by James Quinn
Trench had finished loading the bullets into several magazines, dried off his hands on the cloth and turned to her. He stepped toward her, his manner and voice becoming brooding. “Grant's past is a bit of a mystery, a bit murky so I'm led to believe, so I won't tell you either.”
She took a step away from him and he smiled. “Got the hots for him, have you? I wouldn't have thought he was your type.” His upper class cavalry officer accent had slipped, she noted, and had been replaced with a twang. Northern definitely… possibly Liverpool or Manchester and the sudden change in accent also gave him an even more sinister tone.
“No… not at all. I just wondered,” she said, not wholly convincing herself.
“Fancy a bit of rough, do you? Grant's certainly that, alright. Gorilla by name, Gorilla by nature.”
Nicole felt herself blushing, but still fixed a glare on Trench. God, he was loathsome.
“If you've got an itch that you can't scratch, I might be able to help you out old girl. A quick tumble perhaps, while the boss is away. It happens all the time, only natural. It could just be our little secret.”
Nicole turned away from him and headed back to the kitchen. “You're disgusting, Trench. Just stay out of my way,” she said.
Trench smiled, a smile which hid nothing of his malicious thoughts. The cavalry officer had returned once more. “Well, if you don't ask and all that…” she heard him say, as she slammed the door to the kitchen.
Chapter Seven
The night-time hit on the Hotel Azure, which left eight men dead, would later be generally accredited with being the spark which began the Corsican Mafia war in the spring of 1965.
The two main rivals in the war, the Guerini and Francisci Clans, had long been bitter rivals, each jockeying for position and power. The Guerinis had the power the Franciscis wanted. It was only a matter of time before something started the fire. The Guerini-owned and controlled Hotel Azure was a three story building overlooking the Old Port, and while it was generally referred to as a hotel, it was in reality a brothel and gambling den for the soldiers of the Guerinis.
On the ground floor was the bar/restaurant and reception areas, together with a back room where the gamblers could while away the hours doing what they enjoyed best. Upstairs consisted of twelve 'guest rooms' where visitors could be entertained by the girls who operated from those rooms, while its top floor consisted of two penthouse apartments, where special guests could stay or discreet business meetings could be held. The front of the hotel housed the main entrance, whilst to the rear was a more discreet, privately-accessed entrance, complete with external staircase for the patrons of the penthouse apartments. All were guarded on rotation by a number of armed Corsican underworld soldiers.
The attack began at the front of the hotel, when a small explosive charge blew out the front windows. Not a large explosion by any means, but one that provided enough of a bang, coupled with enough smoke and debris to make everyone in the vicinity come rushing to see what the commotion was. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is exactly what a decoy is meant to do.
* * *
They moved as a unit, a well-organized team, smoothly, quickly and efficiently. Gorilla was leading the way, the silenced '39 up and ready to use, with Trench, tight on his shoulder, bringing up the rear, the De Lisle poised and ready to take down any threat.
The main corridor was in semi-darkness, thanks to Trench's sabotaging of the electricity supply, causing shadows to loom and great patches of blackness to bear down on the narrow corridor. They had already killed a guard pacing the exterior of the building. He'd been smoking, perhaps on his break, when Gorilla had approached him, asking, “Phillipe, est que vous?”
The man had turned, the cigarette dangling from his lips, to see a small figure approaching in the darkness of the alley. As he was about to answer, Gorilla brought up the silenced pistol in a one-handed draw from beneath his black coat and fired twice. Head shots. The first target was down.
The stashing of the body and the picking of the rear door lock took no more than a minute and then Gorilla and Trench were inside. Both men were already dressed in dark clothes, to keep their visible profile down, but now they put on balaclava hoods to prevent them from being identified.
On the other side of the building, they could hear the panic and confusion caused by the detonation of the explosive decoy. The main priority now was to reach and ascend the rear staircase as quickly as possible. Gorilla just hoped they were in time to catch the hit-team in their base.
He noticed a movement coming from the doorway leading to the staircase; a large, grossly overweight man holding a revolver. Gorilla was quick, but Trench must have seen him first and fired the silenced carbine. Gorilla felt the wind as the bullet passed by his ear and watched as the man dropped to the ground, dead. The noise of the bullet entering his head had sounded like someone throwing a rotten tomato at a wall; an underwhelming splat.
They made their way along and down to the left, moving as one and reacting to whatever the darkness threw at them. There were figures running in panic from the whorehouse's various rooms, the noise and heat almost a physical entity. The Redaction team's minds were digesting the information as quickly as their eyes and senses detected it, at times it almost seemed as if there was a telepathic bond between the two men.
Shoot that one: phut, phut, phut. Target down. Don't shoot that one: it's one of the girls.
Gorilla was moving first and firing, and then Trench pepper-potting forward and eliminating the next. The only sounds were the metallic 'clacks' as Gorilla changed a magazine or Trench cycled the action on the carbine.
Gorilla saw a man take a bullet, one of Trench's, through the eye… another who had opened the door to his room, shotgun at the ready, had taken two rounds to the chest, causing it to explode… while a third had almost walked into Gorilla's silencer and was rewarded with a phut to the temple. To Gorilla it was like dropping an army of ghastly ghouls, in some horrific funfair arcade.
And still they moved forward in silence, taking out hostiles, pushing bystanders out of the way, Trench screaming in French for them all to “Descendre, descendre,” and scanning for the targets of their mission. By the time they'd reached the flight of stairs leading to the penthouse level, Gorilla judged that they'd taken down a round dozen armed Corsican soldiers, who had either been clients seeing their favorite girls or strong-arm men brought in to provide security.
The whole thing from top to bottom had taken Gorilla and Trench no more than several minutes.
Gorilla knew it wouldn't be long before the Corsicans would start to re-organize and bring in reinforcements. They were so near, only a flight of stairs away from completing their mission and time was of the essence now, more than ever. He motioned to his partner to take a look, to see if he could spot any more targets. Trench raised himself up on the foot of the lower step and craned his neck. A nod and two fingers were held up, indicating how many targets he could see. Bodyguard's, probably, there to make sure that the VIP's hadn't been disturbed. Whoever they were, they must have some pull with the Corsican gangs to afford this level of protection.
Gorilla frowned. Two that Trench could see… but how many more that he couldn't? They would all be armed now, thanks to the explosion and screaming. The final push would be difficult. Fighting from a lower position was never an enviable place to be.
As if sensing his unease, Trench pointed to Gorilla and made the motion of putting his fingers in his ears. When the smaller man had done this, Trench stepped forward so that the penthouse floor landing was directly above him. He reached inside his coat pocket and withdrew a small, tennis ball shaped object. He pulled the pin and gently tossed it over his head, with just enough effort to ensure that it hit its mark. Trench moved back and also jammed his fingers into his ears and waited for the inevitable explosion.
* * *
“We should help them,” said Gioradze.
“No,” said Marquez. “It's their problem. Let the
Corsicans solve it, that's what we pay them for. Our priority is to get out and stay out until it's resolved. Grab the pistols, the cash and the passports, just in case.”
“What about the papers?”
Marquez shook his head. “Leave them, they're safer here. No one will be interested in them. The Guerinis will have whatever is going on dealt with soon enough and then we can come back and retrieve them.”
They had both been relaxing when the lights had gone out, less than five minutes ago. They had been discussing the disappearance of the German, Nadel. He'd been gone for almost a week and the conclusion both men came to was that he'd simply decided to quit in a fit of pique. Marquez had asked the Corsicans to keep an eye out for him in Marseilles, but so far, no one had seen him. Gioradze, by contrast, vowed to cut his balls off, literally, when he caught up with the aging Nazi mercenary.
Then there had been the sound of a distant bang from below, followed by all the power being cut; the inevitable screams and shouts and confusion had followed. Gioradze had looked out the window and saw several half-dressed men and women leaving by the front entrance.
The first thing which occurred to Marquez was that it was a hit by one of the rival clans. It was no secret that the Corsican Capo Guerini was in a constant battle with rival clans, keen to remove the head of the Marseilles underworld from his throne. It was just bad luck that they happened to be caught up in the middle of it all.
“We'll have to use the main staircase. With the power out the lifts won't be working,” said Marquez. The two men gathered their essential escape kit and weapons and ran for the apartment door. Gioradze had just about reached the handle when the explosion rocked them, knocking them both to the floor. It sounded as if someone had smashed the door with a sledgehammer, a shockwave of sound and energy. The air was filled with the smell of fire and dust.
Gioradze was the first to compose himself and managed to look through the gaping wound of what was once the door to their rooms. It was carnage. The two bodyguards had been eviscerated by the grenade and lay sprawled at unnatural angles on the landing, their blood flung across the art deco wallpaper.
He heard voices shouting from the floor below, and knew that whoever had lobbed that grenade would soon be following it up to finish off what they had started. He grabbed Marquez, who was shaking his head, trying to clear the ringing from his ears.
“Juan, we… we have to go… NOW! The windows, they're our only chance to escape!”
* * *
Gorilla had chamber-checked the '39 again, making sure that the bullet was seated properly and wouldn't misfire. Satisfied, he gave the thumbs up to Trench who had also completed a reload. Both men were standing to the side of the staircase, poised, waiting in the natural blind spot under the upper level.
The grenade had done its job; Gorilla was sure of that. Now it would be a simple mopping up operation for them.
He gave the 'go' signal, a short, chopping motion with his hand, and the two men launched themselves at the stairs, weapons up and ready to fire. The seven steps opened up onto what had recently been an expensively furnished penthouse landing; now it was a charnel house complete with debris, smoke and human remains scattered across the floor. Two doors, the doors to the penthouse suites, stood before them. Separating both rooms was the unusable elevator, with the upside down body of a Corsican barring entry to its broken doors.
“Je Vais a gauche,” Trench shouted to Gorilla as he centered the carbine on the left hand door and moved towards it at speed. Gorilla nodded and took the right side, booting in the door, dropping to one knee and scanning the interior of the hotel suite.
It was empty. No targets. Only a recently-used bed and a small suitcase propped against a chair. He made his way inside, covering his arcs of fire, until he reached the only other possible hiding place; the bathroom. He flung open the door, expecting to find his target holed up, but was rewarded only with an empty, luxurious marble bath. Nothing.
It was then that he heard the gunfire from the adjacent penthouse suite.
* * *
Trench had followed the exact same routine as Gorilla: kicked the door open, dropped to a knee and raised the De Lisle ready to scan and attack. He was greeted with the sight of two men, one small and balding and the other tall and dark, clambering out of the window and onto what he assumed would be a balcony terrace.
The smaller man seemed to be protecting his bigger compatriot, half pushing him and half pulling him out of the escape route.
Trench raised his weapon to get a clear aim and in that moment, almost as if there'd been some kind of ingrained survival instinct at play, the smaller man turned in one fluid motion and fired.
The rounds from the handgun came rapidly in a sustained volley and had the desired effect of making Trench flinch and driving him back behind the cover of the doorframe and into the hallway. But not for long and Trench was soon on his feet, and both he and Gorilla raced to the window, hoping to get a shot at the two fugitives.
They led with their weapons, in case the killers had decided to stage an ambush. Trench looked first. “Clear!” he shouted. Weapons raised, they peered out into the darkness. The only sights which greeted them were a crowd gathering outside of the hotel and the flashing beacons of a fire truck. Their quarry had flown.
“Shit,” said Trench. “They must have hopped over to the next balcony and down, then across to the next building. We've no chance of catching up with them now.”
Gorilla pulled off the balaclava hood, his short white hair spiked up from the heat and sweat was running down his brow. He took in a deep breath to cool himself. The aftershock of the past few minutes had gone and stillness settled over the building, the only sound being the distant repetition of a record player needle stuck on a loop; a crooner telling his love that it was over. Gorilla looked around the room while Trench guarded the door, ready and waiting to drop anyone who made it up the stairway.
Gorilla scanned the desk, the bed and the furnishings, which were covered with papers and files. He looked at each item carefully. It was a treasure trove of information, consisting of documents, notes and maps. They had obviously found their intended targets, right in the middle of planning the next hit, and even from this cursory glance, Gorilla was convinced there was enough real time intelligence contained in the scattered pages to keep Toby and his team going for weeks. He began to gather it up, quickly stuffing as much as he could into his jacket pockets.
“Anything?” Trench asked from over his shoulder. His eyes never left the threat of the smoldering staircase. His finger still rested dangerously close to the trigger.
“You could say that,” said Gorilla, as he folded up a map and crammed it into his pocket.
“That's great. But before we bugger off, can I just make a suggestion? We need to burn the place down. They're gone, so it seems, but if they come back and find their papers and files missing, they'll instantly suspect foul play – or more accurately, foul play directed at them.”
Gorilla considered this. The hit-team had vanished, they'd missed them by a whisker, but if they wanted any chance of catching up with them again, then this stash of operational intelligence was going to be the key.
“If they come back and find it all gone, the chances are they'll change their plans,” said Trench. “We have to make them believe that any material belonging to them perished and hope they assume their security is still intact and carry on with the operation. Does that make sense?”
Gorilla nodded, loading a fresh magazine into the '39 before he pulled the balaclava back on. He was ready. “Frank?”
“Yes, Gorilla.”
“I think we need one of your little firecrackers.”
* * *
The fire, according to later reports from the Marseilles Fire Service, began in the upper floors of the now-lamented Hotel Azure. The blaze took over three hours to quell and had to be left overnight before it was considered safe enough to retrieve the dead bodies from inside. In total, a doz
en bodies were removed and the coroner's report would show that the victims had died from gunshot wounds, rather than from the effects of the fire.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, no one noticed two figures climbing onto the roof and crossing to the neighboring property before scaling down the outer stairwell and then disappearing. Nor did anyone notice the small, rusting Renault which had been stolen earlier that day, ambling along and leaving the Port area at a slow pace.
The attack and subsequent burning down of the Azure were the final sparks in an already volatile tinderbox that was the Marseilles underworld. The results would be inevitable and when several Francisci Clan Underbosses were shot dead a week later, no one was surprised.
* * *
They had been sitting in the farthest, darkest corner of the old cinema for the past hour. They were watching Une Femme Mariee directed by Jean-Luc Goddard.
The audience was thinned and spread across the auditorium like island pockets, each isolated in their own little regions. They were mainly couples out on dates, enjoying some time together. Gioradze was convinced some of the men were less interested in the dialogue and were, in fact, getting sneaky hand jobs from their ladies.
The movie house had seemed the most natural place to hide. It was quiet, discreet and off the beaten track. It was the perfect place for them to re-group and analyze the violence of the past hour. Marquez and Gioradze kept their heads close together, their whispering voices lost among the volume of the film. Gioradze had his hand on the pistol concealed beneath his coat, in case they were about to be ambushed. “Could it have been the German after all? Has he sold us out?” he asked.
Marquez had considered this over the past hour, but after digesting the events of the night, had dismissed it. What did the German know? Very little, in fact; a few locations, but no specifics about the future targets. That information was on a need to know basis and only Gioradze and he knew the principals involved. “I think not. Nadel would have very little to gain from it, and loathe as I am to admit it, he is at least professional. Besides, I think he would want to settle it face-to-face with us,” said Marquez.