Sunstrike_The next gripping Commander Shaw thriller

by Philip McCutchan

  “I know,” I said gently. “I’ve made a balls of it all and I’m damn sorry.” I took her in my arms and held her close and felt her tears on my face and her breasts pressing against my chest and I thought of that first time in the comparative peace of the cottage in Avebury in Wiltshire: we had come a hell of a long way since then and in a remarkably short space of time, time that even now could be spoken of in little more than days. It had become a fast world … too damn fast, too damn close, too damn dirty. In many ways I wouldn’t be all that sorry to leave it, having grown somewhat disillusioned with it, but it was obvious Felicity didn’t want to die yet. I let her have her cry on my shoulder and then I disengaged and pulled off my shirt and undid hers. She came to me with passion, making it a kind of last time that had to be good and satisfying and I think I failed her to some extent because already I had my mind roving over the next step ahead, which was not going to be at all pleasant and held extreme danger as well. When passion had subsided I heard the heavy breathing that I was sure indicated a watchful and overheated Nodd sitting glued to the telly, and I began to act up ready for what was to come next. I lifted my head and screwed up my eyes as though listening, then I gave a convincingly sudden scowl as of the dawning, angrily, of realisation; and I got up with a swift and disgusted movement and draped my shirt around the forced-draught inlet which was, I was certain, the only place a hidden TV camera could have its seeing eye placed. Nodd was now cut off — and I knew I was right when the equally hidden microphone gave a hiss of disappointment. I was ready to bet that Nodd wouldn’t send in his guards on a shirt removal expedition just yet: voyeurs seldom like being found out, so he would wait a decent interval. That apart, I reckoned I could bank on the full eight hours to blast-off before we were wanted.

  “Right,” I whispered to Felicity. “Clothes on, and pronto.”

  She blinked and seemed offended by my haste. “What’s the idea?” she asked.

  I pointed to the loosened floor block, whose looseness was not, in fact, particularly visible, and placed a finger over my lips. Then I pointed downwards and began prising up the block, as quickly as possible, with Felicity’s help. She looked dead scared and no wonder, but I saw her steeling herself. With no time lost I went down into the blackness and the appalling smell, then helped Felicity through the hole, after which I edged the block back towards its aperture, lifting it fractionally clear of the other blocks until it slotted in and dropped neatly. From the darkness Felicity whispered, “How do we find our way back?”

  “We don’t,” I said.

  “Is there another way out?”

  I said I had no idea, but was hopeful of finding it via the dungeon where the poor wretches of Chinese guinea pigs suffered their half-life. There had, I said, to be a door.

  “Locked,” she said, sounding as if she were holding her nose tight. All this was lousy for her, and I wished I hadn’t to subject her to it. She went on, “There’ll be a door all right, but it’ll be locked … won’t it?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Well, then —”

  “We’ll have to wait. Sometime, someone’s going to come along.”

  “Wait — with them?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it very deeply, “but it can’t be helped. We may be able to hasten the opening of the door. In fact I expect to do just that — if those poor wretches have been left with voices.”

  “You mean there’ll be a hubbub?”

  I grinned in the darkness, grinned with absolutely no humour at all. “It’s likely,” I said. By this time I’d picked up the slit of light that showed the small fracture of the dungeon wall, and I whispered to Felicity to wait till I’d crawled past her and then follow, keeping in constant touch with my feet. I promised not to move too fast and said that on my previous visit I’d found no obstacles, no projections, so long as one crawled Hat and kept the head well down. I don’t know how Felicity managed to stop herself retching in that horrible smell, but somehow she did and I was thankful for it. We inched ahead, taking much care to make as little sound as possible, though the time was going to come when I would need to make a noise since that chink was certainly no entry point until it had been made larger. And in the meantime other people were making noises from above, and from behind us: my guess that Nodd would delay his intrusion had been a bad one, and guards were tramping about my cell floor. It was not going to be long before it occurred to someone to check the stability of the floor blocks, and after that things would take a turn for the worse.

  I stopped, and whispered to Felicity to stop as well. I told her we just had to wait now and expressed the useless wash that we had a torch. She said, and rightly, that the pursuit would be lit and why didn’t we move on and hope to get out of range, at any rate at the start? I agreed, and on we went, and had got close to the chink of light before the men above had got that loose block up. I saw the beam of a torch shine down and move around a bit, but it reached nowhere near us. However, it proved useful: in the back-glow, dimly, I made out right behind us a sort of recess where a heavy beam ran out from a dividing wall, making a nice little shelter just where it left the wall.

  Into this we moved and were well stowed by the time we heard sounds of descent through the hole: a good deal of excited chatter, much of it angry, and sounds of distress as someone hit his head. Then the probing torch beam advanced, swinging this way and that and finding nothing. I was in no way lulled by this: recesses such as ours screamed out to be investigated, but on the other hand the advantage of surprise was going to be ours.

  I told Felicity in a deep whisper to stay right where she was, and I craw led towards the edge of the recess and lay ready to take my chance the moment it offered. On came the beam, and when it streamed past the recess I knew that its holder must have seen the likely hiding place. It hesitated for a moment, then came on again rather more slowly than before. Reluctance was in the air, assisted, no doubt, by plain fear of the unknown: probably no one had ever been in here before and the geography was a total blank. Anything might lurk us, sudden shafts to be dropped down, even plague-ridden rats and nasty poisonous spiders. But of course it was we w ho were causing the greater part of the natural fear: it’s always an unpleasant experience being ninety-nine per cent sure your quarry is going to jump suddenly upon you from around the next bend. On came the torch and I could hear breathing, and I could deduce more reluctance, and then suddenly the intruder made up his mind to be heroic: he made what in the stomach-creep circumstances passed for a dash, and the torch swung round the edge of the recess and lit full on Miss Mandrake but not upon me. It was too lovely to be true. Seeing fifty per cent of his victims the man hesitated just long enough for me to reach his neck and get a strangle-hold. I squeezed, flicked, jerked and felt the snap of bone: the neck broke before the man could utter a sound and his limbs were still reflex-writhing in the light of his torch when I let the body go and grabbed for his gun: a highly useful Kalashnikov AKM assault rifle, fully automatic, as used by the Warsaw bloc. With Felicity’s help I dragged the corpse into cover and, feeling a happy surge of returning spirits, waited for the next man down.

  15

  It was really too easy: thugs have any amount of low cunning hut usually not a lot of intelligence, and the dead man’s mate was no exception. The cunning was manifest in the low profile he attempted: he stayed put — that is, I heard no sound of movement so assumed he was remaining in the background having seen his comrade’s torch go out. But when at last I did hear sounds of approach, I decided that fear of reprisals by Nodd for dereliction of duty had overcome cunning and utterly defeated intelligence. A torch beam once again shone out. I moved to the edge of the recess and waited for history to repeat itself, which it did. With no squeamishness at all when I thought of those poor wretches beyond the chink in the wall, I killed number two by breaking his neck and then we had a couple of Kalashnikovs between us. Felicity and I.

  I felt Felicity’s closeness. Into my ear she breathed, “
So now what?”

  “We wait.”

  “Not too long, I hope. Why waste time?”

  “In case more come down. I agree about not too long.” I gave it two minutes, timed by counting seconds, then I decided that a total absence of sound and light other than such light as was coming down from the hole in my cell must indicate one of two things: either only two guards had been despatched to free Nodd’s shirted TV eye; or anyone who had been left up in the cell had made off to fetch reinforcements. Which was why I rejected any idea of returning, plus arms, to the cell and trying to fight back from there. Too chancy: the cells opened into an alleyway with another door, which would probably be locked, at the end. The way out had still to be through the dungeon of the half-living. And that, of course, was chancy too, but in my opinion less so.

  “We move,” I said. Felicity had already been orientated towards it, but I could feel her revulsion. I put an arm around her and held her close for a moment. “So far,” I said, “things have started to turn our way. A little, anyhow. Let’s think success.”

  “And grit our teeth?” She was being determinedly sardonic, and I was glad of it. I said grit our teeth was dead right and the sooner the better as we just might not have too long. Currently there seemed no point in not using the captured torches so in the interest of speed I snapped mine on and we slithered over to the chink in the wall, having first of all removed a handy knife from one of the corpses. On arrival I put the torch out and started work with the knife, hacking away at ready-fractured concrete, assisted by Felicity using the butt of her gun to assist in knocking away the wall and making what was quite soon a reasonable sized hole. As we worked and sweated, conscious all the time of the need to hurry, we tried to keep our minds off what was becoming more and more visible in the dungeon. Because of that pressure of time, we more or less succeeded, or anyway I did. But once we had squeezed through it could no longer be avoided and the horror struck us full blast. The smell was almost enough to asphyxiate and the disjointed, somehow liquid sounds made by the living corpses were bordering on the unendurable. I believe some of them had the remnant of sight to see, others the remnant of hearing to hear us. All, by some unknown agency, seemed to be aware of us and there was quite a babble, in the midst of which I heard ominous sounds coming from beyond a steel door like that of my cell, and I grabbed Felicity’s arm and pulled her down behind a wooden bench occupied by four of the inmates.

  Just in time.

  There was the sound of a key’s insertion and turning, a sound that evidently reached the half-livings who at once and in a concert of abject fear ceased their murmurings and a dead silence replaced the bubbling hubbub. Some kind of intelligence or maybe just instinct remained.

  The door opened and Mr Sigg came in, accompanied by two armed guards and a man who looked to me not wholly Chinese but possibly Vietnamese or Cambodian: just a subtle difference of visage. This man was not armed and had a scholarly sort of look, plus spectacles; and a few moments later I realised that he was the interpreter for Sigg, who scarcely knew any decent English, let alone any other language. I didn’t catch what Sigg said, but I did see the result of the translation. There was a surge of sound like a rushing tide off the Cornish coast, arms were there, were complete, arms were lifted in obsequious propitiation towards our hole of ingress, and the four figures on our concealing bench moved sideways to clear the line of fire. We were in fact still hidden by the bench and Sigg had not actually seen us, and the movement of the four figures had cleared the line of fire for us as well. I didn’t hesitate, nor did Felicity: the reports came like thunder and the acrid stench of gunsmoke came like a welcome breath of summer roses, and the armed escort dropped in pools of blood flowing from virtual sieves; the interpreter, hit in the side of his chest, spun round like a bloodstained top and cannoned into Sigg, who lost his balance. Before he had recovered, I’d run and leaped like a stag and had got my gun behind him: he could be useful, so I didn’t kill him.

  He said nothing, just stared and licked his lips. I could sense a sort of emanation from the dungeon’s occupants, an emanation of strong emotion that I felt was willing me to kill Sigg now I had the chance. I shoved the muzzle of my Kalashnikov into his spine and told him I would shoot the whole content of his gut out through his navel if he so much as trembled, and he saw I meant it literally. Then I noticed something in his hand: an aerosol, nothing spectacular, just an ordinary tin like you get in profusion in any supermarket filled with nice kind things like hair spray or furniture polish or stuff to clean the car. And, of course, stuff to kill flies, less kindly stuff.

  I said, “Drop it, Sigg.” Like a dog, he dropped it. It rolled on the floor and fetched up against the dying interpreter from parts uncertain. It could contain the UV concentrate, the instant cremation that had been in Nodd’s Astra cartridges, or it could be something else. “What’s in it?” I asked, and moved round to Sigg’s front.

  No answer: just a dirty look, and a terrified one. I said easily, “Let me guess. It’s not hard. A pain inflictor? You’re one of nature’s bullies, Sigg, to use the mildest word. You enjoy pain suffered by other people, don’t you?”

  Still no answer, but the look in his eyes grew redder. I told Felicity to pick up the aerosol, handle it with care, and aim it at Sigg. This she did; Sigg began to shake like a leaf, and found his tongue. He begged, he pleaded, he went down on his knees, and he screamed. When at a nod from me Felicity lifted the can a little closer and appeared to compress her action finger, the bastard passed out in a heap on the floor.

  I stirred at him with a foot. He came back to life, looking green. I said, “On your feet, Sigg.” He rose with immense reluctance. I had never felt more like killing a man I mean pleasurably killing. A clean bullet was a damn sight too good for Mr Sigg. I was certain that the aerosol contained something subtle for use on persons half cremated: a tickler-up, a spray to inflict intense agony on bodies already attacked by the UV and also, judging from Sigg’s reaction, on bodies as yet whole rather like the cleansing salt they used to rub into the ribboned flesh after a man had been flogged in the old sailing navy, though with a different intention.

  I said, “It’s ready for use on you, Sigg, and used it will be the moment I’m given cause by you or anyone who tries to rescue you, or who stands in my way. Clear?”

  He nodded, mouth working, eyes still pleading, a very much reduced bully now.

  “Right,” I said. “Out we go. I’ll tell you what I want as we go along. For a start, I want you to look as though you’re still in control of yourself and the general situation, even though you’re far from that.” I took a last look round the appalling place we were in and said uselessly in English to the poor wretches that it wouldn’t all have been in vain and that Nodd and his bloody Siggs were going to be eliminated, then I shepherded Sigg out through the door, which I locked with his key, leaving the dead guards and the interpreter to sprawl in their blood.

  Outside, the alleyway was deserted.

  *

  With the aerosol right behind him and almost tickling the hair at the back of his neck, Mr Sigg behaved in an exemplary manner. It would probably not be possible, in tact, for him to look in control of anything at all, since we couldn’t conceal our rifles. On the other hand, the base stall would perhaps not all have been informed that we were out of Nodd’s favour again and might believe us still to have the freedom of the base; and Mr Sigg was big and wide, so from his front the rifles just might not be seen. The element of surprise should go in our favour: and in any case we were committed up to the hilt now.

  “First stop,” I said to Sigg, “will be the cells.”

  “What for?”

  “To release those US seamen.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Yes, you can. And bloody well will. You have the master-key. You’ll use it.”

  Sigg lumbered on ahead of the aerosol can. I could smell the sweat of fear, could see the dark patches of it on his shirt. I thought ahead to th
e armed guard who would be acting as sentry on the cell alleyways. I was a hundred percent certain that Sigg wouldn’t be taking any risks, but only a complete moron would fail to find the situation suspicious as we went past, so the guard would have to be dealt with as quietly as possible, which meant the aerosol or did it? He might scream the place down. We moved on and went up a flight of steps to the next level, the cell level. Sigg could quite easily lead us the wrong way I hadn’t got the base geography too well established in my mind but I didn’t think he would take the chance even of that and I was proved right: he led us right to the door that opened into the cell alleyway and which was guarded by one of his corps of thugs cradling a 7.62mm Beretta, the BM59 rifle as supplied to the Italian Army. When we were around six metres from the guard I whispered into the back of Sigg’s head, telling him to stop and get the sentry to open up. At this stage I was confident our guns hadn’t been spotted. With Felicity aiming the aerosol Siggward I came out from behind the thick body, my Kalashnikov covering the sentry who was busy obeying the order to open up and who had his back to me. When he turned round and saw me within feet and looking dangerous behind the Kalashnikov his eyes almost sprang from his face. Without turning I called, “Sigg.”

  “Yes?”

  “Tell him what’ll happen to you if he doesn’t play along with me.”

  Sigg did so, in slow English. The man appeared to understand. Sigg said he was to do what I told him and I started issuing the orders, of which in fact there was to he one only. I said, “Lay your rifle on the floor, then turn round with your hands clasped behind your back.” I had to repeat this and did so slowly, though every passing second held the danger that someone else might come up in rear. The man got the message and obeyed it. As soon as he had turned I gripped my rifle between my knees and reached for his neck: there was no time for squeamishness, but I registered distastefully that this was the third neck I’d snapped within the last quarter hour. I dragged the body through the opened door into the alleyway, then beckoned Sigg to follow in, which he did. I told him to open up the cell doors pronto: inside a minute all six Americans were out in the alleyway and three of them were being armed with the dead sentry’s Beretta and the automatic rifles I had removed from Sigg’s dungeon escort earlier. We should make a fair fighting unit and I was not going to go down, if I had to go down, without making a nice big dent in Nodd’s viability as a mass murderer. I spoke to the petty officer, a big dark man named Magill. I told him about the aerosol that was ensuring Mr Sigg’s co-operation, and I said Sigg could be relied upon as a guide.