by P. J. Nash
‘Well, it’s good to be back on home turf. I think we can agree that we have a mutual interest in putting pay to these young Turks who are getting too big for their boots,’ said Smith.
Tucker nodded in affirmation.
‘But first thing’s first. I’ll get my guys to deliver you a crate of MP5s and get rid of those fucking shotguns. We’re not hunting fucking bears.’
Tucker laughed and saw that this was going to be a guy he could work with.
Apartment, Barrandov
James drifted from his post coital slumber in the bedroom. There was no sign of the woman. Padding naked out into the hall in search of the bathroom, he spied her out on the balcony smoking a cigarette. He tried a door and went in. It was a small bedroom done out in pastel colours. A cot took up a good part of the room and a mobile hung from the ceiling. Looking closer at the cot, James glimpsed a print off of a baby scan. James heard the balcony door slam so he got out quick. Going back in to the hall, he opened what he now knew to be the bathroom door and took a long lingering piss.
When he came out of the bathroom, she was standing holding a tray containing a bottle of champagne in a cooler and pair of champagne flutes. ‘Round Two?’ she asked.
‘A champion idea,’ he said, following her into the room. Going undercover had just got literal, he thought.
He slept after his exertions. “Sleeping like a baby”: That was the expression you had learnt in your English lessons you’d been sent to by Vasily. He’d said you could get more men if you could speak to the punters in English. But you hadn’t slept like a baby. Not for a long time. Not since … they had taken your baby. Your unborn child murdered, so they could continue to use your body for profit. Legalised murder of a child that could move, had fingernails and could kick in your bell …, gone. You felt her at nights, pulled her on the sledge in the snow to school. No chance of that, now the dodgy surgeon had left you scarred when they had torn out your little one with a pair of forceps and dumped her in a plastic sack. No immaculate conception for you. All you had was an empty cot and a grainy scan image to console you. You couldn’t give life. So, you would take it away. After killing Vasily and bringing pain and sorrow to some other woman’s lives. And you wouldn’t leave their women with any grains of comfort. No one could say what a nice guy he was at his funeral when they knew he had died at the hands of a hooker in a back alley, his flaccid cock dangling, as his lifeblood pumped out on the cobbles.
Barrandov, Prague
It was now four hours since James had gone missing. Walters and Smith combed the estate of tower blocks and abandoned tobacco kiosks looking for a clue as to where he had disappeared to. Early evening was coming as the sun dipped and the temperature dropped accordingly. Mothers with babies in pushchairs and toddlers in tow got off the trams, along with hordes of be-suited men carrying briefcases and laptop bags.
‘This is getting desperate,’ said Jensen, pulling up the collar of his coat as they crouched in an alleyway.
‘I’m going to give HQ a call and see what they say,’ added Walters. As he lifted his phone from his pocket, it began to ring. The caller display showed “Big Dog”. ‘Fucking hell it’s him.’
Smichov Police Station, Prague
The blinds were closed in the room, and paperwork was scattered everywhere. Jezek and Jiri both had swollen red eyes from reading and from the cloud of cigarette smoke they had made whilst filling the overflowing ashtrays. Eighteen hours previously, Jiri had said, ‘Let’s go back to the start.’
They had pulled out all the crime reports, lab reports and other reams of paper that made up the investigation. For most of time since then, they had been hunched over typescript under the pools of light thrown out by their desk lamps. Takeaways pizzas has been bought and consumed without relish, and the greasy boxes scattered about. Nothing had rung any bells. Any lines of investigation seemed to lead to a dead end. It all ended in a blank. If the killer had been male, then they would have had a pool of suspects to trawl. All the progress with the video footage now seemed for naught. While the likeness was apparently good, it was a face of an attractive woman in her late twenties or early thirties. The evening chat shows were now lampooning Jiri and the cops’ efforts to catch the killer. The photofit had thrown up a smattering of calls from the usual cranks and weirdos. But there was nothing concrete, not one solid lead.
‘Well, I’m going to get us some beer; the caffeine and nicotine hasn’t yielded anything,’ said Jiri.
It was the early hours of a Sunday morning; they were officially off duty. Their families, from the youngest to the oldest, knew their fathers were police officers. They might not have liked it, but they lived with it. Jiri walked through the side door of the station and stretched like a cat in the cold early morning light. As he walked across the carpark to the 24-hour store opposite the police station, a flash of white caught his eye. Something had been placed under the windscreen wiper of his car. He walked over, and after sliding on a plastic glove, he carefully picked up the envelope and opened the gummed down flap. A single folded sheet of paper was inside. He smoothed it out.
Dear Mr Policeman, If your investigation is going to get back on track, look again at the Metro angle.
‘Back on track. Very glib. A fucking comedian,’ Jiri smiled to himself, dropping the note and envelope into a plastic evidence bag. Then, he realised that someone knew where he was and what car he was driving. A shiver of fear ran down his spine, and his right hand went to the inside of his jacket to the reassuring weight of his pistol.
‘Definitely time for a beer,’ he said to himself, making sure he looked twice before crossing the road.
Office Suite, Andel, Smichov, Prague
Sandersen slept fitfully on a military cot as Quercus made searches on the property that James and the others were now eyeballing for clues. The door buzzer rang. Quercus got up from his chair. He looked at the laptop screen and saw a man in overalls holding a box. He had ordered a new laptop and so buzzed the door open. He signed for it and shut the door.
‘Who was that?’ murmured Sanderson rising from her slumbers and going to the kitchenette to brew coffee.
‘A new computer, kickass spec and a bargain too,’ said Quercus, opening the box and placing the sleek machine on the desk.
He plugged it in and brought life to the screen by holding down the standby button. Sandersen was watching the mesmerizing drip, drip of coffee from the filter to the jug as the blast blew her off her feet. The interior wall of the kitchenette shredded like confetti as a wave of heat swept her up and buried her in a cloud of plaster and wood chips. The small lump of Semtex had detonated instantly as electricity flooded the circuits. The innocuous laptop had turned into a vortex of high velocity aluminium and plastic shards. Sandersen's world disappeared in a cloud of sound and fury.
Modra Laguna Coffee shop, Barrandov, Prague
‘Seven out of ten,’ said Walters with a smirk.
‘Yeah, could have been worse, I suppose,’ replied James, taking a long pull on his black coffee. He'd woken from a drug-induced slumber to find the flat empty. He called the office in Andel but got no reply. After seeing the slough of missed calls, he rang Walters. Uniformed cops had arrived and fanned out across the housing complex but with no result. A team of detectives and forensic investigators led by Jezek were now carrying out a full search of the flat.
‘So, she'd written a review of your performance in bed, on lipstick on the bedroom mirror,’ asked Smith.
‘Got it in one,’ said James.
As if via an omniscient sign, James' phone pinged. He fished it from his pocket and read the text.
Bad luck, Mr Sherlock Holmes. You should never accept drinks from strangers… Dark Angel.
‘Geez, you're lucky you're not looking for your cock while you're floating down the river,’ said Walters. The men laughed, but all knew he'd a very lucky escape. No sooner had the laughter died away than James’s phone rang. He picked up.
‘It's Jir
i. There’s been an incident. You need to get here. A marked car will be at the Sidliste Barrandov tram stop waiting for you.’
Why had your spared him? Why was he so different from the others? He had paid to abuse you and your body like the rest. He was a cop as well. You should have stabbed him while he was sleeping. And torched the flat with him in it. Now, the cops had your description, DNA and fingerprints. Were you losing your grip? Was the sliver of ice in your heart melting, your rage for vengeance waning? You are the Dark Angel, the serial butcher of the invading rapist pigs. Well, you knew it couldn't last forever. Really, you are still the frightened little girl cowering on the stairs as your mum and dad shout at each other and shatter their family and your life forever.
Plantagenet’s Clubhouse, Melbourne
A bikie gang needs a clubhouse, and Tucker Watson was suitably impressed. It was a matter of projecting power and prestige. In Tucker's mind, he was a latter day feudal lord, ruling over his people with a mailed fist in a velvet glove. He'd do right by people, as long as they didn't step out of line. Tucker was big on symbolism. Hence the White Boar flag flying outside and the two graffiti artists working on the White Boar image in the main room. But Watson wasn't stupid, either. Apart from a few guys carrying handguns, the security was mainly of the technological kind. Cameras, sensors and pressure pads. But there was plenty of traditional firepower on hand too. A subterranean armoury had been built accessed via a lift ramp in the bike repair shop which was the legitimate business front of the gang. Much of the new weaponry was supplied by Mr Smith. Watson was seated at his desk poring over a map of metropolitan Melbourne. The map was dotted with red and yellow markers. Yellow meant people who'd been bought off. Red meant they had to be neutralised.
‘Are they guys comfortable with the new equipment?’ Watson asked his sergeant-at-arms.
‘Yeah, well, they've all fired off a few clips and know how to strip them and put them back together.’
‘Good enough,’ said Watson, hefting his bulk. ‘Let's pay Doccachino a visit and see if he's happy enough to do a deal. If not, he'll be drinking his next latte through a straw.’
Office Suite, Andel, Smichov, Prague
Smoke was pouring from the side of the building, and firefighters were using powder extinguishers to put out the fire that had engulfed the suite they had rented. Sandersen was seated in the rear of an ambulance, her shoulders covered in a blanket and an oxygen mask over her face.
‘We found her under a pile of debris. If she hadn't been behind the wall, she would be dead,’ said Jiri matter-of-factly.
‘Quercus?’ asked James.
‘We'll be lucky to fill a carrier bag,’ replied Jiri.
‘Once the fire is out, our forensic guys will go in. This was no accident, though. All the initial evidence points to a bomb,’ said Jezek.
‘A courier dropped a package at the office a few minutes before the blast. We'll be interviewing everybody and checking the CCTV,’ said Jiri.
‘I thought with Spinks in jail and Irish dead we'd seen the last of Bain and Co. Let's hope this is a dead cat bounce,’ said James.
A medic came and told him that Sandersen would be going to hospital for medical attention to cuts and bruises, and she had been given a sedative to lessen the impact of shock. They advised James to come to the hospital later that day. The ambulance moved off, its blue lights flashing but sirens silent. James sat down on a bench and filled his pipe. Lighting it with a match, he contemplated the last few days. He felt tired, very tired, and yet, something in his gut lingered. A hunch that business he had thought concluded was very much far from over.
Doccachino Inc, St Kilda, Melbourne
‘Fucking yuppies,’ growled Watson as he got out of the Ute. He and two heavies were paying a visit to the headquarters of Docachino, Melbourne’s leading coffee cart company. The business had started after Hugo Juniper, a barista at a chain coffee store, had started a blog reviewing coffee shops in the city. People challenged him to do better. Faced with prohibitive premises costs, he started selling his artisan coffees from a cart in the business district. Two years later, there were hundreds of them across the city, all of which could be located via the inevitable app.
‘Where's your boss, girlie?’ growled Watson as he and his two heavies clumped across the boards of the former warehouse.
‘He's in a meeting. Have you got an appointment?’ the young receptionist blustered.
‘Get him out here right now or I'll burn this fuckin’ yuppie fuckpad to the ground,’ shouted Watson.
She fled from behind the desk and disappeared into the back. A few seconds later, she returned with her boss.
‘You the boss, Hugo Poncey Face?’ asked Watson.
The young man with the hipster beard and the Converse high tops nodded.
‘Take a seat,’ said Watson, plonking himself down in a designer chair which squeaked in protest. Juniper did the same. The two heavies stood either side of the young man.
‘So, we're both successful businessmen selling products to the great Australian public. I thought we could mesh our synergies, so to speak,’
The young guy looked confused. Watson threw a bag of crystal meth on the table.
‘Ice, you sell ice?’ replied Juniper.
‘Well, someone had their espresso this morning, didn't they,’ guffawed Watson, the goons joining in with the laughter. ‘Listen, laddo, here's the deal. You've got a couple of hundred prime locations. You get a fifteen percent share on whatever you sell through your fancy wheelbarrows. Sound good? We're talking probably fifty grand a week for you.’
‘And if I don't accept your offer?’ Juniper asked.
Watson sat up, surprised at the audacity of the yuppie upstart. ‘Well, we would be looking to recoup our lost revenues from your cash flow.’
‘Hmm, you're a harsh negotiator, Mr Watson. What about seventeen percent?’
‘You little pissweasel,’ snarled Watson, leaping to his feet. But instead of throttling the hipster, he offered his hand. ‘You've got some balls for a poofter,’ said Watson, shaking his hand. ‘My associates will be in touch regarding the first shipment. Give my regards to Pat and Sue next time you’re in Blighty. I hear that they’re in fine fettle and have just bought a new Honda. Good little runners.’
Watson and the heavies clumped off. Hugo Juniper sat there, shaking in his chair. He'd fronted Watson alright. Played the hard man. Plus, what choice did he have? None of what Watson had told him about his parents was untrue. And the packet of photos he left on the desk were the proof of the pudding.
Smichov Police Station, Prague
TV cop shows and crime novels would have you believe that cases were solved by high-minded thinking or DNA techniques. But as most cops know, it's really a case of hard graft or the criminal fucking up. Or a good old-fashioned tip off. That's what breaks cases open. It was this kind of luck that caused Jiri's phone to ring. He shook himself from a doze and then grabbed the receiver.
‘Hofschnadir,’ he murmured, shaking off his tiredness.
‘Officer, you may not remember me. We met on the metro station. You asked me about access to the staff areas,’ the voice said.
‘Sure thing, I remember, what is it?’
‘Well, I was suspicious about items moving place in our cleaning store area, so I laid a few marks to see if they were disturbed. And they were. Every time it has been in the late night, after we have finished our shift.’
Jiri reached for a pad and pen. ‘Ok, we’ll see you there as soon as possible.’ He shrugged on his bulletproof vest and holstered his pistol.
‘Jezek, we’ve got to get to Mala Strana. We may have our Black Widow’s lair.’
Jezek grabbed his pistol, and they ran out to the car.
Commuters and tourists thronged the cobbled winding streets of the Mala Strana as the convoy, running silent but with blue lights flashing, wound its way through the narrow streets. Jezek and Jiri were joined by several unmarked cars and two white van
s containing the city police SWAT team. Uniformed officers had surrounded Malostranska metro station, preventing anyone from exiting or entering. The detectives’ car skidded to a halt on the cobbles. Waiting for them were three two men; one wearing overalls, the other a stooped elderly man.
‘Ok, Officer Hofschnadir, this is Karel Novak. He’ll be able to help you...’
‘How’s that?’ asked Jiri.
‘I designed the network,’ replied the old man.
‘Well, we’re in your hands, sir,’ said Jiri with a bow.
Andel, Smichov, Prague
There are two types of people in Prague who tow suitcases behind them; tourists and the homeless. Both groups also behave in a similar fashion when it comes to moving about the city. For the tourists, it’s ticking off the big-ticket items – the Astronomical Clock, Charles Bridge and the Castle. For the homeless, it was where to sleep safely, where to get food and some cheap booze or drugs. Both parties pursued their aims with the same zeal for different ends. The homeless knew the streets like the back of their hands. Which was how Zuzi saw the foreigner talking to the policewoman.
She had been tailing him since he had come out of a bar. He had entered the Potrefená Husa or Golden Goose pub with a group of friends. Whist engrossed in a call on his phone, they had been ejected for bad behaviour from another entrance. It was a yuppie bar, and lots of people came outside to smoke good brand cigarettes. And very often, they threw them away, ready for Zuzi to pick them up. Street people would pay a few hundred crowns for a box of high quality cigarette ends. That was when she had seen him talking the female cop. Who wasn’t really a cop.