Soft Target 05 - Blister

by Conrad Jones

  “You were right about those cutting torches being too hot,” he said to no one. He pushed the throttle of the L2 as far as it would go and the boat surged toward the docks. Christopher reached for his cell phone and dialled Uri.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  The old funfair

  As Uri raised the claw hammer for the second time, two things happened. Firstly, there was a deep rumbling, which sounded like thunder but louder. The soundproofing in the chop shop dulled the noise but it didn’t stop the vibration that travelled with it. The second thing to happen was, his mobile telephone began to vibrate and a shrill polyphonic ring tone echoed through the old fairground building. His eyes had glazed over and they cleared slightly as if the tone had snapped him out of a hypnotic state. The stoic expression on his face seemed to change and he lowered the hammer. Tank relaxed his muscles and breathed deeply. He was grateful for the temporary respite. The deep rent in his cheek was agonisingly painful and blood ran down his cheek and neck. It soaked into the neckline of his tee shirt, but it appeared that the onslaught had paused for the moment. Uri reached inside his jacket and removed his mobile. He looked at the screen to identify the caller and shook his head in disbelief when he recognised who it was.

  “What are you doing using your mobile to call me?” Uri snarled at the caller.

  “The radio isn’t working. I think it’s the snowstorm interfering with the signal. Anyway, where are you?” Christopher Walsh moaned.

  “I’m busy clearing up your mess, and I’m keeping the authorities off your back Christopher. You shouldn’t be using an open line to call me,” Uri turned away from Tank and headed through the maze of vehicles toward the glass walled office.

  “Shut up Uri, I need you at the docks now,” Christopher sounded panicked.

  “What is the matter?” Uri asked.

  “The river police were following us, and I caught Petre snooping about down stairs,” Christopher answered.

  “Did you go and see what he was doing Christopher, and did he see your experiment? You’ll have to take care of him if he did,” Uri ordered. “What are you doing on the river anyway?” Uri was confused and he fired one question after the other.

  “They started diving tonight. I didn’t know where you were so we began,” Christopher sounded wounded.

  “Jesus, have you recovered anything?”

  “Yes, I have the first sledge on board now and the divers were still working on the wreck when we left the site,” Christopher explained.

  “What do you mean they were still working?” Uri became seriously concerned by his employer’s demeanour and his use of the past tense.

  “I think the wreck has just blown up,” Christopher blurted.

  “Shit, I’ve heard a lot of rumbling noises, were they coming from the wreck?”

  “I’m not sure, I think so, there was a series of explosions and a fireball somewhere near the dive site.”

  “Where is Petre now?”

  “He’s dead, I had to get rid of him because the police were very close,” Christopher was frustratingly vague. “He said that the cutting torches they were using were burning too hot.”

  “Okay, so where are the police?” Uri tried to bring him back on track.

  “I scuppered their boat. They’re gone now and I’m heading back to the docks, but I need help to unload the salvage,” Christopher sounded like a lost child.

  “The place will be crawling with police.”

  “No they will not find the berth, they’ll be looking for cargo facilities and somewhere with cranes,” Christopher was adamant that he was cleverer than the police.

  “You might be right. I’ll meet you at the dock in an hour,” Uri cut off the phone call and placed the mobile in his pocket. He kicked an oil drum and it clattered across the floor. “The man is a fucking idiot!” he shouted and kicked the oil drum again. It catapulted off the ceiling and then bounced off the roof of a Jaguar hitting Victor on the head on its travels. Victor looked aggrieved but he daren’t move from his stool. Uri weaved his way through the cars again toward Tank. He stopped at the workbench where Tank’s gun was and picked it up. Uri switched the safety into firing position and chambered a bullet.

  “This is your last chance to answer the question. What operation were you investigating?” Uri placed the cold metal against Tank’s windpipe.

  “You’re going to pull that trigger no matter what I say,” Tank said smiling. His face was distorted by the ugly swelling on his cheek. “So why don’t you go and fuck yourself, pull the trigger and then look forward to spending the rest of your life in a cell next to Victor.”

  “We need to move Victor, get your car started,” Uri ordered as he pressed the gun barrel hard into Tank’s flesh.

  “Victor will be pleased if you’re his cell mate, at least he’ll have someone to look after him in the showers,” Tank goaded.

  “Why don’t you start the car and let me shoot the bastard?” Victor sneered as he approached them. He held out his hand to take the Glock from Uri.

  “Yes, give him the gun, he’s a useless prick,” Tank said nodding toward Victor. “The chances are he’ll miss and shoot me in the ear.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Victor screamed at the top of his voice. Once again Tank had riled him to the point of madness and avoided Uri’s questioning.

  Just for a split second Tank thought he had seen a green laser spot on Uri’s chest but he couldn’t be certain, it could just have been wishful thinking. Uri’s attention flickered for a moment too, and he stared into Tank’s eyes looking for confirmation of something. Tank didn’t think that he’d given any indication that he’d seen anything, but then he couldn’t be sure if he’d seen anything in the first place. Uri moved backward a step.

  “Fuck it! The operation has turned into shit anyway,” Uri said and he handed the gun to Victor with a sly grin on his face. “You have two minutes Victor, I’ll be waiting in your car.” Uri looked at Tank and smiled, and then for the second time that evening he turned and walked away toward the fire exit at the back of the chop shop, but this time he moved much quicker.

  “What do you have to say now then, big mouth?” Victor sneered into Tank’s face, revealing tobacco stained teeth. Tank could smell cigars on his breath.

  “You should try a mouth wash every now and again, your breath reminds me of my dog’s arse,” Tank laughed as he spoke. The pain in his face was terrible but it was better than a nine millimetre bullet through the head would feel. He knew that these were the last few minutes of his life unless the taskforce arrived to save him, but somehow he felt it was too late. Victor raised the gun and smashed it backhanded into the wound on Tank’s cheek. Tank grimaced and tried to suppress a cry of pain. He didn’t want to give Victor the satisfaction of knowing how much it had hurt. His eyes filled with tears as the pain in his head reached an unbearable level.

  “What’s the matter, big mouth? Did that hurt?” Victor pouted like a woman applying lipstick. “Is your face sore? Have you got nothing insulting to say before I blow your fat bald head all over the workshop?”

  “Please,” Tank whispered. His eyes flickered closed and his lips moved silently.

  “Please? Is that all that the big tough guy can manage?” Victor squeezed Tank’s face in one hand while he held the gun to his throat with the other. His finger nails dug into the vicious wound on Tank’s cheek and the pressure amplified the pain to white hot level.

  “Please I want to...” Tank’s whisper was almost inaudible. His eyes flickered slightly once more and his head lolled like a puppet with its strings cut.

  “Oh dear, what do you want tough guy?” Victor goaded and mockingly turned his face so that his ear was closer to Tank. Tank’s head flopped to the side as the strength in his body ebbed away.

  “Please...” Tank mouthed silently but no words came out.

  “Don’t die on me, big mouth, I haven’t shot you yet. What are you trying to say?” Victor laughed and turned his face some more.<
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  Tank’s eyes snapped open and he lunged his head forward like a King Cobra snake biting its prey. His teeth latched onto the meat and gristle of Victor’s left ear and he bit down as hard as he could. Victor was so shocked by the sudden attack and the pain in his ear that he dropped the gun. He tried desperately to prise himself away from the gnawing teeth. He roared in pain and cried for help but Uri had exited five minutes ago and the mechanics couldn’t hear over the noise of their machinery. Victor flailed wildly at Tank but the more he struggled the greater the pain became. Victor’s blood poured from the corner of Tank’s mouth. It mixed with his own saliva and ran down his neck. It was like a scene from a hardcore vampire movie. Tank kept his head very still to stop the ear from tearing off completely but maintained the pressure of the fierce bite. He couldn’t allow Victor to rip the ear free from his grip. If he did, Tank was dead. The pain in his cheek bone was sending flashes of white hot pain through his brain as he bit down hard, but he had to maintain the pressure despite it.

  “I’m going to kill you, let go of me, you bastard,” Victor screeched like a banshee.

  Tank grimaced through the pain and bit down harder. Victor squealed like a pig. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

  “Let go of him, I think you’re hurting him,” a voice whispered from behind him. Even with his peripheral vision, he couldn’t see where the voice had come from because of the post that Tank was tied to. Tank could feel his bonds being cut by someone, but the voice was distorted as if they were wearing a mask of some sort.

  “Where are the others?” the voice whispered as they cut through the ropes. Another taskforce agent with a respirator on his face moved swiftly in front of him. He took a black combat spike which looks like a square screwdriver and stabbed it through Victor’s temple in one swift movement. The combat spike is designed to penetrate the human skull with a modicum of force thus killing the enemy quickly, and more importantly, in silence. Tank felt Victor’s body sag as he died and he released the pressure in his bite. The body fell almost silently to the floor. Grace swooped around from behind him into his line of vision. She too was wearing a respirator.

  “Where are the others?” She asked in a whisper. She removed a small satchel from her belt and flicked it open. From it she removed a spray anaesthetic and a gauze adhesive pad. She applied a field dressing to Tank’s face in seconds. Tank pointed to the screen separator silently, indicating that the other men were behind it. Grace waved her gloved hand toward the screen and her two man squad threaded their way silently between the prestige stolen cars. Tank watched them check out the enemy’s situation on the other side of the screen before they disappeared from site. Grace looked at his wounded face and his blood soaked clothes. She looked concerned as she removed a syringe and attached a needle to it. There were three small vials of amber liquid in the pouch and she removed one of them and extracted the liquid into the syringe. Tank felt a slight scratching pain as she injected it into his upper arm.

  “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “Three or four broken ribs I think. All of them on the left hand side.”

  “Pull up your tee shirt,” she ordered as she rummaged through her field kit.

  “You’re so romantic,” Tank joked as he lifted up his clothes. He winced with pain as he moved.

  “Shut up Tank, this isn’t funny,” Grace never cracked a smile as she applied a pain relieving freeze spray to his ribcage before wrapping him up with a roll of thick splint tape to give him some support when he moved.

  “I’m sorry, I was joking,” Tank offered an apology. He began to feel the drug affecting him immediately as it coursed through his brain.

  “Save it for the Major,” she replied sharply. She looked away from him as the sound of suppressed automatic machinegun fire drifted from behind the screen. There were three bursts of fire and then her team returned. They ran their fingers across their throats to indicate that all the mobsters were eliminated. Tank noticed that the grinding machines had fallen silent. His brain felt like sponge but the pain was ebbing away.

  “What’s with the respirators?” Tank asked, his speech slightly slurred. Modern films depict Special Forces as always wearing gasmasks but it isn’t always the case. They are only worn when the use of incapacitating gas is considered likely.

  “There has been an explosion in the bay and a river police launch has been fired on,” Grace explained. She turned to her men, “we don’t know if it involves the blister agent yet but we can’t take any chances. Help me with Tank.” Tank winced in pain as the two men stood either side of him to give him support. They moved him toward the door.

  “Wait, one of them left through the rear fire exit. He’s the one that we need to follow, I’m sure of it,” Tank gasped. “He was questioning me about an Eastern European operation and he was very concerned about it. If anyone knows anything, it’s him.”

  “Okay let’s move out and see exactly where he is headed,” Grace ordered. She left her men to support Tank and weaved her way through the cars to the fire exit.

  “Grace, wait!” Tank gasped. He was struggling with the pain from his broken ribs and the drug was affecting his thought process.

  Grace turned and took up a defensive firing position before looking at Tank to see what the problem was.

  “He was military trained, I’m sure of it. I think he knew that you had arrived too,” Tank was piecing together the way Uri had left shortly after the laser dot had flickered on him. A normal untrained man would not have noticed it at all until the high velocity round smashed through his breast bone and ripped his internal organs to shreds.

  Grace made an okay sign with her finger and thumb and approached the fire exit. It had been left slightly ajar. She turned and fired two shots at the ceiling. The bank of fluorescent tubes disintegrated into white powder and the chop shop was plunged into darkness. Grace switched on a laser sight and scanned the crack between the door and the frame. She was looking for a tripwire or metal filament that could trigger a booby trap but there was nothing to be seen. She moved swiftly and kicked open the fire exit. The beach road was deserted and the snow was six inches thick at least. There was a wide fresh set of tyre marks in the snow, which headed from the beach road down onto the sand.

  “It looks like our x-ray is headed along the beach,” Grace turned to Tank and his supporters. X-ray was the term sometimes used for an unknown enemy. “Is the pain any easier?”

  “Yes, the drugs are starting to kick in now,” Tank replied in a garbled drawl. Field dressings are laced with various pain killing drugs of various strengths. Their use is dependent on how serious the wounds are. Faz had given him a morphine based dressing because of the severity of the injury. She had also injected him with a double shot of the drug itself. Tank wasn’t aware that the side of his face had been caved in by the last hammer blow which Victor had dealt him. He had a depressed fracture of the cheekbone, which needed urgent medical attention.

  “We need to get you out of the city to the perimeter as quickly as possible. The evacuation will be underway already,” Grace signalled for her men to move toward their vehicle.

  “I’ll be fine, Grace,” his speech was slurred and he sounded drunk.

  “You’re not fine, you’re a liability to the team,” she replied without looking at him. “One of my men will take you out of the city. The other will come with me in pursuit of the x-ray.”

  “Bollocks,” Tank spat the word. “We’ll go as a unit or not at all.”

  “You have a depressed fracture of the cheek bone, at least three broken ribs and a suspected broken jaw. Just how much use do you think you’ll be in a fire fight?” Grace grabbed his arm and looked hard into his eyes. “The weather is closing in and we suspect that a blister agent is about to drift ashore which will turn anyone left in the city into violent rabid animals. You’re going to hospital right now.”

  “I’m in charge of this unit and I give the orders. We are going to follow those track marks an
d find that man because I think he will lead us to Christopher Walsh,” Tank tried to remain calm and in control but he was fast losing the power of speech. “What did you inject me with?”

  “It was a big jab of common sense because I knew you’d be a stubborn pain in the ass,” Grace said as Tank passed out. “Put him into his pickup and get him to the nearest check point. Here put this respirator on him.” The three taskforce agents lifted their broken leader and carried him back into the chop shop. They placed him into the passenger seat and reclined it fully before strapping him in with the safety belt. Grace looked at his swollen features and felt a pang of guilt for injecting him but she couldn’t assess exactly how bad the damage was beneath the swelling visually, he needed hospital treatment. If the suspect x-ray stayed on the beach then he was heading toward the Seaforth docks area of the city and that was where the rogue lightship had been sailing. Chen and his team were heading there too. She took one last look at Tank before she closed the door of the pickup.