“About just under an hour and a half I should think sir, if the traffic remains as light as it has been.”
“Very good. I’ve got time to call home, then.”
“Plenty of time, sir.”
He pressed his speed dial button on his phone and held the device close to his ear. The call was answered on its third ring.
“Hatts, it’s me. How are you? How are the boys?” He listened for a while, looking bemused, peering at his watch to check the time.
“But it’s nearly nine o’clock, they should be in bed.” He listened some more. “Oh, alright then, if you’re happy about it. It’ll be lovely to have a quick chat.”
He looked at Beck and said quietly, his hand over the receiver, “Want to hear something amusing?”
“Of course.”
He pressed the loudspeaker button on his phone and together they waited, both sensing some kind of crescendo building. Zeltinger was imagining the twins thumping down the stairs racing to be first on the phone.
“DADDY!’ the screamed chorus suddenly filled the car. Zeltinger, seeing that Beck like himself was laughing, gave her a wink in the rear view mirror before turning the speaker off and continuing the conversation privately.
“Boys, boys boys! What are doing so wide awake at nine o’clock at night, you mischievous scamps? Why aren’t you tucked up in bed snoring loudly and letting your poor mother have some peace and quiet, so tell me? Am I such a bad father that I have taught you nothing?”
“YES!” comes back the reply from both twins, an infectious sound that sets everyone giggling.
109
Near Wigmore Street, London
After leaving the army, the Scorpion had considered a career as a professional burglar. He was still tempted, despite being paid handsomely by the security services because of his specialist skills. He knew most of the tricks of the burglar’s trade. Ironically he had learnt most of them at the taxpayers’ expense.
If he’d been a thief, the Scorpion would have been a cat burglar. Slender, wiry, super-agile and strong as an ox, in Hereford he had become something of a legend at scaling the outside of buildings. He was able to use his size, strength and agility to climb drain pipes and leap from window ledges to obscure handholds. In no time at all he was usually able to reach insurmountable rooftops that would otherwise have only been attainable via a long rope down from a hovering helicopter. Climbing a four-storey apartment block in Central London had been child’s play.
His objective for the last hour and a half on the roof of this particular block had been surveillance. Careful to avoid heavy footsteps on the roof itself, the Scorpion had moved stealthily around the parapet, dropping tiny cameras and sophisticated listening devices down the outside of the building. There were six apartments on each floor, thus a total of twelve possible flats where the Chinese man called Cheng could be holed up with his two hostages.
Of the twelve, four were currently dark, with no lights or sounds emanating, leaving eight others to be investigated. Of these, a further three had the curtains on their outside windows open allowing the Scorpion to use his tiny cameras to see inside each of the rooms. After some time he was able to cross these off his list as well.
Which left five possibles: two on the top floor and three on the floor below. It had taken him an hour to whittle the initial list of twelve down to five, and it took the next forty-five minutes to eliminate another two based on conversations he had been able to listen in to. So he was down to three probables: two on the top floor and only one on the floor below. One in particular was a strong candidate. Just once the Scorpion thought he had detected the muffled sounds of a crying baby coming from an inner room.
110
Near Reims
Hiring a rental car using a false identity and papers had its advantages. Not least because it meant that Sui-Lee felt no obligation to abide by any of the French motorway speed limits. She had been averaging nearly one hundred and sixty kilometres an hour on the motorway from Calais, enough to get her arrested if the French police caught her. However, she was hardly bothered about them: if they were foolish enough to try and stop her then she would simply have to take care of them. Permanently.
She was passing a large service area to the south of Reims when her phone rang. It was Cheng.
“Where are you?” he asked her.
“Just passing the outskirts of Reims. What news?”
“Lewis has apparently left the motorway near Reims, heading towards Épernay. How far away from you, is that?”
On the roof terrace above the apartment, the Scorpion was listening to the conversation. He recognised the dialect as being Wu Chinese, most likely Shanghainese. Interesting. As a fluent Mandarin speaker, he could understand only about fifty per cent of what they were saying. However, that had been sufficient.
“Amazingly close, about three minutes from the turn off. Do we know where he’s heading?”
“I’m working on that.”
“Are you monitoring all the cell phones?”
“Constantly. I’ll let you know if I hear something.”
“Don’t leave me wandering around aimlessly. I need to know where I should be going. How are our guests?”
“Giving me no problems.”
“Good. Call back soon.”
“Okay, I’ll do my best.”
The Scorpion felt confident enough in his own abilities that he was minded to conduct the takedown on his own. However, this was a hostage situation. The rulebook said he should only proceed with back up. That was the bureaucrats for you. An active cell was on standby in nearby Marylebone, less than five minutes away. He reached for his secure phone.
“Snake, this is Scorpion,” His voice was so quiet that even someone standing next to him would barely have heard anything.
111
Near Épernay
The first thing Lewis knows for certain is that he is in trouble.
It feels as if his skull has been split open. His body has been bouncing around the inside of the moving van, the van’s movements causing his head to lurch painfully against the grooves in the metal flooring. His mind has been drifting, drifting in and out of consciousness. He has been dreaming, dreaming about falling into a deep, restful and restorative sleep. ‘Wake up, Marine, dreaming is for drifters.’ He has been hearing this voice in his head. Perhaps it was his former colour sergeant? ‘New orders, my lad, it’s time to play dead. No movements and no sounds from now on. Only the dead hear secrets not intended for the living.’ So it is that snatches of conversation begin permeating his consciousness. It happens slowly at first. Gradually as he becomes more fully awake he begins to fit the pieces together, all the while keeping his body as still as a corpse. The pain in his head makes him want to wince; several times he has to fight back nausea. But despite everything, he never moves; he never makes a single sound.
He passes the time by checking off knowns and unknowns. Knowns include the fact that he is alive and essentially unharmed, although he also knows that his head will be sore for a while yet. He also knows that they have left the motorway. In amongst his dreaming he believes he heard Panich saying that they were heading for an airstrip near Épernay. He doesn’t know this yet for a certainty. Other knowns include the fact that there are only the two of them, Panich and one other, the driver. The one who hit him with what he assumes was a metal bar. Lewis is looking forward to the retribution already. He is fairly certain that they are in the infamous white Mercedes van. Also, he knows that his hands and legs are not tied, a major mistake by his captors. Advantage Lewis. And when they get to where they are taking him, he knows that they will try and find the journalist’s phone. In the process, there has to be a good chance that they will also, therefore, find the key. Finally he knows with absolutely certainty that once they get to wherever they are taking him
and have discovered one or more of these two things, they intend to kill him.
The unknowns are slightly more problematic. He doesn’t know whether Holly will know what has happened to him. He assumes, but doesn’t know, that she is safe. He has no idea whether she will have seen him being bundled unconscious into the back of the Mercedes van or not, but has to assume not. He doesn’t believe that anyone else will know that he has been captured either. If Holly didn’t see the kidnapping, he doesn’t know but presumes that she will think he simply has done a runner. He doesn’t know whether Zeltinger is on the case as far as trying to catch up with Panich, but presumes not. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, he doesn’t know at this moment in time, how he is going to escape.
Yet.
The escape plan is going to require some seriously cunning moves.
112
Near Épernay
The countryside on the road to Épernay was completely flat, more like mini-prairies than rural France. The roads, too, were as straight as a die. Driving along in the dark with clear skies and a crescent moon visible low in the sky behind them, they were able to see for miles. Periodically Stefan found himself checking for signs of other cars in his rear view mirrors. However the road from the motorway junction was deserted. They hadn’t seen another car in either direction for over twenty kilometres.
After some time, Panich indicated that they were getting near. Stefan hit the brakes and the van began to slow, eventually turning to the left down a narrow strip of asphalt that led into inky darkness.
Contrary to Panich’s prediction, there were trees scattered around. In the van’s headlights, they could make out a thicket on what had once been the southern boundary of the grass airstrip. Immediately on their left was a Nissen hut made of corrugated iron looking old and weather worn. Panich told Stefan to park the van next to it on the hard standing, the surface concrete full of cracks and crevices but nonetheless serviceable.
It looked and felt deserted. In both Panich and Stefan’s mind it looked perfect.
They both got out, having first checked that Lewis wasn’t stirring. Panich had prodded him with his gun, satisfied by the complete absence of any response.
“You stay close to the van while I take a look around.”
The Nissen hut was exactly as he remembered. Two years ago, there had been a door, now it had disappeared, rusted away most likely. He had kept his agent hidden inside whilst they had waited for the light aircraft to make its night landing. Panich recalled that he had used flares to mark the airstrip. It had been a bumpy and difficult landing, the pilot nearly losing control as his nose wheel had bobbed up and down on the lumpy grass strip. They had managed to get their asset away, however, and that was all that mattered. Now the inside of the hut was substantially empty. There were a few rusty cans and oil drums scattered in amongst numerous items of disused equipment. Otherwise it was deserted – and completely dark. There were no skylights and no electricity was connected.
It was going to be a great place to leave a body. With luck, it might go undetected for years.
Panich wandered back outside and found Stefan leaning against the van playing with his phone.
“The place is perfect. Come on, let’s get him out the back and try and wake him. I want the pleasure of Lewis being able to see the bullets that eventually kill him. Before that, you and I need to give him a final reminder of good old-fashioned Russian hospitality, don’t you think?”
“It seems only fitting, given all the trouble he’s been causing us.”
Panich let Stefan unlock the van’s rear doors, standing a metre or two behind him in case Lewis gave them any trouble.
113
Near Épernay
Holly had been motoring with her lights off since leaving the motorway. She had never felt so scared in all her life. The decision to drive like this had been made for her the moment she had seen how completely straight, flat and devoid of traffic the road was. There simply had been no way she could have remained concealed from the Mercedes if she had continued with any form of lights on, either headlights or side lights.
The van was about half a kilometre ahead. On this straight road, she’d been happy to keep a good distance between them. Amongst her wishful thinking had been the remote hope that a local gendarme might stop her: her French was rusty but she felt confident that she would have been able to commandeer help in following the van. In reality, it had proved fanciful. Even the tiny villages they had passed through had been deserted.
Some time later, in the middle of open countryside between two hamlets, the brake lights on the Mercedes van suddenly glowed red. Immediately Holly took her foot off the accelerator, prepared to use the handbrake if necessary rather than risk depressing her own brake pedals. She had no desire for her own taillights to illuminate in the dark. Slowing to a crawl she watched as the van turned left down a deserted track. With limited ability to follow, Holly rolled her car to a halt on the verge beside the main road and watched the path of the van. Its headlights were slowly weaving across open country before coming to a halt a few hundred metres away next to what looked in the dim light to be some kind of hut.
Was this where they were taking Lewis to kill him?
114
Near Épernay
Life on the road as a field agent could be a disproportionate mix of lows and highs. There were times when, almost at every turn, luck ran against you. Equally, however, there were moments when the cards unexpectedly turned in your favour. Where against all the odds and despite recent setbacks, one took a gamble and ended up being lucky.
Sui-Lee was actually less than two kilometres away from the exit junction that both Panich and Holly had taken by the time her conversation with Cheng had ended. At the speed she had been travelling, very quickly she was taking the off-ramp that led to the tollbooth pay station. It was when she got to the roundabout by the main road that she had to toss the coin. Heads she went right towards Châlons. Tails she went left to Épernay.
She chose tails, and found that luck was on her side.
She had been travelling no more than five minutes, driving at reckless speed along the dead-straight open country road when in the distance she saw a car driving without lights: a white car, similar to her own.
Was it possible that this could be Lewis?
115
Épernay
Lewis knows the moment is approaching. He also knows that if he lets them take him from the van at gunpoint, he will be as good as dead. One bullet in each calf will stop him from running and another in each hand will prevent him from fighting. Then what? One in each knee as retribution for the pain Lewis inflicted on Panich’s colleagues? And what about the woman who was killed by the bomb in his flat? No, Panich is a killer. This isn’t a Hollywood scene where the victim has a nice fireside chat with the bad guys before they decide to get nasty with him. This is a real life and death situation. If he allows them to take him at gunpoint, Panich is quickly going to start shooting. If that happens, Lewis is going to die.
Which means that Lewis has only one option. He has to come out the van fighting. It is his only chance.
It’s too bad that they forgot to restrain him.
Panich has gone walkabout and the other character that Panich called Stefan appears to be leaning against the van. Lewis can feel the gentle rocking motion periodically.
So, when the door opens, what is Lewis going to do? Continue to play dead? Let them drag him out and onto the hard deck before he springs into action the moment they try to resuscitate him? Or leap out like a wild animal as soon as the doors are opened, surprising his victims by the speed, energy and unexpected nature of the attack?
It’s an easy decision. Lewis has already done enough playing dead to last a lifetime.
He hears voices again. Panich is approaching. It is almost the
moment.
Lewis recalls the scene behind the café in Praed Street that morning. He had been behind another door then as it had flung open, him against two more Russians as it happened. It had been his white against their black, each with their GSh-18s and matching black uniforms. Back then he had debated the merits of slamming the door back in their faces, but had rejected it. It wouldn’t have been his best attacking move.
Now the tables are turned. This is a different game altogether. He finds himself on the other side of a door that is going to open outward, away from him. He again debates the merits of slamming the door open. This time he’d be pushing his entire body weight against it, slamming it outward into the face of the unsuspecting Russian called Stefan. It is akin to playing an attacking chess move when your opponent thinks you are in a corner. Do the unexpected and come out fighting. Lewis loves the idea. It is Spassky playing Larsen all over again. The venue is Belgrade, the year 1970. Spassky, in the weaker position, springs his rook to h1 on his fourteenth move. It is totally unexpected, a genius move, a complete game changer. Three moves later, the game is all over, Spassky the surprise victor.
Lewis needs his own Rh1 move right now. He is almost out of time.
The one unknown is where will Panich be standing? He’ll be the one with the gun. Stefan will have his put away whilst he opens the van door. So Panich will be behind Stefan for sure, but on which side? Logically it will be on Stefan’s left side, to the right from Lewis’s perspective as he leaps from the van. It is the only place that makes sense.
So the game plan is a forward charge into the opening rear door, a power leap out of the van directly into the direction of where he believes Panich will be standing. Next a possible sideways kick into Stefan’s face as his opponent falls stunned to the ground. Last but not least, in a manner to be determined, the disablement of Panich’s gun hand.
The Dossier (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 1) Page 24