Hard Place

by Douglas Stewart

  Ratso’s blood pumped faster, his heart suddenly pounding overdrive. Nuk e di. He didn’t know much Albanian but nuk e di was a phrase he’d picked up in Tirana, meaning I don’t know. He’d gone masquerading as one of the Hogan gang. Several locals he had chatted with had used it when asked about Boris Zandro. Nuk e di. I don’t know. Lying bastards but scared shitless that just one careless word would bring Zandro’s gang down on them.

  He continued walking, debating what to do. Is Westbrook Drive an Albanian enclave? He didn’t think so. He’d smelled curry from several properties, had seen Asian kids peering at him from the occasional window. He crossed the street and pretended to post a letter from his carrier bag at the corner box. Then he turned round to walk back past number 22, picking up his pace. As he rounded the bend, he saw the taillights appear on the Range Rover and in a couple of swift movements it had gone, heading steadily in the other direction. Of the Albanian couple, there was no sign. He had no choice but to blow cover by checking the iPad. He got the map on screen and was at once rewarded. Neil had planted the bug, his dying act. Good on yer, Neil!

  Ratso fought the urge to run back to his car. There was no rush, no need to panic. The bug would help him. He reached the car pool Mazda and used the covert radio channel to speak to Jock Strang on the secure encrypted wavelength. “Our friend is singing and I’m following. Get someone to pick you up immediate. Then call me again.”

  “Barrr-deecchee?” The sergeant’s accent always seemed even more Glaswegian on the phone.

  “An Albanian couple. Heading …” He paused to check. “West toward the A30.”

  “Nae bother, boss. I’ll phone the noo and then we can finish our game. I need double-top to win.”

  Ratso smiled as he accelerated away, watching the blink on the small screen as the target vehicle moved steadily west and slightly north on the A30. He reckoned he was about two, maybe three miles behind and keeping pace well.

  His thoughts turned to Neil and getting the word on the street. What would he say? Got it! Neil had been working for the Hogan twins, thug brothers who ran the south London drug scene. All hell would break loose. It could get nasty. Or nice, depending on your standpoint.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Grand Bahama Island

  After the short hop from Fort Lauderdale, Lance Ruthven’s Bahamasair flight touched down at Grand Bahama International. Now his long, slim legs were stretched out sideways in the back of the taxi heading for the Marlin Hotel. He wore a heavy black moustache—fake, unfortunately, as he’d shaved his own when he fell in love with Amber, believing somehow his smooth skin gave him a more refined look. His brow puckered at his unsettling train of thoughts: the unknown Brit, the CEO taking the piss about unforeseen problems. He knew the ship owners were being gouged but then the shipyard had the company by the balls. Confidentiality was crucial and Lamon Wilson, the wily CEO knew it.

  No more taking that crap, Ruthven had vowed on the flight. This time I’m standing firm but one wrong word to the Brit and his own true ID could come out, ending his career. The Brit was called Mujo Zevi, or at least that was his cover. Ruthven’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the seat. What type of Brit would give himself such a name? His mood darkened even more and his feet scuffed the carpet. He looked out at the palm trees swaying in the late afternoon breeze and the pastel pinks and greens of the buildings. Usually this was paradise. Today it felt like paradise lost.

  Get real, Lance. Show this Mujo Zevi you can kick ass and soon you’ll be pocketing five million greenbacks. Goodbye, DC. But not before persuading Amber that Lance Ruthven was the man of her dreams.

  Amber Yardley! Just the name, the thought of her made his groin ache. He had watched her for hours, followed her to her condo seven miles from Downtown, watched her buying perfume in Nordstrom, lusted over a Victoria’s Secret lace bra and panties he had bought but never given her. Twice he had hung around outside Amber’s condo till late into the night to make sure that she lived alone.

  Of course, Amber had not been the first woman to catch his eye. There had been others before her—others he had followed home to Great Falls or to Arlington or DuPont Circle. But not one of them had excited him as she did.

  The lurch of the taxi over a pothole brought him back to the moment, a couple of stray dogs yapping and leaping along the unkempt verge. He watched some kids playing with a hoop made from an old bike wheel. Not an iPad, iPhone, or MP3 player in sight. It was another world compared to the teenage kids strutting down Georgetown’s M Street, diving in and out of the bars and hangouts, irritating him with their endless whooping and high-fives.

  But then he remembered he too was no longer Lance Ruthven. Right now, he was Hank Kurtner, from Detroit, Michigan; he had no shackles—just the immediate prospect of picking up Cassie, that hooker in the Red Poppy bar. The confrontations with the limey and at the shipyard would come later.

  He sighed. He was used to diplomacy, where lies were silky smooth and nasty spats avoided by doublespeak. But the time for diplomacy had gone. If he faced the truth, it had long gone. The CEO had played him for a fool.

  The taxi bumped and lurched into Jolly Roger Drive and he took in the familiar sights from his previous visits. At last, the icy grip of Washington seemed blissfully distant. Each trip, he stayed at a different beach hotel, anxious to avoid anybody shouting Welcome back, Mr Kurtner.

  Earlier that morning, his breakfast meeting at State had ended in good time for him to catch the 10:30 a.m. flight from National to Fort Lauderdale. Among his colleagues, the word was Lance was long-week ending again at the Hilton Beach Resort in Fort Lauderdale—poor-man’s snowbirding, as he called it. The Hilton was large enough to be anonymous, right on the beach and yet not far from the airport. The price was consistent with his lifestyle but as he had no intention of staying in the suite, he resented every last dime it cost him.

  After checking in, he always stripped off his charcoal gray suit with white shirt and formal club tie and hung them neatly in the closet. A faded lime windsurfer T-shirt, Bermuda shorts and Nike Swoosh sandals completed the dress change. He moved quickly, familiar with the routine, following a pattern he had practised on previous trips. He pulled back the bedding, disturbed the sheets and then completed the makeover from Lance to Hank Kurtner.

  From the false bottom of his Gladstone bag, he removed the Kurtner passport and driving licence and donned a dark brown wig, parted on the left. It hid his ears and hung overlong at the back too, changing the shape of his head. He put pads in his cheeks and stuck on the generous black moustache. The tinted shades completed the change. He looked younger and fatter than moments before. In the room safe, he left his driving licence, Amex card and the world of Lance Ruthven. After a final check, he exited the hotel, walking with a slight limp—something he always did as Kurtner—his few spare clothes in a small rucksack hung low on his back. He told the car jockey he was going to the Ritz-Carlton but after climbing into a taxi told the driver he was short of time and to go direct to the airport instead.

  That had been just under two hours before, a thought confirmed with a glance at his watch as his Grand Bahamas taxi pulled up to the pale pink colonnades of the Marlin Hotel. It was 5:20 p.m. and the sun was setting.

  But it would rise in the morning and before then … ah yes, before then! A shower, aftershave and off to the Red Poppy bar.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Oxfordshire, England

  As he turned off the M40 to head north into rural Buckinghamshire, Ratso knew the area quite well—this was the route he often used when visiting the patients at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. For two years now, he had made a point of working with the staff to identify half-a-dozen suitable wheelchair patients to join him for a day at Lord’s or at Fulham FC’s ground at Craven Cottage. Afterwards he would treat them to a steak dinner at a pub near the hospital.

  He found it emotional to go into the National S
pinal Injuries Centre. If it was a privilege enough to walk in, it felt even more so to be able to walk out. Seeing so many people with their lives blighted by permanent paralysis brought back memories that at times he preferred to forget. He had first been to the world-famous hospital at the age of six, grappling to understand why his mother cried so much after every visit. It took him months to understand that his father was never again going to walk, run or play games with him. One single mistake and his dad’s lumbar spine had been fractured. Life could be cruel and now if he could cheer up the patients as they battled to come to terms with a lifestyle they had never expected, then he was delighted to be of help. Only a few more weeks till the day at Craven Cottage and then Lord’s in May. The thought cheered him as he puzzled over where the Range Rover was headed.

  He called his sergeants. “This is getting like a Sunday afternoon outing. They’ll be stopping for a cuppa and Mr. Kipling’s cakes in a Lay-By at this rate.”

  “Where are you, guv?” It was Tosh Watson.

  “Leafy Bucks! Wait one! To be precise, I have just left the M40 at Junction Six and am heading for Chinnor. They’re about a mile ahead. Where are you?”

  Ratso heard muttering. “Near Windsor.”

  “Windsor? What the hell are you doing near there? Lost your map? Or lost your marbles?”

  “Tea with Her Majesty … and the dawgs.” Strang, seated beside Tosh, heard the snort of irritation. “Sorry, boss! Pile-up on the M25. It’s closed, so we’re proceeding toward the A404. We’ll hit the M40 at High Wycombe.”

  “Well, if you want to join us for some exceedingly fine cakes, you’d better look sharp because … hello. They’ve turned right. Up a lane leading to … or called Kingston Hill. See it?” After only a brief silence, Strang confirmed. Ratso looked at the narrow winding track on the moving map. “Remember that Chris Rea song—‘The Road to Hell’?” He almost smiled as the Scot broke into song. “Well he could’ve been thinking of this road. More like a bleeding track. It goes effin’ here, there and nowhere. Doubles back east to God knows where.” Ratso accelerated to close the gap now. “Maybe I was right about them having a picnic.”

  “Window-steamers, are they? Bit of hanky-panky on the backseat?”

  “Maybe. But I’d say it was husband and wife. Bell me in ten.” Ratso saw the signpost to Kingston, single track. He turned in slowly and headed more or less east uphill. Then the blip on his screen stopped. It was somewhere up ahead. But maybe not on the road. Close though. “Two sugars in mine and an Angel Slice,” he muttered as he sensed a wasted trip.

  Blocking the road, he pulled up before reaching the target. He’d hoped the couple would lead him to a rendezvous. Maybe there was a meet up there. Someone who had arrived before. He had hoped for new faces or another car to photo, or even to spot cash or drugs changing hands. But out here? Anything was possible, from sighting discarded panties to a couple sitting on a fallen branch enjoying mugs of tea. After a quick call to the sergeants, he cruised slowly up the rest of the hill between the banks and tall hedges. If anybody came the other way, someone would have to do a load of reversing.

  But nobody came. He drove cautiously, all the while watching the stationary blip on the iPad. Just beyond the crest of the hill, the road kinked and as he rounded it, he saw another vehicle, perhaps a BMW or Audi saloon but just its rear view as it accelerated away far too fast for the road. The blip had not moved and he was almost upon it. The speeding car disappeared round a bend and was gone. He was now just eighty meters from the blip but of the Range Rover there was no sign.

  CHAPTER TEN

  West London

  Even without the lingering execution of the mystery man during the night before, Erlis Bardici would have been heading for Heathrow. He had never planned to use the Range Rover to get there but the night’s events had made prudence doubly necessary. Since dragging the scrawny figure feet first from under the vehicle, he had not been near it. Gagged and bound, his prisoner had been shifted within minutes into his cousin’s gray van. They had taken him the few miles to a safe house, an apartment in Sheen. At the time, he had not believed the man’s denials of placing a bug. That’s when the nail pulling had commenced. But perhaps the little man had been telling the truth. This morning, with daylight, he had found a neat little device lying on the hard standing close to the driver’s door.

  The discovery had been troubling—not because he had perhaps needlessly tortured the bastard but because it left him uncertain what to do next. The Range Rover only had 7,000 on the clock but he had nobody trustworthy to discover if another bug had been planted. Not with certainty. Not the type of certainty he needed. And no way was he driving it anywhere. Hell, there could even be an explosive device under there. Not likely but could he be sure? Not with the Hogans looking for trouble. Over his breakfast of cold meats and cheese with green tea, he weighed it all up. It was only money, a lot of money but he could buy a replacement. I could buy an effing fleet if I wanted. No way could he risk being tracked by whoever had sent the little man. No way was he going to risk being blown up by a bomb. As he poured a second cup, his mind was clear: I’m not stepping into that damned thing.

  Now as the taxi headed for Terminal Five, he could relax and relive the man’s wriggles against the belts that had held him secure to the chair. His face broke into a smile as he recalled those screams through the gag, the man’s face puce with effort, his cheeks dripping in sweat, his eyes wide open with something between defiance and fear.

  Credit to the bastard, it took nine nails before he cracked. My name’s Robbie Bracewell, he’d said but Bardici hadn’t believed him. No matter. The real name would be in the papers shortly. Whoever he was, the runt had admitted to working for those Hogan bastards from Tooting. Dan and Jerry Hogan had started supplying coke and pills to the bars and clubs round Mitcham, Morden and toward Croydon and the message he had received from the Big Man was the Hogans had to be stopped. Killed. ASAP.

  But getting both Hogans together so far had been impossible. The feelers were out. But had they bugged him as the little guy had said? It made sense. The ninth finger he had twisted slowly as he pulled the nail until all three bones, the distal, middle and proximal phalanges, were all broken, causing mind-blowing pain. But it had been effective. After careful thought over breakfast, he had selected a pay-as-you-go phone from over a dozen that he owned and constantly discarded. He rang a different cousin, in Chiswick and gave clear instructions on what he had to do.

  Such thoughts left his mind as Bardici presented his passport at the British Airways desk at Terminal Five with his ID of Mujo Zevi from the Albanian-speaking coastal resort of Ulcinj in Montenegro. His papers, for a short vacation in Florida, were checked and accepted with no hesitation despite the fact that his burly frame and height of over six feet gave him an air of danger if not actual menace, even when smiling. But the small beard and tinted contacts changed his eye color and helped create a perfect match for his false ID. The premature iron gray in his hair was now luxurious black to complete the look.

  As he accepted the offer of champagne and nuts in the Lounge, he thought ahead to his meeting in Freeport with Lance Ruthven. Of course the man would be using the name Hank Kurtner but Bardici had been well briefed by his superior, one of the lieutenants used by the Big Boss. He knew every last detail about the American. The rendezvous he had chosen was the car park of the Pink Flamingo Calypso Bar, a few miles east of Freeport. From an Internet café just round the corner and with help from Google Maps, Bardici had judged the bar to be suitably anonymous and unlikely to be busy early in the evening before the steel band arrived.

  Now, as he reclined in his Club World seat, he was looking forward to the fixing the devious shit who ran the shipyard. It wouldn’t be as pleasurable as slicing off the Irishman’s manhood with the long-handled shears. But then … yes, wasn’t it Rod Stewart who had proclaimed that the first cut is the deepest? He smiled
wolfishly. Not when I’m involved, Rod. Every cut is deep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Oxfordshire, England

  Ratso was a mere twenty meters from the Range Rover when he saw it, or rather, guessed where it was. The afternoon sky was rapidly filling with thick black smoke rising from an unmade track just to his left. He cruised forward, windows down and was hit by the pungent smell of acrid fumes at the same moment he heard the roar of a fire. A second later he saw the Range Rover engulfed in flames. Whether it had gone down with its occupants, it was already too late to tell. Petrol had obviously been thrown generously over the bodywork as well as inside before it had been fired. Roaring flames leapt skyward between the trees in the clearing and the air was already darkening with a spreading black cloud. From his own car, he took a series of photos showing the registration number but with the intensity of the fire he went no closer, taking no chances.

  Ratso knew that some smartasses reckoned fuel tanks don’t explode but the whole team had only recently watched the footage of a Los Angeles fire-fighter being blasted from close range while battling a blazing green saloon when the tank let rip. Somehow, the poor sod had survived. If the couple were inside the Range Rover, frankly he didn’t give a stuff. More likely they had been chauffeured away in the speeding saloon. He started to accelerate after it but then changed his mind. He was never going to catch it.

  He phoned Watson. It was Jock Strang who answered.