by John Gubert
“Idiot,” said Rastinov. “Get him out of here. He has failed me.”
The man was removed. “Bring the girl,” he said. “Let them talk but don’t leave them alone. Then get rid of him. Accompany him back to the gate. I am getting tired of this game.”
With that he moved out. Minutes later a door at the side of the room opened. There stood Jacqui.
She was drawn and pale. Her clothes were the ones she wore when we were attacked in the Rue de la Paix. They were soiled with dust and crumpled. I realised she was wearing no make up. Her hair was pulled back and unkempt. She blinked in the light.
“What have you done to her?” I cried.
She moved towards me and saw me for the first time. She called me. As I moved towards her, she was grabbed by the arm and pulled away.
“Stop,” shouted a voice. “No closer.”
I turned to him in anger. “If you want to proceed, I will talk to her. I will accept you should be here, but I want to talk to her in private. Look at the state she is in. I want to know what you are doing to her. If I can’t do that, the deal is off. If that is the case, get me your boss. I prefer to talk to the organ grinder rather than the monkeys.”
That succeeded in infuriating them. Then one of them signalled to the others to hold back. He looked at me suspiciously.
“I don’t trust you.”
“That’s your problem,” I said. “I’m calling the shots now.” But I realised that Jacqui was not in a state where she would be of much help. She was in shock. She was fearful. I doubted I could get the bug to her. But I had to try.
I walked over to her. Nobody interfered. I held her in my arms. She shuddered as if afraid. I spoke so that they would all hear, “Has anyone done anything to you?”
She shook her head. “Are you pregnant?” I asked more softly.
She started to sob, “I was” came the reply. “I was.” Then she started to shake violently. She clung to me.
I looked over my shoulder. “Leave me with her. Otherwise she’ll fall apart.”
“She already has,” a voice replied. “Just because the cow lost the kid after she was roughed up.”
I kept my calm. I needed to help her. Losing my temper would not solve anything. I made a mental note of the man. He would not live for much longer, and I wanted his blood.
I took her in my arms again and whispered in her ear. They thought I was trying to comfort her. But I was giving her instructions. I hoped that the need to do something would help her get better.
“Jacqui, I am going to kiss you. I’ll pass you a bug from my mouth. Keep it hidden. There’s a button on it to switch it on. Leave it on when you can but be careful there are no detectors around. It will tell us where you are. We are coming in to get you in three days. Just wait for us.”
She looked at me with a pained look. She then turned towards me and kissed me on the mouth. I realised then that she understood. I had given her hope. I put my tongue into her mouth and with it passed her the bug. When I saw that she appeared comfortable with it, I stopped kissing her.
I spoke in a louder voice now. “Where do they keep you?”
Then the man, who had spoken before intervened. “Don’t answer. That’s not his concern.”
“We’ll get you out of here. Don’t worry,” I said. And I kissed her again. I held her to me. Then I let her go and stood back. She stood there, half falling down. One of the men took her by the shoulder and pushed her away.
Once she was out of the door, I turned. I was in front of the one who had enjoyed talking about her losing the baby. Without warning, I lashed out at him with my foot and caught him square in the crotch. He fell forward retching and I slammed my fist into the back of his neck. He fell further forward and I had time to deliver one kick to the head before others dragged me away.
“Don’t touch a hair on her head. Or that’s just for starters,” I said in a cold voice as I shook off the men holding me away.
“Rastinov,” I yelled. He did not appear. I hadn’t expected him to. “Tell the bastard I’ll be back. And if she’s hurt, he dies.”
With that I walked from the room and headed out into the fresh air. One of the men who had accompanied me when I arrived was at the door.
“Don’t be stupid,” he warned. “Don’t try anything or you’ll regret it.”
I ignored him and walked ahead of him to the front gate. I could feel the looks of men behind me but I did not look back. I thought that Jacqui might be watching from some window. But I could not bear to look back. I kept seeing her face. I kept thinking of her gaunt body. I kept feeling her pain. I kept thinking of her loss. She needed to get away and quickly. I knew we had to move fast. But could I persuade her father?
I walked through the door and back into the car. “Airport,” I said curtly and fast. “Is there a safe communication link from the car?”
The driver shook his head. “Only the car-phone. You are secure in the jet though.”
The pilot counselled against talking from the plane. The messages were scrambled but, as we would be back in the compound near Geneva in under an hour, he could see no point in taking the risk. I agreed with him and remained deep in my thoughts.
The plan was to go in on Friday. That gave us till Thursday to negotiate. But I could see no reason why we could not accelerate things. Jacqui needed help. She was in a bad state. I knew her well enough to know that she could quickly recover. But the longer we left her as she was, the harder it would be.
I would need to use all my powers of persuasion to get Di Maglio on board. And there still remained the question of how that snatch squad got into the Russian’s building. I was convinced that the place was booby-trapped. It was definitely filled with the latest surveillance equipment. I suspected it had its own generators. But I had not seen any. I would need to check with Di Maglio. He would have had the place surveyed from the air. Somewhere they must have an Achilles heel and we needed to find it soon.
When I returned to the compound Di Maglio was waiting for me. He was with Aldo and Giovanni. They listened grimly at my description of what happened. When I had finished, I looked Di Maglio squarely in the eyes.
“We should go in sooner. There is no benefit in waiting. Can’t you sell it to them that you want to trade with them? We need to get in fast.”
He nodded. “You’re right. Get the plans of the house and bring Jacques to see me as soon as possible.”
“Who’s he?” I asked.
“He’s our plant. He provides the Russians with produce from his firm. He’s a wholesale distributor. He’s due in tomorrow.”
He saw my astonishment. He laughed. “Don’t be angry. We only learnt that last night. We have been planning since. We’ll use him as a Trojan horse.”
Jacques was a giant of a man. His muscles were toned from loading and unloading trucks. He was amiable. I turned to Di Maglio, “How do you know you can trust him?”
“I trust him,” he said. “Also I’ll pay him a million dollars to get you safely inside. So he’ll come back to pick up his money. And also he’ll want to collect his wife and children.”
In many ways Di Maglio was as brutal as the Russians holding Jacqui were. I had no doubt about the fate that would face Jacques’ family should he double cross us.
“At the moment,” said Aldo, “Jacqui is located here. She has been here since around the time you left the Russians. It looks like a barn. It must have a communicating door to the rear of the house. It has a door here,” he said pointing to a plan on the table. It also has two ground floor windows, here and here.”
“If it were open plan we could use stun grenades to storm it,” I suggested.
“We doubt it’s open plan. The building has been extensively converted and it would be illogical to hold Jacqui in a large open area. They would want to put her into a small room for added safety.”
I turned to Jacques, “How close is your drop off point to the barn?”
“A good hundred yards,” said Jac
ques.
I thought. “Do you pass in front of it as you approach your drop off point?”
“The road goes round by a drive that leads to it. I guess the drive is about twenty yards long.”
“From our surveillance, can we see cover between the closest point on the road and the barn?” I asked Aldo.
“There are some privet bushes here,” he said, pointing to an area close to the road. “But they would only provide cover for one.”
I turned to Di Maglio, “If we could fit a concealed flap in the back of the lorry I could squeeze through it as we pass by the house. There is a danger, though, from the cameras and from people watching the lorry.”
Di Maglio shook his head; “Jacques comes too often. They won’t watch him particularly. But we need to create a diversion just in case. We’ll stage a car crash and explosion in the distance. There is a winding road here in the hills about two hundred yards from the house. The side is a sheer drop onto rocks. If we drop a car over the cliff and explode it, that will give you the time to get out. At the same time, we’ll have some equipment in the lorry that will send a radio surge to disrupt for a couple of seconds all the surveillance equipment. Nobody will suspect anything. It will all happen too fast.”
He thought quickly. His logic was irreproachable. Aldo said “What about us?”
“The rest of you will be with me in the lorry. You will be concealed behind all the stuff that Jacques will be unloading. We should build a false back in case I’m not seen. Or if I don’t return by the time it’s ready for you to leave. You stay in the lorry till you hear shooting. Then you come out in support of me. You’ll have to play that one by ear.”
Aldo nodded. “The moment the shooting starts, Jacques gets back in the car and prepares to leave. If the back is open, it won’t matter. We’ll reinforce the cab the best we can. You should get there. We will too.”
I turned to Jacques; “Can you jettison the trailer while you are driving?”
He nodded. “As long as I release a couple of levers while I unload. And that would not be a problem.”
“Could we reinforce the car so that it can crash through the gates?” I asked.
Di Maglio nodded.
“That leaves the humps. I wondered if they were booby trap bombs that could be activated remotely.”
“That’ll only be a problem if you are not followed,” said Di Maglio. “If that is the case, you’ll have to go on foot. We’ll have a truck on stand by near the property. It can come closer once the shooting starts and try to pick you up at the main entrance.”
I thought through the plan. It seemed flimsy but we really had no alternative. I would wait for the explosion that would take out any casual spectators. At that point I would roll out of the truck. It would be going at around fifteen miles per hour. That was no problem. I would be armed with a sub-machine gun and carry a handgun as well. I would roll into the bush for concealment. As I left the lorry Aldo would activate the radio interference.
I would then enter the barn and seek Jacqui. There was a risk that they would kill her before I got to her. That risk we needed to take. I could not see how I could avoid a shoot-out. That would bring Aldo and his team to our assistance. Jacques would be in the cab and turning round.
Time would be of the essence, as we would be counter attacked quickly. Seconds would mean the difference between life and death. I felt the adrenalin surge through my body. I felt more ready than just a moment before. We would go in the next day.
“And the following morning, we wipe them all out,” said Di Maglio. I nodded my agreement.
Giovanni had been listening carefully. He now talked for the first time. “I will organise other action for that day in other parts of the world. We will strike at all their centres until they ask for a truce. The price of the truce will be their agreement of our jurisdiction. They’ll agree to that if we have wiped out their leadership. But they won’t love us for it. And some day they will attack again. This is going to be a long standing vendetta.”
His words struck me as a terrible reminder of the cruel world we would operate in. I knew there was no going back.
That evening I called my father. He was building up his stakes in the different target companies and expected to start the funds in the next week. I decided against telling them of our problems and merely said we had left Paris and were enjoying ourselves at friends of Jacqui in the Chamonix region. We were not that far away in the compound outside Geneva. I left a number, and assured them we were all well. There was no point in worrying them or alerting them to our difficulties.
The next day we set out early. Jacques had already gone for his truck. We arrived at a house near the main Nimes to Uzes road. From the outside, it looked deserted. Inside were four men and an arsenal of weapons. There was a hand held rocket launcher; half a dozen sub-machine guns and sundry small arms.
We all dressed in dark trousers and shirts. We had a matching jockey cap. We were told to blacken our faces. We then armed ourselves. We took spare ammunition packs. I took a service revolver and then a knife, which I placed in a sheath that fitted to my thigh. We waited.
“There he is,” said one of the men. In the distance we saw the truck come into view. We bundled into the back of a van and drove the short distance to the main road.
“The transfer has to be as quick as possible,” said Aldo. “He will be stopped by a police motor cyclist for one minute and then waved on. That’s a precaution in case he is being monitored. In that time we get into the truck. We have to climb over the goods and hide in the false compartment. Charles goes first, as there is not enough space to climb over each other. I go next as I have the radio equipment and need to be as close to the outside as possible for it to work to maximum effect.”
The lorry lumbered by and we turned out into the main road to follow it. The policeman appeared. He waved down the truck. It stopped. We pulled behind it and jumped out. We were covered from the road by trees. In seconds we were in the truck and the doors were closed behind us. We moved to the rear and got through the false panel at the back. The last man through pulled it into place. The only exit now was through the moveable panel on the side.
The truck jerked forward again. The van must have followed it for a bit. We could not see. Jacques’ voice came through. “I am approaching the gates. I have to get down and let them examine the truck.”
We stopped. There was a grinding as the gates opened. We heard voices outside. The lorry inched forward. Again we heard a grinding as we assumed the gates shut. There were more voices. Someone was looking under the truck. Then the rear doors were opened and someone jumped in. Any examination must have been fairly cursory for it was soon over. The rear doors were slammed shut. Someone thumped the side of the truck.
“Move on,” they shouted.
We once again edged slowly forward. The truck eased its way over the humps in the road. I counted six. They were not going to be fun at a high speed on the way back. Jacques’ voice came through again. “Thirty yards to drop off. Twenty yards. Ten yards.” And then there was a deafening explosion in the distance.
“Go, Go, Go,” shouted Aldo. I pushed the side panel open. I threw myself out, hitting the grass verge and rolling over behind the bush. I saw a camera behind me but it was pointing down the drive. I moved to the side of the bush. I could not be seen from either the house or the road. There was a plume of smoke in the distance. The truck was in front of the house.
Jacques was talking excitedly to two men there. “Someone has crashed at the rocks,” he said. “His petrol tank must have exploded. It gave me a shock. I almost crashed myself.”
“The poor sod is a goner,” someone said in reply. “Driving today and then gone in a puff of smoke.”
The other laughed. “He gave us all a shock. We thought it might be some friends of ours.”
“You mean those Di Maglios. The boyfriend was so white when he saw the bitch. I could have pissed myself. I’ll tell you one thing though. I p
lan to fuck the bitch before we kill her. We’ll have some fun with her. She’s got a good body. She’s just got a lousy temper.”
I held back. I could see no cameras positioned between the door of the barn and me. The men had their backs turned. Jacques was looking in my direction. I ran forward and edged into the small porch by the barn door.
I unfastened the safety latch on the sub-machine gun and held it against my thigh. A strap from my shoulder suspended it. I gently opened the door. There was a large room. It was empty other than a couple of tables against one end. I closed the door behind me and listened.
I sensed movement behind a door at the side. I looked around the room. There were no cameras. I moved to the door and listened.
I could hear a woman’s voice. It was a cold voice. “Eat you stupid cow,” it said. “Or you’ll be too weak for the men to enjoy.”
“Go to hell,” said another woman’s voice. It was Jacqui’s.
I listened again. I could hear no other movement. The chances were that there were only two people in the room.
“Eat the bloody food,” said the woman.
“Leave me alone,” shouted Jacqui in a desperate voice. That meant she was alone bar the woman. With luck the woman would leave. And with luck she would leave by another door. But I would need to shoot down this door. And I would have to give Jacqui a warning so she kept away.
“Suit yourself,” said the woman. “But it won’t help you. Once your father gives in, then we kill you. It’s just some of the guys want a bit of fun first. I must say I’d rather you than me. Most of them are real bastards.”
I heard her move to the door next to me. I let go of the machine gun and drew the knife. The door opened and she left. She did not see me. My hand grasped her mouth to stop her crying out. The sharp knife cut her throat. The blood gushed out in a flood. There was a strange croak. She was dead. I had never thought I could kill a woman in cold blood. But this one was easy. I was not sure if I could have done it if I hadn’t overheard her conversation with Jacqui.