by Rob Aspinall
Pavel nods at the nearest goon. He feints to hit me in the face—drives a fist into my gut. I'm not ready and it winds the crap out of me.
I fight to regain my breath.
Pavel paces back and forth. Takes out his phone. "To be honest, I was just being polite. I know who you are, Charlie." He holds up the screen for me to see. They have me on CCTV, in the truck yard of Matheson Haulage.
It dawns on me they've got cameras on the ship, too.
I can't help laughing. "I walked right into this one, huh?" I spit out the blood off my tongue. "So Pavel, is this your operation, or is there an adult I can talk to?"
Pavel doesn't bite. He smiles instead. "Who are you working for Charlie?"
"Working for?"
Another punch. This time a right cross to the jaw. Now that one hurt.
"The less you talk, the longer we'll have to keep doing this." Pavel says.
I flex out my jaw. So Pavel thinks I work for someone. Probably the only reason I'm still alive.
I decide to play along. "What makes you think I'm working for anyone?"
Pavel inspects his nails. "Because only a fool would come after us alone."
Ah, so it's an us. That means there's someone above him.
"Who is it?" Pavel continues. "Eddie Prince?"
I cough and laugh at the same time. "Hardly."
"The police then? Major crimes? NCA? Interpol?"
"I don't work with fucking pigs," I say.
"Another outfit then," Pavel says, as if sure of it.
I pause a moment. One of the goons strides forward. Pavel halts him again with that magical hand of his.
"One name is all we need," Pavel says.
"And then what?"
"Then we cut you loose."
"Is that right?"
Pavel shrugs. "Well, maybe we follow you home to poppa. But don't worry, we'll be very discreet about it. They won't know it came from you."
I crease up. It hurts to laugh, but the guy amuses me.
"One name," Pavel says.
"Sorry mate, but you're a lousy interrogator. I would have broken out the—"
"Bucket and sponge?" Pavel prompts one of his goons to walk forward with a bucket and yellow sponge on a stick.
"I was gonna say blow torch, but yeah a damp sponge ought to do it."
Pavel looks down his nose at me as the other goon removes my boots and socks. "Pity you don't have the brain to go with that smart mouth of yours."
The goon pulls my t-shirt over and behind my head, exposing my chest.
Pavel tuts and shakes his head at the sight of my bruised body. "Look, Max. You should have aimed for the ribs. Too late now."
Pavel steps out of the way. The goon with the sponge on a stick dips it in the bucket. He pulls it out, sopping in water. It's freezing and makes me gasp.
"Cold?" Pavel asks. "How about we warm you up?" He motions to his goon, Max.
Max holds a streamlined black baton. His hands covered in a thick pair of red rubber gloves.
I brace myself, but nothing prepares you for frying alive.
He hits me with a bolt of electricity. Holds the baton to my skin while I convulse. Think of the worst cramp you've ever had and multiply it by a hundred. Then imagine it raging through your entire body—the worst of it in your chest.
The pain fades a little as they stop. Sweat pours out of me and my body tingles. And not in a fun way.
"Don't be silly now, Charlie. Tell me who you are. Southern? Northern?"
I don't say shit.
"European then?" he says.
I ignore the question. Just gotta—Christ, the second hit is worse. I almost black out.
Pavel continues with the questions. Max juices me a third time. I start to see things. Mandy in place of Max, smoking a cig and sticking me with the baton.
As I was gonna say, I've just gotta survive long enough
I've been in their shoes plenty of times. There's only so long you can question a guy using the same method. If they're any good at what they do, they'll change tactics, location, anything to get me to spill. And after all, they'll want me alive for at least another half an hour—just to be sure I'm not gonna talk.
As I gather my thoughts, a call interrupts the show. It's Pavel's phone. He answers it.
My vision blurs from beads of sweat dripping into my eyes. But I make out the time on the clock on the wall. We've been in here for a while. Can't be too long now.
Pavel babbles away in his mother tongue. I still don't know where the hell this lot are from. And I don't understand a bloody word of the nonsense pouring out of his mouth. But it sounds like I'm not the only one getting a grilling.
His face says it all. I know a call from the boss when I see one. Did a bigger cheese find out about the barracks? Pavel ends the call, shakes his head. Another call comes in the second he gets off the phone. He answers angry. Gets even angrier the longer he's on. "What did she do?" he says. "Keep him at the hotel until I get there . . . I don't know, use your brain you idiot!"
Pavel comes off the call. He talks to Max and the other goon. "Take him out on the boat. If he still doesn't talk, kill him and dump him."
As Pavel storms out of the room, I try to go somewhere else in my head. But all the escape hatches are locked. So all I've got is unbearable cramping. I smell my own chest hair burning. It gets up my nose. Glad I didn't have the full fry-up at the greasy spoon or I'd have probably shat myself by now.
Max approaches with the baton. One more hit and I'm out.
52
Woodington army barracks was a mess. A glorious mess of bodies, bullet holes and hard evidence. An entire Class A factory of it in the gym hall.
Not to mention a laptop full of schedules, stock reports and itineraries.
Cobb had not been exaggerating.
Detective Clarke stood with his back to the main building. He looked on as paramedics attended to the liberated refugees. Foil blankets wrapped around bodies. Steaming hot mugs in hands.
A white marquee had been set up away from the building. It served as both a temporary hospital and processing centre. The smell of smouldering ash filled the air. As fire crews and CSI criss-crossed in front of him, Clarke rested his behind against the warm bonnet of his Audi. He waited on the phone while Chief Superintendent Bridlington's PA put him through to his mobile.
"Clarke?" Bridlington said on the other end.
"Yes, sir."
"This had better be good. I'm at home with Diane."
"How is she, sir?"
"She's been better, What is it?"
"You know that breakthrough we've been waiting for?"
"Yes?"
"It's arrived. Oh boy, has it."
"Get to the point, Clarke."
"Right sir, well, looks like we've seized ourselves a ten million haul of coke. At least."
"Where?"
"Woodington barracks, out in the sticks."
"You sure it's connected to our case?"
"Oh, I'm certain, sir. We've got twenty or so slave labourers. And a laptop full of hard data."
Bridlington sounded surprised. "How did all that come about?"
"Anonymous tip, sir. Must have been a turf war. Eddie Prince is lying face-first in a cabbage field with a poker in his guts."
"Prince was part of this?"
"I assume so, sir. I've got an address for a second location. More of the same, I expect, along the Thames."
"Okay," Bridlington said, "I'll put in a request for surveillance."
"We need to act now, sir. We leave it much longer, they'll move on."
"You don't know that for certain, Clarke."
"I know these people, sir. One sniff of trouble and they shut up shop."
"Well whatever you think you know, I can't sign off a raid without prior surveillance."
"But sir—"
"But nothing. This is cigar time. It'll play well upstairs. I'm a happy fucking bunny. Wrap up there and file your report. We'll have a strategy
meeting tomorrow, first thing."
Clarke pushed off the bonnet of the car. "With all due respect sir, they'll be in the wind by tonight and we'll be chasing our tails for another four years."
"Well unlike these savages, we've got procedures. Rome wasn't built in a day."
"Yeah but it was destroyed in no bloody time."
"You've had your orders, detective. Do your report. Go home and treat the missus to a chicken fucking balti. I'll see you tomorrow."
Clarke drew back his arm, ready to throw his phone across the tarmac. He resisted the urge, slumping back onto the bonnet of the car.
Morales appeared by his side. "Everything alright, guv?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Well we just won the lottery. And you look like you got the clap."
Clarke stood up. He walked around to the driver's side of the car and opened the door.
"Where are you going?" Morales asked.
"To see about the next location."
"They sign off the raid already?"
"Nope. I'm going it alone . . . Unless you fancy doing something incredibly stupid."
"Only if you tell me what's really going on," Morales said.
"You want in? Get in," Clarke said, ducking inside the car.
Morales hesitated as Clarke fired up the engine. "Oh, what the hell," she said, opening the passenger door.
53
Can't breathe.
Can't fucking breathe.
The cold. The current. I wasn't ready.
They drag me up. The wind hits me and stings my skin.
I cough and splutter, filthy water running off me onto the deck.
They ask me again. I shake my head. Shiver on aching knees. Rough wooden boards digging in.
They dunk me back under. I fight to get out but there's two of 'em manhandling me, my hands tied behind my back.
Waves smash into my upper body as my head hangs beneath the surface. They hold me under for longer as the boat drags me sideways through the Thames.
The boat is cruising, but under the water, it feels like a hundred miles an hour. They haul me out one more time. I take a punch in a kidney. Another in the side of the neck. My feet are blocks of ice. I can't feel my toes.
We're out in the choppier end of the river. A lesser-travelled part where no one is around to watch. The surrounding docks and railway bridges appear tiny on the shore. The heart of the city a distant, hazy shadow behind a veil of smog.
They ask me again who I'm working for. I shake my head some more. Laugh at 'em. Tell 'em where to shove it. Max and his hairy lookalike wrestle me over the side again and dunk me back in.
My eyes are open as they force my head underneath. All I see is a thick murk and a line of bubbles escaping as I fight to hold in the oxygen.
They pull me up. Let me drop to my knees a fifth time, gasping for air.
The questions have stopped, which means the time is approaching.
The boat is small and old. Open at the back, shielded at the front by a windscreen and roof.
A third guy stands at the wheel. Dressed like the other two, but small and skinny. A blonde mullet, an ear ring and a worn-out face.
"Stop it here," Max yells over the chug and stench of the engine.
The boat slows down. I stare straight ahead at the cracked black paint on the edge of the deck. I shake the water out of my ears so I can hear better. Jet a line of water out of my nose.
Hands, head, feet, the whole lot red raw.
I look around me and see a brown sack in the corner, with a rusty chain, a padlock and two concrete blocks.
"Last chance to talk," Max says, pulling out a handgun. He taps the side of my head with the long silencer barrel.
I stay quiet. Get ready. There's always a window.
The boat comes to a stop and bobs up and down in the water.
If they've got any brains about 'em, they'll hold me over the side while they put a bullet through my skull. That way you don't have to clean any fleshy bits off the deck. Or, they'll bag my head up first so the inside catches the splatter.
They choose the second option. While Max fiddles with his gun, the other pulls a clear plastic bag from his coat pocket.
Their hands are off me for a few seconds.
That's the window.
I drive up off my feet and knees. I stagger the few steps to the side of the boat. Max shoots, but it's too late, I'm diving head-first into the water. The freezing temperature shocks me to the core.
Bullets follow me in, each with a snaking white tail. I spin around with my eyes open. I kick my way below the boat and tread water underneath. As more bullets zip into the river, I tuck my knees to my chest and bring my hands under my feet. I bring 'em around my front and work my way across the belly of the boat to the opposite side.
I'm running out of breath, fast. Unbearable pressure building in my chest and throat.
No choice but to break out onto the surface. I stay tight to the hull. Quiet gasps of air, surviving on adrenaline.
I hear the men shouting at each other. More silencer rounds fired into the water. They soon give up.
"Forget it," I hear the driver of the boat say. "If the bullets didn't get him, the cold soon will. He's either dead or drowning by now."
“Fine,” Max says. "Let's go back. I need a shit anyway."
"You dirty fucker," his goon pal says.
"What?" Max says. "I do."
The engine splutters into life and the boat turns to the left. The upper side of the hull is lined by small black tyres cut in half. They're strung together by rope, acting as bumpers. I grab a length of the rope and stay low, out of sight.
The boat turns around and picks up speed. I bounce through the chop, getting a face full of white water. I hang on and cough the stuff out. Blink it out of my eyes. I slap hard off the surface, but I pull one leg up out of the river. I get a slippery foothold on one of the rubber bumpers and pull myself out of the worst of it. I get a grip of the side of the boat and peep over the edge. Max and his pal are stood towards the bow, behind the driver.
While their backs are turned, I haul my weight up and onto the deck. The chug, chop and wind obliterate the heavy, wet slap I make as I hit the wood. With the docks growing bigger and the city skyline getting closer, I pick up one of the concrete bricks they brought with 'em to weigh down my body.
I stagger forward. Max happens to turn his head. He sees me dripping head to toe, angry as hell. He draws his gun from his holster.
I hurl the concrete brick. It hits him with a thunk on the forehead.
He wobbles, eyes rolling white and blood streaming from his head. He trips over the edge of the boat and falls in backwards, taking his gun with him. As Max's mate reacts, I hit him with closed fists, once, twice . . . three times knocks him overboard.
I turn to the driver. He panics, grabs a life ring hanging beneath the wheel and jumps over the side. I use my teeth to prise one of the goon's incisors from between my knuckles. I spit it out.
As the boat bounces up and down, the wheel spins one way and the other.
I return to the back of the boat and pick up the chain. I carry it to the front, grab the wheel and steady the boat out. I spot Cristina in the distance. I head straight for her, roping the chain around the wheel. I use hands, teeth, feet, anything I can to fix it firm.
I tie it off on a steel strut supporting the roof, then push the throttle all the way forward.
The boat bounces high off the water. I stagger to the back of the boat.
When they were torturing me, I spotted a red plastic can of emergency petrol. There's also a green box with a flare inside. I unscrew the cap off the petrol.
I back-pedal with the can, pouring a line of petrol the length of the deck. I empty the last of the stuff over the windscreen as Cristina's sea-stained blue hull looms large.
We must be doing thirty knots by now, so I won't have long to pull this off. I remove the top off the flare with my teeth. I hold the striking surface outw
ards from my mouth and hold up the end of the flare where it ignites.
Kids, definitely don't do this at home.
54
I strike the top of the flare across the rough surface of the cap. It takes three attempts before it lights.
It sparks orange and red. I nearly take my eyebrows off before I can pull it away from my face. I spit out the cap, feeling the heat coming off the flare. A cloud of red smoke streams out behind me, the smell of sulphur mixing with petrol fumes.
I wait . . . I wait . . . I toss it onto the deck. It rolls in the petrol. It catches. A blue and orange flame shooting from stern to bow.
I jump and hit the water like a bouncing bomb. I spin in a ball beneath the surface. Amazing how similar it feels to jumping from a moving car.
I bob up in time to see the boat ablaze, torpedoing into the side of the ship. There's a huge explosion. The boat breaks in two and rips a hole in the hull of the ship.
Rather than enjoy the view, I'm already kicking to dry land. I'm a strong swimmer and used to the ice cold river by now. I wriggle through the water as fast as a man can with both hands bound at the wrists.
I head straight for an iron ladder attached to the dock wall. It’s red with surface rust. I grab hold of the third rung up. I lift my lower half out of the water and get a foothold on the bottom rung. I push off my feet and catch hold of the next rung up.
Like a caterpillar climbing a tree, I contort my way to the top. I roll onto the dock. I struggle to my feet and run alongside the ship. One of Pavel's men is already onto me. He stands on the deck, spraying the dock with machine gun fire.
I evade the bullets and stoop low, tackling a goon fleeing the ship. I hit him with both hands and get his automatic weapon. I break his jaw with the butt, turn and fire back at the man on the deck of the ship.
I miss by a mile: a rubbish shot with my hands tied up. As the guy reloads, I bound up the steps onto the deck. I dart in through the entrance to the body of the ship. I've gotta get my hands out of these ties.
I look around me and see a jagged edge of metal where a rusty panel has come free of a few bolts. A small mercy in an unforgiving world.
I drop the weapon and hook both wrists over the sharp edge. I start rubbing like crazy, back and forth, an alarm going off on board the ship: a deep whop-whop.