Death Trip

by Lee Weeks

  ‘We knew we had to get out.’ She looked up at Mann, experiencing the terror all over again. ‘The water in the room was starting to rise. We were already waist deep in it. Daniel led us outside to the landing and there were the steps to the roof. We looked up—we could see that there were others there. One girl was crying below us. Her mother was trapped. We were running up the stairs. I looked at Daniel and I knew he was not going to come with us. I knew he was turning back, looking at the water rushing in at the base of the stairs, it surged so fast and strong and…I knew that he was going to go and help her and I knew that…’ She stopped and her voice broke as a sob caught her breath. She clasped her hand to her mouth to stop it from escaping and she squeezed her eyes shut to try and hold back the wrenching sorrow that was about to erupt from her throat. She took a few deep breaths and stared out at the passersby, the tourists and the backpackers, the pigeons and the children playing, and then she turned back, her eyes swimming with tears.

  ‘I would have given my life for his but I could not stop him. He said to me, “I love you, Mum”, and he was gone, swallowed by the water. We found his body four days later.’

  She stared at Mann, stony pale now. ‘I had to identify him. He was lying in a row of hundreds of bodies. I saw him from the far end. I knew it was him right away. I recognised his big feet.’ Her face strained as she smiled. She caught her breath for a few seconds. ‘Ever since he was a baby he had very big feet.’ She looked at Mann, her eyes now blue icebergs swimming in an ocean of sorrow. ‘It’s been sixteen months and twenty-three days since your brother, Daniel, died.’ She turned back. ‘Please, I cannot lose both my sons.’

  Mann looked at her and he felt something he never thought he would—loss for a brother he had never met. He felt the hollowness inside him fill. He knew Magda was right. He had to save Jake.

  14

  Burma

  The next morning Saw had not returned and the five set off under the leadership of the three deputies. Toad was leading Anna by the neck. Thomas and Silke were near her at the back and Jake was just behind Lucas at the front.

  ‘This is it, Lucas. This is our chance.’ Jake spoke to Lucas’s back as they pulled themselves up the steep hill. Lucas didn’t answer; he seemed to be finding it tough going. Jake looked back at Anna. She fixed her eyes on his and he knew she agreed; this was the time. Silke looked at the same time and she moved closer to Anna.

  Handsome came alongside and ordered Jake and Lucas to walk quicker. Jake pretended to have a burst of speed but Lucas couldn’t manage anything. He had been walking slowly all morning and he’d been quiet. Jake waited till Handsome passed before he spoke to Lucas.

  ‘Hey, Lucas…Wassup, dude? You all right?’ He seemed to be stumbling more than walking.

  Lucas answered but he didn’t turn around.

  ‘Just so fucking tired. I’ll be all right.’

  Jake looked over at the distant hills that were catching the first pink rays of the sun. ‘We need to go for it now. Saw isn’t here.’

  ‘Yes. We’ll do it now.’ Lucas still didn’t look at Jake.

  ‘What is it, Lucas?’

  ‘My stomach kills.’

  Either side of them, Saw’s men fanned out into the forest. The mule, laden with bags, plodded on, snorting as it went. The five porters were bent double beneath the weight of their heavy packs.

  Jake looked back at Anna. He wished she wasn’t the one tied to Toad but he could see that Toad’s hold on her was slackening. He was finding it hard work, winding his way upwards through the trees. Jake could see he was ready to let go and so could Anna. She fixed him with a look that said, ‘It’s time.’

  Jake whispered to Lucas, ‘It’s now, Lucas. Let’s fall back a bit more.’

  Lucas didn’t answer but his feet slowed to almost a stop.

  Jake looked behind; Anna and Toad had nearly caught up with them. Toad was distracted; he was looking at his feet. He had let go of the rope. Jake looked at Thomas; he nodded back. Jake bent down and picked up a stout piece of branch and kept it hidden against his body. He looked back at Thomas. He had done the same. Thomas had a look in his eye that told Jake he wasn’t going to back down. They would hit him, one from the back, one from the front. Silke slipped in behind Anna. The others slowed until they were just in front of Toad and Anna. Jake turned the branch in his hands and gripped the end with both hands. Thomas stood behind Toad’s shoulder—Thomas was ready. Jake looked up at Lucas.

  ‘You ready, Lucas?’

  Lucas didn’t answer.

  ‘NOW!’

  But Lucas wasn’t looking at Jake, he was stumbling. Lucas grabbed at a branch to try and steady himself; it snapped off in his hand and he smashed his shoulder into the tree trunk and slipped to the ground. He lay there panting and Jake looked up to see Saw was looking straight at him.

  15

  After Mann had left for the airport, Alfie followed Katrien out of the NAP offices and watched her get into a cab. He got on his bike and followed. An expensive-looking woman like her wasn’t going to live far out of town. He was right: she lived the other side of the Jordaan. She had an apartment overlooking a wide cobbled avenue in the rich part of town. He stayed out of sight, watched her get out of the taxi and then waited outside. He saw the light go on on the top floor. He saw her reflection in the window as she drew the curtains. Now he was sure of where she lived he would come back the next morning.

  Katrien finished fixing her makeup in the bathroom. She chopped up a fat line of coke on a mirror and snorted it through a five-hundred-euro note. She never got over the thrill of snorting coke using big money: the smell of the money and the high from the coke went together. She closed her eyes and screwed up her face as the pain hit the top of her nose, between her eyes. She sniffed hard and set herself out another line for later. When she’d finished checking her makeup, she rested her foot on the side of the bath and twisted around to fasten her stocking. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror. It didn’t get much better than this—coke and money and sex. She congratulated herself: Katrien was a clever girl and she wasn’t going to let anyone fuck it up for her. Things might not have gone to plan but she would still come out of this a winner. She finished putting on her stockings, her lacy black thong and her peephole bra, before slipping on her black six-inch stilettos. She walked out of the bathroom but then doubled back to snort the other line. Back in the bedroom she poured herself a glass of Bollinger and sat down to wait for her PC to start up.

  ‘Hello, darling.’ She pouted into the camera, dipped her finger into the cold glass of Bollinger and ran it beneath the lace of her bra cup as she played with her nipples. ‘Have you been a good boy? Because I’ve got something nice for you—you’re going to like it. Are you ready?’

  There was a pause as she read the typed reply.

  Katrien gave a stamp of her stiletto.

  ‘Don’t ask me that now—you’ll spoil the mood. No, I didn’t find it yet…I have told you, I will get it. We will have revenge one way or another. Remember, it wasn’t just your life that was ruined. Now, stay calm. Move them north. Hand them over and we will get what is rightfully ours. It will all be over soon, my darling. Anyway…’ She rolled her eyes and smiled. ‘I know you care about that, don’t you, my darling? But this is also something you care about, isn’t it? I have a surprise for you that you are going to like very much.’ She stood and played with the tie sides to her panties. ‘Are you ready?’ She undid the sides of her panties and let them fall. She adjusted the chair so that the webcam could see her and she sat down and opened her legs wide, leaned into the webcam and whispered, ‘I have seen him. The game has started.’

  16

  The next morning Alfie waited until Katrien went to work, then he parked outside her apartment and buzzed all of the flats until someone kindly released the front door catch. He headed up the stone staircase to the top floor. He walked to the door and took out his handy breaking-in kit, which he had used when he was a waywar
d youngster and which still served him today as a cop.

  He was a little out of practice and it took him a few minutes, but soon enough he was in. The alarm started beeping. Alfie slipped a small tin from his pocket, flipped it open and pulled out what looked like a woman’s makeup brush with a powder canister attached. He brushed the keypad, leaving a trace of charcoal on three numbers on the pad. The alarm beeped faster, louder. Alfie looked at the four dark squares: one, nine and six. Now, what was the order? He tried them numeric ally. ‘Error’ came up on the pad; he pressed clear and thought about it. She was forty. He knew that much. He pressed one, nine, six and six, the year she was born—and the alarm stopped beeping. Alfie held his breath—was it about to go ballistic? He waited, ready to run, but no. Alfie stepped inside. He raised his eyebrows and looked around appreciatively. She had good taste. It was the opposite of his and Magda’s place. This was chic and minimal—and very expensive. It was gadget world. He had no idea how she afforded this kind of luxury on her salary. The kitchen was black marble, as was the bathroom. Alfie looked at the mirror beside the bath; he wet his finger and dabbed it on the white trail, then he tasted it.

  He walked into her bedroom, animal fur, teak furniture, black walnut floor. For a minute he thought it doubled as an office because it had a PC, until he saw the biggest webcam he had ever seen. She was big into Skype, thought Alfie. He jogged the table as he passed and the screen lit up.

  She had left herself signed in. Big mistake, thought Alfie. He sat down at her desk and opened her contacts. She had ten new emails. He guessed this was a personal account. Not many people called themselves katcream69, not at work anyway. He opened her emails. Most of them were from different men. They appeared to be clients, lovers. That must be how she afforded this apartment, thought Alfie; either Katrien was a highly paid call girl or she dealt in some heavy-duty drugs. One of them was an appointment for the following day, Friday, at the Erotica Museum. Alfie tried to access her other accounts. Two others came up when prompted. Alfie pressed the link for ‘forgotten password’. He was presented with two queotions. The place she was born and her favourite colour. He wrote down the email addresses and shut the PC down.

  Alfie got outside and called his friend in surveillance—he would need a concealed camera. He smiled to himself. Now Alfie was about to uncover a lot more about Katrien than she would willingly show him. He might not fancy her but the Bitch performing sex acts on the webcam, that was too good to miss; and now he knew she had deep dark dirty secrets she really didn’t want anyone finding out.

  That night katcream69 signed in again.

  Yes…Show me.

  ‘What do I get, Big Man?’

  You know what you get. You get my undivided attention. You get my devotion.

  Katrien laughed. ‘What else? Say it. It makes me excited to hear it.’

  You will be richer than you’ve ever imagined.

  ‘I have a rich imagination.’ She giggled. ‘But you’re right. I can’t wait to be able to cut out the middle men and grow my own opium, and then we’ll all be rich. But, for now, we’re still reliant on those greedy drug baron friends of yours. Is the next shipment ready to come over?’

  They want to wait. They’re getting nervous.

  ‘No waiting, this is the time to act. We need all the funds we can get hold of if we are. Are they ready for him in the hills?’

  Everything is in place, as long as he doesn’t fuck it up.

  ‘He won’t. This means everything to him.’

  The only thing that means anything to him is revenge.

  ‘And I have seen to that. We will all have what we want from this. Each one of us will come out a winner.’

  Show me.

  She slipped the bra straps off her shoulders and rolled her hard nipples between her fingers.

  17

  Hong Kong

  Mann came off the night flight from Amsterdam, took the first high speed train of the morning into Hong Kong, followed by the MTR link to Central, and then went on to his flat in Tai Koo Shing. He was glad to be back. He was always glad to return; Hong Kong was always in Mann’s heart, she always drew him back home. But he didn’t like getting back to his empty flat. It held nothing but memories for him.

  He punched in his door code, said hello to the doorman and took the lift up to his floor. Stepping out onto his landing should have felt good but it didn’t. Every time he came back he realised he should sell the place, but the same memories that made it hard to live there made it impossible to leave.

  He opened the door and the smell of floor cleaner and window polish greeted him. His cleaner had to work overtime to find something to clean. He looked around: same plasma TV, same two chairs and same rattan elephant table with a glass top. Same everything, except him.

  He took his bag into the bedroom and unpacked it on the bed. He tried to ignore the look of the crisp white cotton and the thought of the last woman to have slept in this bed. Two years after Helen had left in the taxi, Georgina showed up. He remembered the first time he’d seen her in Club Mercedes. His eyes had started at the feet and worked their way up. And his heart had stopped more than once. She had made him feel alive again, but that was when Helen’s body had turned up and all hell broke loose. He took his eyes away from the sheets and the memory of Georgina wrapped in them and knew he had to acclimatise and to think things over. His head was in turmoil. The gym helped him think. His body was designed to be used. If he didn’t, it got tetchy. He saw his body as his tool, his weapon and his protection—it was vital to keep it strong and supple. He stood six foot and two inches and weighed fourteen stone. Mann worked out most days. His body was firm and lithe, naturally muscled without being bulky. He had studied weight training schedules and alternated high reps and light weights days with maximum power days and he ran ten kilometres every other day. He liked being powerful but he didn’t like it showing. He liked to be light on his feet—he needed to be. He went to the gym on the top floor and spent an hour running through everything in his head. Magda had opened up new roads to emotions he had either buried or didn’t even recognise. The feelings he had towards Jake had unlocked his memories of his father. Jake was the same age Mann had been when Deming was murdered. At the time when Mann was pinned down and made to watch his father’s execution, Magda must have been nursing a newborn, Jake. That summer had changed Mann forever. And this one would change Jake. If he survived this he would never be the same. He would be strong, resilient but also vulnerable. He would always have an Achilles’ heel, just like Mann. Mann hadn’t got the answers to his questions about his father’s death and that was one of the reasons he had accepted Magda’s invitation. He wouldn’t rest until he knew everything he could about his father. Maybe Magda held one big piece of the puzzle over his execution. There were few coincidences in life: Deming died at the same time as he had a secret family on the other side of the world. If there was a connection, Mann would find it.

  18

  Saw ran past, distracted, and stopped to talk to Toad. He was agitated and preoccupied.

  ‘Shit! Lucas, get up, quick.’ Thomas and Jake looked at one another and both knew that the moment had gone. Toad had looked up just as Lucas fell at his feet and called ahead to Weasel.

  ‘Watch it, Lucas, Weasel is coming,’ Jake said as Weasel’s tall, lanky frame trotted back, his pin head swivelling round to watch them and his small shifty eyes always looking for someone to inflict pain on.

  Lucas didn’t answer. His hands were tied and he struggled to lift himself from the ground.

  Weasel was over him in a flash. He grinned and tilted his head from side to side as he looked at Lucas struggling. He picked up a stick and jabbed Lucas with the point of it. Lucas flinched and groaned as the stick found its mark. Weasel giggled manically. He jabbed at Lucas like a cat toying with a mouse. Jake stepped forward between them and knelt down to help Lucas. He managed to get his hand under Lucas’s shoulder and started to help him to his feet but Weasel put h
is foot against Jake’s back and pushed him down on top of Lucas. He held his foot against Jake’s back as he kept him squashed on top of him. Lucas groaned in pain. Toad appeared beside them. At first the tone of his voice was jokey, then it became serious and Weasel reluctantly released his foot. Jake got another hold of Lucas and helped him up.