Absence of Mercy

by Joe McCoubrey

  Devon decided to test the waters. “You okay, buddy?”

  “Yeah, why ask?”

  “Nothing special. It’s just that I’ve never before seen you so tongue-tied. Could it be because our new CIA friend is a bit of a stunner? Has Agent Horgan lasered her way through that tough exterior?”

  A small reddening re-appeared on Doyle’s cheeks. “Don’t talk nonsense. I just wasn’t expecting you to include any outsiders in our briefing.”

  “Especially such a good-looking outsider, eh?”

  “I’m warning you, cut it out.”

  Devon smiled and held up his hands in mock surrender. “Let’s change the subject. I need to nip home to see Emma and Michael.”

  “Okay, give me a minute and Cheadle and I will go along for the ride.”

  Devon was already fishing keys from the car-pool board. “No need for that. Keep everyone busy and I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  Doyle bristled. “For Christ’s sake, Mike, you’re our team leader and if you don’t follow the rules then how can you expect the rest of us to? The General is right about us moving in pairs and I don’t see any way you can get out that door without me.”

  Devon placed his hand on Doyle’s shoulder. “As usual, you’re right, but hurry up. I can’t wait to see my wife and son.”

  Chapter 7

  EMMA DEVON WAS CRADLING her son in the fold of her arm as she gazed out the window waiting for a car to pull up at her Bayswater home. She hated Mike’s absences, particularly when he was on an assignment that could take him away from her forever. She had known what she was getting into, but it didn’t make it any easier.

  She knew the importance of his work and was fully committed to the part he played in helping to keep the country safe. She also knew that without it Mike could never be fulfilled. He belonged to that breed of men who were action junkies, the type who could never be content without the adrenaline rush that the job served up with dosage levels most people wouldn’t understand.

  There was also the fact that she knew he did it for all the right reasons. He was a genuinely-committed patriot who never thought twice about stepping up to the plate when evil threatened the existence of those things he held dear. Mike Devon couldn’t sit on the sidelines and, despite her fears, she wouldn’t want him to.

  There was of course another side to the man. Emma knew that beneath the tough exterior there was a tenderness and vulnerability that she adored. In his downtime he acted like a big kid, forever playing pranks like hiding the TV remote control and switching channels in the middle of her soaps. When he was around his son Michael nothing else seemed to matter, even to the extent that she sometimes had to force her way into their private little world of make-believe.

  She smiled at the memories of him taking Michael onto playground rides with his six-two frame squeezed into a child’s toy car on the merry-go-round, or the time he insisted on joining his son in a bouncy castle in a neighbour’s back garden.

  The squeal of brakes jolted her back to the present. The familiar black Range Rover pulled into the kerb and Devon bolted from the passenger seat. She noted Alan Doyle behind the wheel and another figure, obscured by the tainted glass, sitting in the rear.

  She met him at the door and was almost knocked off her feet by his smothering kisses and hugs. It didn’t matter to him that he had an audience in the waiting car. That was another thing she loved. He grabbed his son, kissed him on the head and started throwing him into the air, the pair giggling almost in sync.

  Emma waved to Doyle and noticed the car engine had been turned off. “Is Alan not coming in? Who is that with him?”

  Devon glanced behind him before stepping into the hall and closing the door. “I’ll tell you all about it later. First, I want to know everything you two have been getting up to while I was away.”

  Emma pulled Michael from his arms and retreated into the living room. “Your son has something to show you.”

  Devon followed and was ordered to sit in his favourite armchair while Emma walked across to the other side of the room. She lowered Michael to the floor, planting his bare feet on the carpet and removing her hands from his armpits. “Go to daddy.”

  The boy took a few faltering steps and then dashed across the space.

  “You’re kidding, when did this happen?” Devon held out his hands as the boy collapsed into them. “I’ve only been away two days and I miss his first steps.”

  “He just decided to take off yesterday morning. I guess he thought it was time to make the move before his second birthday. Once he started I couldn’t get him to stop. We’re going to have to re-arrange the furniture in here.”

  Devon swept the boy into the air and began spinning him. “Who’s a clever boy?”

  “Mike, you’ll make him sick. Put him down and let him run around.”

  With a final twirl, Devon returned the child to the floor and for the next ten minutes he kept moving his position, urging Michael to run to him. When the boy finally sat down among his toys, Devon looked up to watch Emma staring through the window at the parked Range Rover.”

  “What’s going on, Mike?”

  He held nothing back. He had made her a promise a long time back to be completely honest when his work threatened to impinge on their lives. It was a commitment made after an attempt on Emma’s life by a gunman hired by a Russian oligarch whose plot to destabilise the West had been ruined by Devon. Emma had survived, only because of the intervention of Alan Doyle.

  He told her about Dave Carpenter’s death and about the list he had discovered in Austria. He watched as her face blanched in shock. “My God, that’s terrible. Poor Dave. Have you spoken to Clare, how is she?”

  “I’m going to see her later today. Right now, I’m still trying to get my head around this.”

  Emma again glanced out the window. “Is that why you have minders? Are we in danger?”

  Devon paused, knowing that what he had to say next would not be what Emma wanted to hear. “I won’t kid you. This is a serious state of affairs and until we can get a handle on it we can’t take anything for granted. Don’t worry about me, the team is covering each other’s back, but I need to know that you and Michael will be safe.”

  “What are you getting at, Mike?”

  “I want you to take Michael and visit your parents for a while…”

  “No way, we’re in this together. I’m not leaving you.”

  He didn’t expect anything less, but he needed to convince her. “Darling, I think the threat to you is minimal, but if I keep coming home the chances of being followed increase with every journey. If they can’t get at me they might try to get to me through you. I won’t be able to operate effectively if I have to worry constantly about you. You’ll be safe in the countryside. Nobody knows where your parents live.”

  He could see Emma was fighting to keep her emotions in check. “You’re forgetting that I was attacked on my way to see my parents last year. I’ll be just as safe here and, anyway, who knows how long this will go on for. You can’t keep missing large parts of Michael’s life.”

  Devon walked over and threw his arms around her. “That attack happened because you were followed from this house, not because they knew where you were going. We have to be sensible about this, Emma. Please look at it from my point of view. Knowing you are safe will leave me free to sort out this mess. I promise to move heaven and earth to get back to you as soon as possible.”

  He could feel her body tremble, but when she spoke her voice was calm. “Okay, you win, but promise me that when this is over we will take a family holiday. Let’s get away for a few weeks in the sun.”

  “You’ve got a date,” he said as he squeezed tighter.

  Chapter 8

  THREE MEN SAT AROUND A MARBLE-TOPPED table in a luxurious third-floor apartment overlooking the Bundegasse, one of the most sought-after office and shopping precincts in the Swiss capital of Bern. Below them, the pedestrianised street was quiet, save for the occasional flap
ping of striped canvas window shades that were a feature of the area and offered practical protection to ground-floor inhabitants from the afternoon glare of the summer sun.

  The men were a formidable trio of octogenarians. They had come together as teenagers and had amassed fabulous wealth over six decades of criminal activities, which had somehow escaped the attentions of the various authorities in a host of countries where they plied their despicable trade.

  Felix Hoffmeier, Jurgen Kappel and Dieter Neumann had seized their chance in the days leading up to the fall of the Third Reich. A combination of circumstances had thrown them together as members of a Kuntschutz unit responsible for plundering gold, silver, religious treasures and paintings from across Nazi-occupied Europe. Hoffmeier and Kappel had accompanied lorryloads of loot to secret dumps, while Neumann was attached to the office of a General responsible for opening secret Swiss bank accounts and safety deposit centres where hoards of cash and valuables were ferreted away.

  While German forces retreated on all fronts in March 1945, the trio hatched their plan. On one delivery to an underground depot just outside Munich, Hoffmeier and Kappel, who were then barely sixteen years old, extracted MP38 Schmeisser submachine guns from beneath a tarpaulin and mowed down the depot’s entire guard and civilian personnel. Twenty-two bodies were later discovered among smashed crates.

  That same evening Dieter Neumann calmly entered the home of General Hans von Scherrling on the pretext of needing his signature on urgent papers. What he demanded was a list of all bank accounts, signatories and passwords. In addition, he told the General, he would need signed authorisation to access the accounts, as well as an official pass allowing him and his colleagues to take two trucks through various roadblocks and across the border into Switzerland.

  The General had proved a tough nut to crack, but he finally succumbed when he watched Neumann put a gun to his wife Elsa’s head and pull the trigger. Neumann had then grabbed the General’s ten year-old twin sons and raised the Luger to the temple of one of them.

  The General fought back tears as he scratched his pen across various documents. When he was finished, he pushed them across the top of the desk and began to rise from his seat. He never made it. Neumann fired three times into the General’s body and then turned the pistol on the cowering boys.

  Without a moment’s hesitation he completed the slaughter of the von Scherrling family.

  Within days of crossing into Switzerland the trio had raided the existing accounts and safety deposit boxes, establishing new deposits in a succession of banks under a host of aliases. They began to invest in post-war industries across Europe, building up a portfolio of ownerships in car manufacture, steelworks, and coal mining. They bought hotels, office blocks and city centre retail space in a dozen cities before they turned their attention to the lucrative markets of America and the Far East.

  The scale of their acquisitions allowed them to live lifestyles that few people could imagine. They were seen at all the glamour, social and sporting events around the world. They mixed with film stars and political leaders and donated millions to various charities, not out of benevolence, but as a means to ingratiate themselves with people they considered to be fellow movers and shakers.

  There was one constant in their lives. They swore a bond to each other, a bond that precluded having other people involved in their businesses. They never married, a decision made easier for Hoffmeier who preferred the company of men, although for Kappel and Neumann it was also no big deal - they enjoyed paying for their carnal pleasures with a succession of the most attractive women the escort services of Europe could unearth for them.

  Over the years their appetite for ruthlessness was satisfied by the various methods they employed to keep one step ahead of their business rivals. They liked nothing better than to see men and women squirm under the hostile measures they took against a succession of companies, from large conglomerates to small family-run businesses. Ruining lives and changing the fate of whole communities were often the only stimuli for closing down job-dependent ventures.

  In the early days they thought nothing of killing off rivals. They took it at its most literal meaning, salivating at the prospect of watching a person gaze into the barrel of a pistol, knowing their last moment was upon them. There was something magical about the expression of terror on the faces of their victims.

  They continued these indulgences into their later years, particularly because of their ability to hire the best professionals money could buy. And that took them into a whole new chapter of their lives. At first, they had specific targets to deal with, but gradually their choices became more whimsical. Often, one or other of them took a dislike to someone they had seen on television. Once it was a politician espousing a cause they objected to, and on another occasion there was a celebrity who seemed to be attracting too much attention for his modest achievements. The world would be better off without them, it was decided.

  Like everything else, they eventually became bored with that phase in their lives. They kept contact with their top assassins, using them less frequently, but on higher retainers to carry out more serious assignments. It was because of this they had agreed to meet for their monthly get-together in Bern.

  “I can’t believe that after ten days we only have one death to show for the collective efforts of the team.” As usual, it was Hoffmeier who took the lead. He had been the brains behind their 1945 operation and since then the other two deferred to him as the leader of Das Trio Berne, a name they applied to themselves shortly after taking up residence in Switzerland.

  “I agree it is most strange, but let’s give them another few days.” The squeaky voice belonged to Kappel, who had recently been dogged by ill-health and ventured out less and less from his home in Gstaad.

  Neumann was less inclined to be patient. “Jurgen, we do not pay good money for these people to sit on their hands. We should be seeing better results and I for one am not prepared to accept it. I think it’s time we applied sanctions.”

  “No, no it is much too soon.”

  “If I didn’t know better, my friend, I’d think you are losing your marbles. Why don’t you go back home to bed and I’ll send you a couple of lovelies to massage your troubles away.”

  “You can’t talk to me like that, Dieter. I’ll have you know…..”

  “Enough!” Hoffmeier had watched the growing tension between his two friends and decided to intervene. “You are both right, of course. It is unacceptable to have this delay, but it is too early to contemplate alternative action. Perhaps it would be appropriate to wait another two days, but in the meantime I will arrange for a strong message to be sent through the usual channels.”

  Kappel nodded his agreement, but Neumann leaned across the table as if to emphasise his next words. “I’ve always relied on your judgement, Felix, but I am concerned that our timetable is in danger of slewing out of control. We have given commitments and personal assurances that we can deliver what was asked of us. I am prepared to wait no longer than two days, but I recommend we cover our bases by hiring on additional help.”

  Hoffmeier held Neumann’s penetrating stare. “Yes, perhaps we should think about duplicating some of the assignments. It can’t do any harm.”

  Kappel’s grey-coloured skin seemed to pale even further. “You can’t possibly be contemplating setting two people against the same targets. They will end up getting in each other’s way and ruining any chance of completing their missions. And besides, it might end up costing us double.”

  Hoffmeier smiled. Despite untold riches, it was typical of Kappel to count the pennies. “Relax my friend, we will only pay out on who makes the kill. It is up to them to sort out what happens on the ground. Besides, this is a win-win situation for us.”

  Kappel slumped back in his chair. “I hope our friends in London see it that way. We have become mixed up with some people who are every bit as powerful as we are. I don’t doubt they also have access to certain resources and, if we f
ail to deliver, they might set those resources on us.”

  There was a momentary silence before Hoffmeier responded. “That will not be an issue. We will take the sting out of things by ensuring their primary target is disposed of as soon as possible. We will concentrate our people on this man, and then we can worry about the rest of the names on the list.”

  Neumann looked puzzled. “I didn’t know there was a primary target. All we received was a bunch of names of people linked with a security agency in London. What makes you think one of those names is more important than the others?”

  “I happen to know that one of the men we are doing business with has a personal reason for wanting to see the demise of at least one of the targets.”

  Neumann banged his fist on the table. “What personal reason? I thought this was about something far greater than private vendettas. I would not have agreed to become involved if I had known this.

  “Relax, Jurgen. The motives are beyond question. It is just that for one of our contacts the mission is tantamount to killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

  “How is this so?”

  “Because one of the targets used to work for the British Secret Service and for some reason the man pulling the strings has something of a vendetta against that particular organisation.”

  ***

  The chauffeur-driven Mercedes hurtled along the Flugplatzstrasse towards the Bern-Belp airport where Felix Hoffmeier kept one of his fleet of private jets. The bodyguard in the front passenger seat had his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead, knowing that his boss was in the kind of foul mood that didn’t allow for small talk.

  Hoffmeier was seething at the turn of events over the past few months, the more so because he knew he had dug a hole for himself, one that only he could sort out. For some years he had realised he could no longer rely on his wartime friends. He was sick of carrying them, fed up with all the hand-holding that was involved from those early days when he had planned the greatest heist of all time. He had handed everything to them on a plate, but now he would call in the marker.