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The Vengeance Man

Page 9

by John Macrae


  At the end of an hour I had confirmed what my instincts had already told me. Spicer was most vulnerable on his way to work, where his route and timings were unvarying and I could make best use of the next ten hours, provided that he wasn't missed at work. By mid-afternoon I had it all worked out, and next morning I did a walk-through rehearsal. It all fitted, and Spicer's days of child molesting were short; he was due for his come-uppance in four days' time.

  Like all plans, it was the administration that caused the difficulties and took the time. Hiring a van under a work name was no problem. Like all our Group, I've acquired two or three illegal extra work names over the years. Rigging it out and getting the other odds and ends together took more time. When it was fitted out, I paid one last round of calls to the garden centre for a plant mist spray and then to three separate chemical suppliers for some essential supplies.

  By 'R' - for Revenge - day minus one I was ready, and, carefully parking the van where it wouldn't be interfered with, I left it. Then it was a hire car to Folkestone, where I took the Shuttle to Calais. I booked into an hotel about half an hour down the Lille road, at Bailleul, that was small enough to remember me, but big enough not to miss me for a while. I made my number at reception with a girl with dark eyes. The long eyelashes fluttered over her cheeks like black moths and my gentle flattery in dreadful French as I filled out my affiche for the police ensured that she remembered me. Then I wrote three postcards and got them into the post box for today's last post franking date. One of the post cards was a series of cartoon jokes about 'The Perfect European' for the office and was bound to be remembered.

  After a good dinner, I retired to my room, warning them I'd be going to Ghent the next day so I'd be getting up early. From then on it was easy. I messed up the bed, washed and shaved, and slipped out, un-noticed by reception. I drove like hell to Calais, and leaving my hire car on the dock, just made the late ferry as a foot passenger. Entry into the United Kingdom was easy. I was through the sleepy EU immigration channel on a Belgian ID that no-body knows I've acquired, and is normally well hidden behind a bad print of Köln cathedral in my hall, and was on the train for London barely three hours after leaving the French hotel. Now I was committed to my first private operation.

  It was a hell of a way to spend my leave.

  Sorting out sex criminals, I mean. I’d never thought that was ever going to be my destiny in life…

  CHAPTER 9

  London

  Spicer’s own little rendezvous with destiny came next day.

  By seven-thirty that morning I was ready, sitting in the van parked on the right hand side of the road just round the corner from Spicer's house, dressed in white overalls and reading the 'Sun' for local colour. Anyway, I liked the girl on Page 3. Amazing what you can do with an airbrush these days. My stars said that something exciting could enter my life if I could only stop worrying about the consequences of an ill-considered action. Right.

  The extra large mirror I had bought was rigged to give a panoramic view back down the avenue. The road was quiet - just the usual trickle of commuters and enough traffic not to make the van conspicuous. A police panda car drifted by but didn't spare me much of a glance, although it put my pulse rate up. I began to get nervous. It's always like that.

  Don't let anyone ever tell you that they don't get jumpy. That's balls; we all get jumpy. We just pretend not to be. At one point I found myself wondering just why I was doing this, and deciding it was really for the excitement, the thrill of the illicit chase. I was beginning to worry, too. Spicer was late. Just as I stole what seemed like glance number ten at my watch, he shot round the corner, about two hundred metres back. And he was hurrying. I checked the avenue for other movers. There were two more commuters forward on the left and no-one behind except Spicer. It was clear. He crossed the road and began to close on the right hand pavement. I left the engine running and swung out from the cab, whistling. He was now about fifty yards away, not paying attention as I strolled to the back of the van and opened the doors. This was the risky bit.

  Spicer looked up curiously as he neared the back of the van. I called to him in my best Scots, "Here, gie's a hand, pal…”

  He stopped, irresolute. "I'm in a hurry, I'll miss my train." He seemed to look at me for the first time.

  "Och, it'll no' take a moment. And I'll run ye doon to the station, if you like, afterward. I’m goin’ that way."

  He hesitated. "It's only to pass me oot a box," I added. "It has to be kept level, you see." I was beginning to sweat. Come on you bastard, say something. But he just looked blankly at me.

  " I can't miss my train," he whined.

  "I'll run you to the station. Come on, pal; it'll no' take a minute..."

  "All right. If we can make the seven fifty three." He'd bitten. And not a moment too soon I didn't want twitching lace curtains and curious neighbours noting our discussion on the pavement. Even with stick-on lettering and a smeared number plate I wasn't looking to sell tickets for what I had in mind for friend Spicer.

  "What do I do?" He looked vaguely into the van door.

  "Just hop in and pass me the end of the long box out. Then I can leave it on the pavement. It's no' heavy."

  He peered suspiciously into the van. "Which one?"

  "That one there." I jerked my head at a long white box that concealed my tools, and gave him an encouraging pat on the back to urge him into the van. At critical moments a slight push - literally - can make all the difference psychologically: ask any policeman making an arrest.

  Like a lamb, he climbed into the back. I leaned in behind him and reached for the garden spray on my right tucked into the corner by the door hinge, and picked up the preplaced mask in my left hand.

  "Funny sort of van," said Spicer turning to face me halfway down the van. He took in my aggressive intention immediately. His eyes widened in alarm and his mouth opened to shout. But it was too late. I sprayed his face and opening mouth at point blank range with a ██ % solution of ██ and ████ [2]. You can buy the chemicals anywhere if you know what you need. I'd calculated a five second burst, but I gave him a little bit longer, just to make sure.

  Spicer's eyes immediately clamped shut against the spray and his breathing in had sucked a good lungful of the stuff into his chest, which cut off the shout. He was making choking noises, like a winded boxer desperately trying to suck air. I kept the mask pressed against my own face and breathed through that. Even with the charcoal filter I could smell the reek of the ██ in the mix. I stopped spraying and backed out. I didn't want to get dizzy or incapacitated too. Spicer's eyes opened and he stared at me blankly, then took a step towards the door. He swore in a thick muffled voice and his legs buckled under him as he moved forward. For a second, the hands clawed for me, but caught nothing but air as he fell forward onto his knees, gasping.

  I backed away, the mask still across my mouth, and the spray poised, in case he needed another burst. He didn't. He knelt and stared sightlessly at me, the whites of his eyes rolling up, then slowly fell forward and collapsed face down. He twitched a bit, then was still. I gave another quick burst to his nose and mouth and clambered hastily out, locking the doors behind me. I felt a bit dizzy from the anaesthetic, but a few lungfuls of clean, fresh air cleared my head.

  Then I quietly walked round to the driver's door, listening to my heart thudding, yawned and stretched to give the avenue a final once over before driving carefully away from the kerb. At the T-junction at the bottom of the road, I checked my watch. It had taken one minute, thirty-five seconds from start to the corner. My pulse was about 140 I reckoned, but it had worked.

  Phase two of the plan had critical timing. The mix was only guaranteed for 10 minutes. I drove to my pre-recced site in a muddy car park, and parked up. I was well inside the time margin. The Fablon logos went in the bin and then I phoned his store, whining that, 'Mr Spicer wasn't well today but would probably be in tomorrow. He had to go the doctors...' There was a nice irony to that.
A bored woman took the message.

  Then I backed the van up to a wall on the waste ground used as a car park and opened the back doors. Spicer lay comatose sprawled on the floor, his mouth dribbling. I waited 90 seconds for the air to clear and then sniffed cautiously. It was clean enough to enter and I clambered in, opened the top ventilator and pulled the doors shut behind me. I didn't want anyone snooping in now.

  Spicer's pulse was a steady 60 and his breathing was regular. As quickly as I could I rolled up his sleeve and gave him 10cc of ketamine intravenously, then dropped the syringe and swabs into the plastic dustbin. While I waited for this to take effect, I stripped him off and did my field scrubbing up. I needed to; personal hygiene was not his strong point, to judge by the state of his underpants. It took about seven minutes but by the time I was ready he was in full anesthesia. I checked his pulse and respiration. The vital signs looked good, so, noting the time I drenched the area in Hibitane, took a deep breath and went to work.

  It was a strange operation and the difficulty of working kneeling in the back of a vehicle against a time limit didn't help. The other complication was that I didn't want him bleeding everywhere like a stuck pig, which, when you're working alone, isn't easy. I gave him a tourniquet like you wouldn’t believe, just to be sure. It took a painstaking 20 minutes and when I'd finished, I pumped him full of every antibiotic known to man and stitched as neatly as I could. I'm afraid it wasn't a pretty job, but then I've only got the usual SAS three months experience in casualty. The big problem was the artery. There was less blood than I'd expected though -- but I had been careful.

  I checked his vital signs again and found, not surprisingly, that he was in shock. One of the dangers of ████ mixes is that they can depress the patient's whole cardiac system. Still, he looked all right, considering. I gave him a few ccs of ████ with a fresh syringe to keep him going, put him into the silver mountain survival blanket and closed the Velcro seal. He lay among the blood smears, white faced and hissing flat little breaths: but he wasn't going to die on me through post-operative shock.

  I checked the time again. It was just 9 o'clock. I took a pull at my hip flask, which I'd filled with coffee and whisky. It was cold but sharp and I felt the warmth of the liquor biting my stomach. I gave myself a two minute break while I watched Spicer, then cleaned up slowly, using the water in the jerrican and lots of Aquasept. I didn't want to catch anything off him, and for all I knew the bastard could be carrying HIV or anything.

  People tend to be careful going towards the enemy but slack when they're pulling back. No such carelessness was going to endanger me. I carefully stripped off the once sterile plastic apron and the overalls. I wrapped them separately in newspaper and put them into the ever useful little plastic dustbin, along with the instruments, the soiled swabs and Spicer's clothes and his odds and ends, all wrapped in newspaper. When I rolled up the polythene floor cover, the back of the van contained only the pale figure of Spicer, mummified in his space blanket, a plastic dustbin crammed with a lot of messy and embarrassing evidence, an empty jerrican, and the long white box.

  I peered out to check the coast was clear before getting into the cab and driving out.

  The dustbin was easy. Checking the time carefully, I eased into the arches by Charing Cross. Sure enough the gang was there, as they were every day at about this time, with the big Westminster contractor’s disposal lorry grinding slowly down Northumberland Avenue, digesting its load of rubbish. I stopped at the corner and put the bin on the kerb, taking care not to let anyone see inside the van. Then I pulled over and waited. Two minutes later the dustmen came round the corner and seized the bin. With wry amusement I watched its contents flung into the huge grinder and the bin unceremoniously dumped back on the pavement. Spicer's debt to Society had been repaid to Westminster City Council.

  * * *

  Once I'd confirmed the evidence was destroyed I drove up to Shepherd's Bush and backed up against some bushes I'd recced. At that time of the morning I was mercifully alone. This was a moment of maximum danger and I knew it. As quickly as I could I checked Spicer's final state, and dragged him into the middle of a clump of shabby bushes. He was still out. Then I drove the van to the car wash and cleaned the back out while I waited to go through. Time was against me. I left the van in a car park, put the keys in a pre-paid typed envelope and mailed them. It then only remained for me to make the phone call. I dialled the Standard, and eventually got the news room.

  "Yeah, what is it?" said a bored voice in what he clearly thought was a yuppy accent. I could almost hear him saying, ‘Gep Yah’. He sounded like a young reporter trying to come across tough, so I gave it to him once, in best hard Glasgow.

  "Listen. Listen once, Jimmy, and listen good, for I'll no' repeat this. Do you remember Spicer, the kiddy groper?" The voice at the other end made gurgling noises. I cut in. "Shut your mouth and listen tae me, sonny Jim. Well, ye'll find him in the bushes off Shepherd's Bush market." I gave him the exact address. "Have ye got that?" The voice gurgled some more. This time it sounded more like an excited young man out of his depth. A click came on the line and the quality of sound altered. We were probably going on to tape now.

  "Aye - and one mair thing, sonny. Tek an ambulance and a doctor with ye when ye go with the polis. He'll fuckin’ need them." I hung up.

  From there I caught a tube to Charing Cross and made the fast Dover train by five minutes. By half past twelve I was having lunch on the ferry and staring out across the oily calm Channel as the day trippers giggled over the motorway meal. The hire car was still by the dockside. By three o'clock I was driving into France, and by four thirty I was in Brussels. I spent an enjoyable if quiet hour collecting evidence of my trip to Belgium. I mailed some more postcards and was back at the hotel by seven.

  The dark receptionist was on again, and we giggled over a piece of Belgian lace, allegedly bought in Brussels for fifty euros. For my mother.

  "Why, M'sieur," Claudine protested, (we were at the 'Claudine/M'sieur' stage of our relationship by now; last night she had been 'Mam'selle'), "M'sieur, you could 'ave bought that for 'alf the price away from the Gran' Place. Everyone knows that the Grand’ Place in Brussels is double price."

  I agreed - but I was only a silly tourist. Claudine would remember me, should anyone ever ask. I hoped that by tomorrow morning, we'd both remember each other much, much better.

  After all, it was a holiday.

  I was on leave.

  CHAPTER 10

  London

  I hate going back to work after leave.

  It always seems to take me about a week to get used to doing what other people want and not what I choose. And after the shock of being threatened with the heave ho last time I got back from leave, I was wary. This time, however, it was different. I walked into Group the following Monday with an unusual mixture of trepidation and curiosity. Having spent the rest of the week deep in the Ardennes I hadn't seen an English newspaper.

  Even my stars were encouraging;

  'Is it all too much? Remember, your future is for as long as you live.. listen to others' words of wisdom to guide that bright and shining future....' Sounded good.

  Of course the usual great mound of files greeted me; action files, briefings, papers for comment and, most interesting, the press summaries. Even though our little organisation is kept at arms length, we still operate just like the rest of the Services, and our paperwork reflects it. So after the usual just back from leave chat with Charles Townsend, the only other occupant of our little four man action response group, I settled down with an unfeigned groan to the two foot high stack of files.

  Charlie looked up sympathetically. "Amazing, isn't it? Here we are, supposed to be four of the best in the business" - he jerked his head at the other two empty desks - "and they're still loading us down with bloody paperwork. We might as well be staff officers in MoD."

  "Never mind, Charlie. I thought that's where de Court had gone, anyway? Write a pretty pape
r for a minister and they'll promote you too, if you're a good boy."

  The pompous de Court wasn’t there. He’d been promoted and gone to MoD. It was the shortest stay in Group history, but for the rest of his career pompous Henry's record would show that he was once a Special Operations Officer in SAS Group. Without ever having done an operation. With a career move like that and his Greenjacket annual confidential reports, I expect that the ambitious shit would end up as Chief of the Defence Staff one day. Serve him right.

  Charlie grinned. "Forget it. Anyway, I've sorted through your junk. You've an appointment with the Director at 1400 today. Otherwise it's all the usual rubbish."

  "What's that about? Welcome back? Another antiquarian literary challenge for Whitehall?"

  "Don't ask me mate; it's need to know and no-one's telling me. How was Italy by the way?"

  “Need to know ,Charlie, need to know.” Trying to be casual, I asked, "So, anything in the press summaries? I've been out of touch with the news for over two weeks - I only got back from the Continent last night," - which was true.

  "No, nothing at all. Only the usual Middle East peace talks crap. It looks like the Americans are getting serious about Iran. Oh yes, they're going to do some more redundancies for the services. Oh, and you'll like this - there's a mad gooley-grabber on the loose."

  "Redundancies? For who?

  "Dunno. It's all in the papers. Usual rubbish. Defence cuts. But the phantom gooley grabber's more interesting"

 

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