Luc: A Spy Thriller

by Greg Coppin

  He could do virtually anything he wanted.

  Breathing. I definitely heard breathing.

  Someone else was in here with me. Watching me.

  ‘Are you going to say anything?’ I asked loudly.

  No response.

  My heart was racing and I realised I was tensing my left buttock and thigh.

  The fear of the unknown. Where was I? Who was that? What was he going to do?

  I tried to relax. Control my breathing. I thought back to Falcao. I didn’t know the ins and outs of Belize politics. But my guess would be that if it was discovered that Falcao, their great warrior for justice, had been on the take all along, it would, on top of everything else that had happened, be fairly shattering for the public.

  Who could they turn to? Who could they trust?

  There was definitely breathing. And it definitely seemed louder. Or were my ears more attuned to the sound now? Either way, I could distinctly hear it. Low breathing, like a man’s. Behind me, over there on the right.

  It was a muffled sort of breathing. Almost as if the person…as if they were wearing some sort of mask.

  Why did he need a mask?

  So I didn’t see his face? Or was it to protect his face?

  From what?

  I suddenly had visions of a butcher wearing a face mask, hacking away at flesh. Blood splattering the room.

  My blood.

  God, this is what he wants. This is the reason for the silence. So that my mind can imagine the worst.

  Well it was doing that all right. Difficult bloody not - .

  ‘My name is Arkan Szolche.’

  It was a deep, quiet, slow, muffled voice. He was definitely wearing a mask. ‘My role is to obtain information that Senor Giuttieri requires. I will do it precisely and scientifically. There will be pain. There will be a great deal of pain. Eventually you will accede.’

  He let the words sink in. Allowed me time to conjure up the worst possibilities.

  Why did he tell me his name? Because he could? Because he knew he was safe to do so? Because the surest thing in the whole world was that I wasn’t going to get out of this to be able tell anyone?

  It was coming, he was telling me. The pain was on its way. And there was no way out once it arrived.

  Oh god…let me be - .

  Darkness.

  The bright light had been extinguished and I was left with bright spots in front of my eyes.

  We were alone in the dark, Szolche and I.

  He didn’t say anything. For the hundredth time.

  Amid the blanket blackness his soft, masked breathing returned.

  Szolche was playing with my nerves, stretching them out. He wanted them to snap.

  Clang. Sounded like something metal clanging in a metal bowl.

  Then a loud crunching, grating noise, as if something was moving above me.

  I realised that this must be the same man who had worked on Wilson.

  Giuttieri’s go-to man for torture.

  I lightly gasped because a droplet of something, felt like water, had fallen on my face.

  The bright light snapped back on and I suddenly found I was staring at a man’s head, hanging about two feet above my face. There was no body attached to it. He had been a man of about sixty, wispy white hair around the sides of his bald head. The brown skin now a pallid brownish grey.

  I clamped my eyes and mouth shut as blood dripped from the severed neck onto my face and throat.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Szolche said slowly. ‘I heard you wished to speak to Dr Almeira. No? Never mind.’

  The light disappeared again and darkness returned, along with the swimming white spots.

  Then the clanking, grating noise above me crunched into life again. The splattering of the blood stopped.

  Silence.

  I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t allow myself to react to Almeira’s fate. That could come later.

  The silence was the worst thing though. It allowed me time to think. I didn’t want to think. My mind was - .

  The metal clanking in the bowl.

  Then the grating, clanking movement above.

  Then the light snapped on again.

  I gasped loudly, almost yelled.

  I was staring at the severed head of a woman.

  ‘You can always book another appointment,’ Szolche said in a slow, bored drawl.

  I recognised her immediately. I’d only seen her about half an hour earlier. It was the middle aged woman with the thick black spectacles who had shown me into Dr Almeira’s room. Gruesomely, she still had the spectacles on, as if nothing was wrong. Behind her, on the ceiling, I could now faintly see some sort of metal track.

  A watery feeling in my stomach. Rising up my throat. I wanted to vomit. I could see and feel her blood dripping onto me.

  I wanted to shout. Scream. But that’s what he wanted. The man out there. Szolche. Wasn’t going to give him the bloody satisfaction.

  Darkness, as the light was switched off. And the metal pulley jolted into action again, removing the grisly Ghost Train effect of the woman’s head.

  My nerves were taut.

  I now feared the light. Feared the clanking metal.

  Would it herald another severed head?

  Whose?

  The pause again, the stringing out of the nerves.

  Then I gasped loudly, my body tensing solid, as freezing cold water, a bucketful, descended on me. I noisily tried to get my breath back.

  Pause…

  And then my entire body spasmed, constricted in on itself, hands turned to claws, lips pulled over gums, the most searing pain I’d ever...

  Release…

  Breathe. Breathe. They had electrodes on my chest. Hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t noticed them before. I could feel them now. Feel the pads.

  Again. The searing pain returned.

  Scream. Feel the constriction, the pain, the claws. There was a faint blue light in the room caused by the electricity. The electricity that was coursing through me. Scream…

  Stop. Release…

  Jesus Christ what was the method for getting through this - ?

  Again.

  Scream. And then… amid my screams… from the corner of my eye, in the faint glow of the blue light, I could see a figure. Someone standing to the right of me, at the far side of the room.

  A large man. Round. Watching.

  Just watching.

  ***

  Giuttieri.

  He was wearing a surgeon’s mask and an apron.

  Dear God in heaven, some sick individual, Ernesto Giuttieri, pretending to be a man called Arkan Szolche so that he could get his bloody jollies.

  The blue light caught his face, dead, unemotional, there was more life in the two heads I had seen. The light also flickered upon the silver buttons on the wrists of his blazer.

  It was Ernesto himself who had tortured and murdered Wilson. But Wilson had somehow managed to rip off a souvenir.

  Darkness, and my body went limp.

  Oh, you better finish me off, my friend, because I will be coming for you.

  The darkness lasted a little longer.

  Then I heard a bump and a distant crash from somewhere.

  Light flooded the room again and I steeled myself for what I would see.

  There was nothing. Just the light.

  There was a crashing sound in front of me and then a burst of rapid gunfire. To my right something dense hit the wall, and then crashed to the floor, spilling, it sounded like, metal bowls and other metallic items onto a tiled floor.

  A man in front of me said, ‘All clear, sir.’

  Footsteps entered the room. They came closer to me and then I could see the figure of a man appear into view. He peered down at me, a concerned look on his face.

  ‘Thank god,’ he said. ‘I think he’s alive.’

  I realised I knew the man.

  It was Julio Falcao.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The white tiled walls were swimming. I wa
s sat up on the bed, my forehead in one hand.

  ‘Who is he?’ I said, looking at the bullet-riddled body on the floor.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find out,’ a police officer said.

  The body was of a short man with a mass of black hair, his white surgical coat smeared and splattered with blood. An upturned metal table rested by his foot. Surgical bowls and instruments were scattered around him.

  ‘You say Ernesto Giuttieri was here?’ another policeman asked.

  I nodded. ‘I thought I saw him. Maybe I was hallucinating.’

  Giuttieri was nowhere to be seen.

  But there was a door in the rear wall which led eventually to an underground car park.

  I hadn’t thought there were two people in the room with me. But then maybe there were. Maybe Giuttieri hadn’t been pretending to be Szolche. Not if this was Szolche. But then, the body slumped on the tiled floor was not wearing any sort of facial mask.

  I didn’t know what to think. And I was hurting too much to even try.

  Falcao strode back into the room, snapping closed his mobile phone. ‘Feeling better?’ he asked me.

  ‘I’m just dandy,’ I said coldly.

  He nodded. ‘I imagine you probably still don’t trust me too much.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And that I can understand,’ Falcao said. ‘To be honest, I still can’t believe it. We’ve suspected about Monroe, my PPS, for a little while now. When in the car yesterday you mentioned Ernesto Giuttieri something clicked in my mind. I remembered the name from somewhere. Then I got it. It was on one of the documents I’d accidentally seen Monroe with. If he was working for Giuttieri then we had to know, we had to be certain. We had to let this thing play out. I’m sorry it took so long to get here.’

  I gritted my teeth.

  ‘And where is here?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re in a house in Crooked Tree.’

  I looked up at him. ‘Crooked Tree?’

  ‘That’s why it took us so long to get here. Being a security expert, Dr Almeira had a tracking device in his arm. But they were very quick. They got him and his secretary and you out of his office like that.’ Falcao snapped his fingers. ‘We were playing catch-up. I’m sorry we were too late for them.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Mr Luc,’ Falcao said looking around. ‘Do you think we could continue this conversation somewhere else? I’ll be honest, this is quite grisly.’

  Two severed heads sat quietly in a blue plastic box in the corner. A large iron hook hanging from a metal track on the ceiling occasionally dripped blood onto the white tiled floor.

  I nodded. ‘It’s not my scene, either,’ I said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  One of her smooth bare legs was poking out of the purple duvet as I came through the door carrying the tray. It was cold and raining outside, a typical London winter.

  ‘Budge up,’ I said, putting the tray on the duvet next to her and lying sideways on the bed myself.

  Becca moaned and breathed in loudly through her nose as she woke.

  ‘Morning,’ I said. ‘Try not to spill everything.’

  ‘Mm?’ Her sleepy blue eyes gazed across at me and she smiled dreamily. She stretched out both arms and knocked over the vase with the single rose in it, making a heck of a racket as the glass crashed about on the tray. She froze.

  ‘What happened? What did I do?’ Then she saw the breakfast tray. ‘Oh, Philip,’ she said, the smile returning.

  There had been no water in the vase, so I was able to just stand it and the red rose back up again.

  I pointed at the food on the tray. ‘Half a grapefruit. Special K cereal. Toast and blackcurrant jam. For some reason you don’t have marmalade. Odd. Black coffee. Give it another two minutes,’ I said, indicating the cafetière. ‘Oh, and this.’

  I leaned forward and kissed her sweet lips. For about half a minute.

  ‘Morning breath,’ she said, when we’d finished. ‘Sorry.’

  I nodded. ‘Foul. Won’t be doing that again.’ I leaned in and kissed her again. A long, lingering kiss.

  ‘I thought you said you wouldn’t do that again?’ she said.

  ‘I lie, Becca,’ I said smiling. ‘You should know that about me.’

  She smiled too. ‘I’m beginning to.’

  She sat up, her pert breasts bouncing under the ivory silk cami top. She smoothed her long, dishevelled blonde hair behind both ears and then put the tray on her lap. She looked at it, as if wondering where to start first.

  ‘I was saving that blackcurrant jam,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, lying my head back on the pillow. I knew she was joking.

  ‘Aren’t you having any?’ she asked, stabbing at the grapefruit with the spoon.

  ‘Already had something. I’ll have some of your coffee, though.’

  ‘You won’t, china,’ she said. I always enjoyed Becca trying out cockney words in her cut glass accent.

  ‘It’s happening,’ I said.

  ‘It is not happening.’

  ‘What time do you have to be in?’ I asked.

  ‘Eight a.m.,’ she said. Becca worked in an upmarket department store in Bond Street. I looked at my watch. Coming up to seven a.m. ‘Ow,’ she said, stabbing the grapefruit again and sending up a spurt of juice. ‘Right in the minces.’

  I laughed. ‘It’s usually just the one eye that gets hit.’

  ‘It’s the one eye this time too.’

  ‘I’m not an expert on your rhyming slang but mince pies, minces, is plural.’

  ‘All right, my mince pie. I squirted my mince pie.’

  ‘Now it just sounds slightly filthy.’

  She hit me playfully. ‘It stings, Philip, I’m in agony.’

  ‘Take the day off,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t take the day off.’

  ‘You’re blind in one eye, tell them.’

  ‘I shall not tell them that. I would like to keep my job, thank you.’

  ‘We could have a lot more fun here. Coffee,’ I reminded her.

  Becca pushed down on the cafetière’s plunger.

  Sitting up, leaning on one hand, I kissed her bare shoulder. ‘Take the day off,’ I said.

  ‘No.’

  I kissed her shoulder blade. I slowly pulled the loose shoulder strap of her cami down and kissed the top of her arm.

  ‘Take the day off,’ I said.

  ‘I will not.’

  ‘That’s this day. Today.’

  ‘Thank you for clarifying. However, it’s not going to happen.’

  I was kissing up around the back of her neck now.

  ‘Philip…’

  ‘I’ll get your phone,’ I said, moving to get up.

  Becca reached out for my arm. ‘I don’t need my phone,’ she said.

  ‘To ring your boss.’

  ‘I don’t want to ring my boss. I was going to suggest something to you.’

  ‘You should ring your boss first. They’ll need to know as soon as.’

  ‘I’m not going to ring my boss. It’s not my boss who I was going to suggest move in with me.’

  I looked at her. I think my mouth may have dropped open a little.

  ‘Indeed, Philip. Well, it just occurred to me. We’ll have more time to spend together and I could still work an honest day’s… well, work.’

  She continued to gaze expectantly at me.

  I didn’t say anything.

  She nodded. ‘It’s hit you unexpectedly. I can see that.’ She poured out some coffee and then started on the Special K.

  ‘We’ve been going out for three months now, Philip,’ she said in between mouthfuls. ‘I don’t believe it’s too soon. And you do live right across town. And that poky flat of yours…’

  ‘Apartment.’

  ‘Attic. Well, it’s not the most salubrious of places. I actually think it would make everything a lot easier.’

  I nodded. ‘Possibly,’ I said.

  ‘So y
ou will?’

  I shrugged. ‘Let me think about it.’

  She nodded. ‘Well, while you do, can you get some milk. You know I’ve sworn off the black coffee.’

  I kissed her temple. ‘On its way,’ I said. I swung my legs off the bed.

  Downstairs in the kitchen I opened the fridge door. And then slowly closed it again.

  I stood staring at Becca’s cork board, with her menus and photos and to-do lists pinned to it.

  I don’t really know why I did it, except, I sort of got a feeling that the walls were closing in on me. Maybe I could blame my age. I was twenty-one.

  Either way, I collected my jacket, which was by the front door, and quietly let myself out.

  Becca was beautiful, funny, clever, driven, mouth-wateringly sexy…

  I was an idiot.

  Maybe I still am.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The clean streets of Belmopan stretched out below us. I poured myself another glass of orange juice and drank it greedily. Falcao had his back to me as he gazed out at the view, shaking his head. He turned.

  ‘That evil scum,’ he said.

  I’d told him what had transpired in the white tiled room in Crooked Tree.

  ‘That was some experience you went through,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing compared to Dr Almeira and his secretary,’ I said.

  Falcao nodded. ‘Dr Almeira, Wesley, he was a good man. Hugely knowledgeable as well. He was a great man to turn to. His secretary, god, she was warm and kind and she did not deserve that.’

  ‘Is Monroe saying anything?’

  ‘We’ve got him in a holding cell two streets away. Last I heard he was silent as the tomb. But we’ll break him.’

  ‘And Giuttieri?’ I asked. ‘Are you going to bring him in?’

  Falcao shook his head. ‘On what? The house in Crooked Tree is owned by a medical charity. Sure if we took five years we could probably trace it back to Giuttieri somehow, but at the moment we have very little on him. I’m sorry, Luc, that might sound harsh after what you’ve been through - .’

  I held up a hand. ‘Don’t apologise. I agree.’

  ‘I’m one for playing it out.’

  ‘So I noticed. And again I agree. Bringing him in now would achieve very little except to slow us down.’

  ‘Do you trust me?’ he asked.

  His eyes were determined and wide and never wavered. ‘I trust you, Mr Falcao,’ I said.