by Peter Ackers
49
The room beyond the door at the end of the corridor lined with cells was where they now congregated. Gabrielle, Leo, James and others. The stone floor in this empty room had been dug up, a large metal safe extracted. It had been forced open. The papers inside were being carefully scrutinised. Leo sat with a flask of tea, brooding. James paced somewhat restlessly. Gabrielle was playing with the baby tiger, which she had named “Vodka.” Simply, it was the daftest name she could think of. She knew the tiger wouldn’t mind.
Leo looked at the items thrown in a corner. Jacky’s backpack and his gun, just tossed there.
“This is obviously everything,” one man said. “perhaps we should leave now. These can be worked through properly elsewhere.”
Without looking at him, Gabrielle nodded. She was trying to read Vodka’s expression. “Gather them up. We leave.”
Sat in another corner, back against the wall, was Angelo Porter, the leader of the band of Italian mercenaries that made up Gabrielle’s security team. He was the man who had sent Carlos into the foliage back on Plum Island, only to have his face smashed by Jacky Jackson. Worse, he was the one who had missed his target and blown the head off one of his own men instead of Jacky Jackson’s head. He was the man who at this moment in time hated Jacky Jackson more than anyone else on the planet. He sat there against that wall and fought the urge to storm down into the bowels of this prison and put a bullet in the bastard's skull.
The people in the room gathered up their stuff and left. It had been a successful mission. They had only been here one day and already they’d found what they were looking for: the secret files kept by the Chief Gaoler, buried for all time mere days before the French army had come in and closed the place down.
They emerged from the prison and into the jungle, where the rains still fell but the sun was now out, hot and bright. Gabrielle got in the largest of the helicopters, her private one, while everybody else made for the others. James stared back at the prison doorway inquisitively, before climbing inside one of the choppers. Angelo knocked on the door of Gabrielle’s chopper. She opened it. She studied him.
“I see anger. You know I wanted to use Video and Lampshade.”
“Yes,” replied Angelo. Despite the rage burning inside him, he was forced to suppress a smile. “Video” and “Lampshade” were the stupidest names he could imagine for those beasts of hers. “But he has proved to be trouble ever since the start.”
“Without him -“
“I know. I know what you’re going to say. Yes, without him we wouldn’t know as much as we do. But we know it all now, so he’s outlived his worth.”
“That is what you said before. He thanked you by killing half your men. But of course, that’s the whole point, yes? You are not thinking mission security here. Betrayed by your own face.”
“Yes, I admit it. I want him dead. If we leave him there, he might somehow get out and cause us yet more problems. Surely you’ve seen James Bond films.”
“Won’t that be fun, though?” Gabrielle said, pretending to be unfazed by this man’s sarcasm. “Oh, if you wish. Take a video camera. Record it for me. Get the expression. Make sure you get his face just before you shoot him.”
The cabin door slammed in his face. Angelo called over two of his men.
Gabrielle looked out the window at another of her helicopters. Inside, secured in a cage, were Video and Lampshade, Vodka’s parents. She’d nurtured and loved them since they were born, but now that they’d given her a baby, she had no use for them beyond today’s game.
She turned to her pilot and asked him to go and find Peter, which the man quickly did.
“Are the cameras all in place?” she asked Peter, her technical expert, once he’d come running. He nodded. “Good. Can you bring me a monitor so I can watch here? I want us to be on our way quickly.”
“Are we not waiting for Angelo and his men to return?” They’d just that minute re-entered the prison, armed to the teeth.
“He interrupted me, and he was cheeky. I don’t like him. Let’s play the game anyway. I have this little one now -“ she stroked Vodka “- so I don’t need the parents. The jungle is their natural home anyway. Let them in. They will be safe. The game will be good.”
Gabrielle waved him away. Peter was glad to go. He thought Gabrielle was every bit as insane as she’d made those poor tigers.