, Aldo, Giovanni and me. The Russians wanted to send us a video of Jacqui but Di Maglio refused.

  “I want to see her alive. You can fake videos.”

  In the end the Russians agreed. They were willing for an emissary to see Jacqui. But only one person would be acceptable. And they had to be on their own.

  And they warned that if there were any attempt to double cross them, they would start sending larger parts of Jacqui.

  Then they said something that made my heart stop, “And the first thing will be the baby.”

  “What baby do you mean?” gasped Di Maglio.

  The man at the other end laughed cruelly. “You didn’t know she was expecting one. Well she is. Your precious little daughter was banged up, as I believe you call it. Our doctor established that pretty quickly when we asked him to patch her up after we grabbed her. She took a nasty knock on the head.”

  Di Maglio looked at me with pure hatred. He snarled down the phone, “Her boyfriend will be the emissary. He won’t want any harm to come to her and his baby.”

  “Is that the hero who tried to stop us in Paris?” came the sarcastic reply.

  “Yes” said Di Maglio. “That’s the one.”

  “All right. We’re in Uzes. You know where. He comes alone. And he must be unarmed. Any slight treachery and we won’t show any mercy.”

  Di Maglio turned to me the moment the phone was cut. “You said nothing about a baby” he said. He had slowly become more amenable towards me. We had not been friendly but at least had co-existed. Now he looked at me in hatred and disgust.

  “I didn’t know. Nor did she. That’s if it’s true.”

  “Could it be true?” he asked.

  “We were sleeping together. You know that much already. We have been since we got together again. But we did not plan this. I don’t know whether to believe it.”

  “They don’t have enough imagination to pretend that one,” said Aldo. “It must be true.”

  Di Maglio snarled at me again, “if you get her out of there, you marry her. I want no bastard in my family.”

  Aldo laughed, “That’s the first time you’ve said something nice about him. I thought you felt he was a bastard.”

  Di Maglio glared at him. “Fuck off ” he shouted, and stormed out.

  I turned to Aldo and Giovanni, “What do I do when I get to the estate and see Jacqui. What’s the plan?”

  “When we send you in, we’ll give you a small bug. You need to plant it on Jacqui. You have to tell her where the switch is. She’ll know when to switch it off or on. They have bug detectors in their places and so she has to be careful. The bug will tell us where she is and so we will be able to try to spring her just before we attack. Or at least before they can react.”

&n
bsp; “Surely they won’t let us get together?”

  “If they don’t you need to plant it in the house and tell her where it is. She will have to try to find it.”

  “Won’t they expect me to negotiate?”

  “Perhaps. But you will not be empowered to. We will negotiate once you return and tell us that Jacqui is safe. That’s reasonable. They need to release you before we talk. That gives you protection. So you should be pleased. The way the boss thinks of you, you’re lucky he does not put you in there and then pull the plug on you.”

  I turned to Aldo, who had been silent so far. “What is his reaction going to be? The baby is hardly going to improve his feelings towards me.”

  Aldo shrugged his shoulders. “I wouldn’t bother too much. He’ll get round it. We all like the idea of a grandson. He’s not going to be an exception. Give him time. And do what he says. He’ll be pretty touchy for a bit.”

  I nodded. “She must be only a month or so pregnant. Otherwise she would have told me if she were late.”

  I thought back. That meant that any baby would have been conceived in Hong Kong. I wondered when. The news made me want to get to Jacqui fast. I suspect Giovanni realised that.

  “You will not try any tricks. You do as we say. Any false move will be dangerous. I mean that. It will be dangerous for you and for Jacqui.”

  Di Maglio returned. He looked at me. I was still bruised round the face. My back and sides were also bruised. I was much less stiff than before. But I was still not fully fit. “Can you make it?”

  This was not a question born out of concern. He wanted to know if I was fit enough because he needed to ensure that his plans worked.

  I nodded. “I am going to be all right in a few days and this bit of the battle is hardly going to be strenuous.”

  “No,” he said, “but you need to be alert. It’s not going to be easy.”

  He turned to the others, intentionally excluding me from the conversation. “I want you to get our top people in for an attack. They should be gathered in safe houses in Nimes and Avignon. Get some arranged in the next two days. The people must arrive by Wednesday.”

  Aldo nodded. “How many will there need to be?”

  “Ten in each town,” Di Maglio replied. “That will mean there will be twenty five for the attack as we will bring in the team leaders on the day. I need Georgio to be the overall commander. He’s the best with his army special services background.”

  Giovanni nodded his agreement. “What about the snatch squad for Jacqui?”

  “He can lead it,” he said, indicating me. “And Aldo you will be in there to help him. That will repay him the debt you owe him. Get two of your men to support you.”

  “Can you manage that?” he asked me.

  “Yes. But when do we make the snatch?”

  “Just before the main attack or perhaps as it is launched, you lead your squad into the building. If the bug works, we will know where Jacqui is and you will have to find your way there. You have to get her out of the place while the fight is going on. No heroics. Just get her out.”

  “Why do I need to wait for the battle to start? Would it not be better to try to snatch her before you start? Aldo and his men could be close to the house as back up if I fail. But if I went in alone, I might be able to get her out before they know we are going to attack.”

  Di Maglio nodded. “It’s worth a try. If you get caught keep quiet. You’re good at that. Or at least you appeared to be when I last caught you. They’ll think you are on your own. They’ll suspect it’s an amateur doing heroics. They’ll most likely kill you, but who cares? We then attack when they are even less expecting us to.”

  He then turned to Giovanni. “Get a couple of your people then to arrange the safe houses and get the men in there . We will attack in the early hours of Friday. You’ll need guns, grenades and tear gas. Get communicators that we can link into. We direct the whole show from here. And get a communicator for De Roche but make it look like a mobile phone. If they don’t examine it, they won’t know the difference.”

  “Give us sub-machine guns rather than automatics” said Aldo.

  Di Maglio nodded. “Let’s get started then. We need to get De Roche there to check on Jacqui. We fly him into Avignon and then get the family driver to take him to the estate. We start to negotiate when he returns. We drag the negotiations out till the Thursday. As we concede points they will get more confident. Then we attack as they relax their guard.”

  He turned to Giovanni. “Well let’s get started and see what we can do. I want him out there for Tuesday, if possible. Otherwise we will have trouble meeting all the deadlines.”

  THE BATTLE STARTS

  The plane seemed to land at Nimes Airport minutes after its departure from Geneva. We were whisked away in the sleek Di Maglio car that was waiting for us.

  I’d been briefed about the Russians. They were part of a world wide Mafia that had grown out of the collapse of the old Soviet Union. They dealt with anything that made money. Their arms sales ranged from conventional to nuclear. Their goods ranged from pirated software or music through to hard drugs. Their methods of persuasion ranged from bribery and corruption to murder.

  I had also been told what might happen to Jacqui. If we complied she might be let out. If we did not, at best, she would die quickly. If we tried to double-cross them, she would be tortured and perhaps let out, hopelessly deformed. They wanted our network and were not going to play softball.

  On the other hand if Di Maglio complied on the drugs network, the view was there would be another attempt at blackmail. They could even hold on to Jacqui and use her as an ongoing hostage. They were not people to play around with. They had no scruples. They had no honour.

  I was going into their stronghold unarmed and still weakened from the Paris incident. I was going in to check out Jacqui. We were surprised they had allowed us to do that. If they found me passing the bug, they would kill me. And they could even kill Jacqui. This was a high-risk strategy because a low risk one was not available.

  We came to a gate and stopped. The car was looked over. “Tell De Roche to come out on his own,” a man called. I walked from the car and headed to the gate. They opened it a bit and led me through the gap. They took me behind a wall so that I was sheltered from the road. I was ordered to strip. It was cold at that time of year and they could have taken me into the gatehouse. But they didn’t. I had no choice. I stripped down to my pants and stood there shivering. I was ordered to strip naked. I did so.

  They slowly went through each item of clothing. I was relaxed, as the bug was not there. We had guessed I would be searched. I was all right as long as they did not search my person too closely. They did not bother. They handed back my clothes. One bug was in my mouth, attached to one of my back teeth. It was a slim metallic object with a small button at one end. That activated it. There was a second behind my watch. But they hadn’t examined that.

  I dressed quickly and they led me up the road to a house that could be seen through the trees. The place must have been a farm at one point for the building was quite rambling. It was a linked series of converted barns and stables with a farmhouse on one side. It stood about two storeys high. I noted that there were a series of doors and windows at ground level. That would make attack all the easier.

  However, the distance between the road and the buildings was at least half a mile. In the grounds I could see trip wires. In the trees were remote control cameras. And I noticed bumps in the road, which may have been for speed control. But they could also have been used for booby trap bombs and simply de-activated for the time being.

  It was not going to be easy to get into this building, I thought grimly. Even with the experts that Di Maglio had proposed.

  Once inside, I was led into a long room. There were several people there and they all had one thing in common. They looked at me with undisguised hostility. Then one of them came forward. He was of medium height, sturdy build and thickset. His dark hair was b
rushed forward as if to conceal a receding hairline. He seemed to have more gold teeth than original ones, and they glinted unpleasantly as his face folded into a permanent sneer.

  He held out a hand to greet me. Two fingers ended in stumps just below the knuckle. Scars that continued into the cuff of his jacket marked the back of the hands. I shook the hand as he rasped a single word, “Rastinov.”

  He looked me up and down. “You killed one of my men in Paris.”

  I decided I had to play tough. “You attacked us. I didn’t attack you. He had us by surprise. I can’t help it if he got in the way.”

  He did not seem to find this amusing. “We bring you the girl and then you go when you have seen her.”

  “I want to speak to her.”

  “You look at her.” He laughed a cruel laugh. “We strip her if you want and you can check her out for marks.”

  I looked coldly. “Then I’m doubly certain. I see her. I talk to her. I want to know that you are not harming her. Or the deal is off.”

  “What deal?” he snarled.

  “The one you are organising with Di Maglio. He won’t even consider it if I do not return with the right news.”

  “Perhaps you don’t return?” he said.

  I shrugged. “That’s life. But if I don’t you are all dead.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I am sending signals. If they cease he strikes. It will all happen within five minutes. Or perhaps you haven’t noticed the planes overhead.”

  This was a total falsehood. But I had the second bug and, as they hadn’t discovered it, I thought I might as well use if for best effect.

  “You can’t be,” said one of the men who had met me at the gate. “We searched you.” He was white with fear.

  I took off my watch and turned it round, revealing the bug. The reaction was instant. Rastinov nodded to someone. The next thing I saw was a red-hot poker meeting the cheek of the man who had protested. The poker came from the fire. There were several placed in it. The smell of burning acrid flesh filled the air. The poker was drawn over the man’s face. As he put up his hands to protect himself, it was lashed at his hands as well. He collapsed in a heap, sobbing in pain.