by Chris Ryan
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'You like?' shouted Suet-Face, tipping back the bottle again. 'Is Ceca Raznatovich.'
'Is shit,' Slater shouted back. 'Ceca fucks pigs. So does your mother.'
Best, he thought, to keep it simple.
But Suet-Face, despite being in what must have been considerable pain from his missing thumb, refused to be wound up. Instead, to Slater's staring disbelief, he started to dance - or at least to move his body in rough time to the music.
'You like pigs?' he said, still grinning. 'Is good you like pigs.'
The other two joined in, grinding their hips, punching the air and yelling the choruses with formless, incoherent abandon. The bottle passed hands. On Suet-Face's features a look of almost drooling anticipation had taken residence. They're cranking themselves up to kill me, thought Slater. This turbo-folk shit is the last music I'm going to hear.
The three men danced, drank and yelled for the twenty minutes that it took for the tape to play itself out, and then, sweating heavily, Suet-Face made for the barn which made up one side of the farmyard. From its shadowed interior Slater heard the faint grumble of a generator and then, above this, the heavy vibration of another, much larger piece of equipment. For some reason the sound seemed to excite the pigs, which scrabbled and fell over each other frenziedly.
Smiling, Potato-Head strode over to where Slater lay hunched on the verge.
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igs, English,' he grinned. 'Come!'
reen them he and the cosh-man dragged Slater i feet and pulled him roughly into the entrance to am. With a surge of dread that almost caused him jve at the knees Slater saw the machine that had vibrating with such menace -- a heavy-duty strial wood-chipper. It shuddered on its battered i on the hard earth floor as if ravenous for matter ftnsume.
sing Slater's white-faced horror, Suet-face gave thumbs-up with his good hand. He then ated the gesture with his bad hand, shrugged, and . The message was clear: I've lost my thumb, but t about to lose your life.
gave an order, and the cosh-man stepped ;, taking a pitchfork that was leaning against the fWall. From the yard came an agonised screaming, when the cosh-man returned a small pig was and keening on the pitchfork's upturned
ig with the effort, the cosh-man unloaded the i-legs first into the waiting maw of the The animal was still screaming when the started and the first bloody slush began ; into the waiting bin. When the outflow had been reduced to a slow drip of pink fat, the wiped his forehead and winked at Slater, you, fuck your mother, and fuck your said Slater conversationally. Inside, he was t deranged with fear. Do I keep the knife hidden
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and try to stick one of these fuckers, he wondered, or do I saw through my wrist right now and hope that bleed to death before they can feed me into that machine?
Suet-Face issued another order and Slater was dragged back out to the yard. Potato-Face followed with the slop-bin, and poured the still-steaming contents over the fence into the pigs' enclosure. Grunting and squealing furiously the animals piled in, devouring every scrap of tissue and bone. After less than a minute there was nothing left except for a few bloody smears on snouts and cheeks.
'Recycle!' explained Suet-Face. 'Very . . . ecology, no?'
Slater, whose legs were threatening to fold beneath him, forced himself to remain standing. Not to vomit.
A rotten-toothed smile split the broad peasant face. 'And now, England, we recycle you!'
Taking his upper arms, the other two began once again to drag the hopelessly writhing Cadre member across the rough concrete of the yard to the barn. Conscious that terror and the anticipation of unspeakable pain was beginning to shut down his thought-processes altogether, Slater forced himself to act.
Twitching his head crazily and screaming the foulest obscenities he could think of in order to attract attention away from his hands, he palmed the knife.
In the dead centre of the yard he yanked his feet forward, braked himself, and swinging his cuffed fists backwards with all the force he could muster, drove
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ade up to the hilt into Suet-Face's crotch.
Y, and in total silence, the Serb fell to his knees,
ater did not see this. What he saw - incompreIgly - was Eve rising into the double-handed position at the entrance to the yard.
i sound of her weapon - the multiple reports I almost lazily over the hot air, and it seemed to
that he heard the bone-smashing impact of the
( and felt the hot tissue-spray on his cheek first.
; Serbs at his sides pitched away from him, their I bloodily open-ended, lifeless before they hit the
Msve!' shouted Eve. 'Move left.' swideringly, Slater threw himself to the concrete, [ the double crack and a thrilled screaming as the artion of Suet-Face's skull landed among the
$inesslike now, Eve raced forward, paused for a it with weapon extended over each Mien man. ' Serbs, however, were very dead indeed, and Eve returned the Clock to her shoulder-holster ebuttoned her Levi jacket.
9,' she said, and for a long moment they stared at other.
er tried to think of something to say - some 1 of gratitude -- but a paralysing weariness seemed ave overcome him, and he lowered his eyes. For time, he noticed the extreme tightness of the i&. knelt down beside him. Her leopardskin velvet
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trousers, he saw, were shredded at the knees. She was dressed for the sixteenth arrondissement, not for a life or-death stalk across open ground in the countryside.
'Who had the cuff-key?' she asked.
'Don't know,' he answered numbly.
Quickly she searched the corpses, pulled the key from the cosh-man's pocket and, kneeling, sprung open the biting cufis at Slater's wrists and ankles.
'Thanks!' he breathed, flexing his puffed and agonised fingers and gasping at the pain of the renewed circulation. Slowly he climbed to his feet, took a few tentative steps and turned to her. 'What can I say? Thank you again. I was . . .'
He nodded at the wood-chipping machine, still thrumming expectantly.
'How badly are you hurt?' asked Eve, walking into the barn and reaching for the generator button.
The machine grumbled to silence.
Slater felt for the back of his skull. There was a large and acutely tender lump there, but he was able to turn his head without the crunching agony that vertebral or skull-damage would have engendered. His sinuses were sore and his eyes were still very inflamed, his ribs were painfully bruised from a kicking that he suspected had been delivered to him when he was lying unconscious in the apartment, and his testicles were i badly swollen.
'I'm . . . I'm pretty much OK. They gave me a good < seeing-to in that flat, but I don't think they did any permanent. . .' Tears, Slater discovered, were
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ig down his face. 'They Maced me, too,' he jgised. 'My eyes are a bit fucked. Sorry.'
handed him a handkerchief, and he scrubbed ars and the congealing blood and brain-matter his face. Seeing a tap in the corner of the yard he over and held his head under it for half a
me honestly how you are,' Eve said when he inished.
i still a bit concussed,' he admitted. 'Mentally the ce seems to be on and I'll probably get the at some point, but basically I'm OK.' nodded. 'Right. Well I'll tell you what we're I to do. We'll bring each other up to speed about i in the car, but first we're going to do to our new what they were going to do to you. It'll be ' and unpleasant but it's got to be done.' : what is this place? Who owns it?' idea. But this is quite a common Mafia setup disposal. Very popular in Russia. Some hard -farmer gets paid a whack of cash to leave the es for a few hours - the whole thing arranged ie phone - and when he gets back the place is id tidy and his animals have been fed.' we're not going to have some irate bloke ; up with a shotgun?' subt it. And we'd see him a mile of
f, anyway. :'d see us, and know to keep his distance.' er nodded. 'Are you going to tell me what led? How you got here?'
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'Let's get shot of this trio first.'
'Where are the others?'
'Andreas followed Fanon-Khayat, who's holed up at a hotel near the airport outside Paris. Terry and Leon stayed at the OP to keep an eye on Branca, who's still in the Rue Molitor flat. I'll hear if there are any developments. Now do you think you can lift these guys?'
Slater was amazed at her composure. The entire operation had gone arse-up, she'd just had to shoot three men dead, and she was carrying on as coolly as if they were out on a shopping trip.
'Do you think the pigs will eat the clothes?'
'Not sure.' Eve frowned. 'Perhaps best to strip the bodies and drive the stuff away. Let's do it.'
They started. By unspoken agreement they worked as fast as they could, and in almost total silence. Soon a pile of clothes and shoes lay beside the three naked corpses. Eve went through the pockets, extracting several thousand francs in cash, the Tokarev and Stechkin handguns, the gold Dupont lighter, and the keys to the Audi Quattro. Slater removed his knife from Suet-Face's perineum, and washed it under the tap before returning it to his belt.
There was no question, he knew, of merely setting the car on fire with the bodies in it. There would be inquests and autopsies and the manner of death would swiftly come to light. Then there would be headlines.
No, there was no easy or pleasant way out. The dead men had to disappear completely.
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we haven't got a bit more time,' observed |*,'In six hours they'd be nice and stiff.' ^tttodded blankly.
: barn, Slater found a square of plastic sheeting, one he rolled the dead men on to this, and : them, bumping, into the barn. Once there he the heads with fertiliser bags, to prevent any j> escaping on to the earth floor. When all three were ready for destruction, he fetched the > bin from the enclosure, where Potato-Face had Bluebottle flies were swarming in and around feasting on the congealed remains of the pig, in a black fury as he lifted it. the bin positioned beneath the funnel, Slater e looked at each other. Eve turned on the ator, and Slater knelt to hoist the first of the in a fireman's lift.
: man was very heavy -- dead weight -- and blood lid matter dripped from the fertiliser-bag on to aulder and arm of Slater's jacket. Finally he had >dy poised, and tipped it in head first. There was ible grinding and roaring from within the ic, and then an obscene pink soup whitened by chips began to sluice into the plastic dustbin, disappeared comparatively fast but the iers took much longer. Slowly the body inched iwards until Slater signalled to Eve to shut the
icoff.
don't want to carry so much that it spills or ies,' he explained.
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Carefully, averting his head from the stinking stew around which the flies were already circling in their hundreds, Slater manhandled the bin over to the pigs' enclosure.
Smelling the blood the pigs began to trample over each other to get close to him. With care, Slater poured the flyblown contents of the bin into the trough which ran the length of the enclosure. The pigs piled in, lapping and crunching uninhibitedly.
'You haven't by any chance still got those Gauloises?' asked Eve, when he returned to the wood chipper. Slater had. The packet was a little battered but most of the cigarettes were in one piece.
'I always want to smoke if I miss lunch,' she explained with a quick smile.
'You're hungry?' asked Slater. A purple set of genitals and two fat, hairy legs were sticking bolt upright out of the woodchipper.
'Well, you know how pathetic French breakfasts are.'
'Do you want to hit that on-switch?' suggested Slater.
It took two more hours to process all of the bodies, and by the end both of them were bloodspattered, nauseated, and physically and emotionally drained. Slater was worried that the pigs would lose their appetites half-way through and leave the trough filled with shredded human tissue, but his final visit to the enclosure was greeted with all the squealing enthusiasm of the first.
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icn they had finally finished, Eve lit another ciga and Slater attached a hose from the barn to the tap. He sluiced down the bin, the pigs, the i, the plastic sheet, the inside and outside of the chipper and the concrete surface of the yard. To clean out the machine, Slater fed a pile of logs it, pouring the resulting woodchips into the enclosure. Microscopic forensic analysis might indicated the vestigial presence of human tissue I and there, but why was anyone going to subject Ifoarticular farmyard to that kind of scrutiny? Within |tes all the hosed-down surfaces had dried in the leaving no sign of the horror that had unfolded A blackbird sang on the baked tile roof of the There was a buzzing of grasshoppers. Here are we, anyway?' Slater asked. The pain in sin had subsided to a dull ache and the sunshine
ig him sleepy.
f-way between Chartres and Le Mans. Eighty Jes south-west of Paris. It's quite nice, isn't it?' ftybe we could retire here,' said Slater, yawning. i raise pigs.'
need to change our clothes,' said Eve, audibly ing herself. She moved to the pile of discarded 5. 'What have we got here?' ig offher short leather boots, she unzipped and I her torn velvet jeans. Her legs, Slater couldn't f'jHoticing, were long and well-toned, with the ion of a fading tan. courtesy of the Vauxhall Cross gym,' she said
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drily, intercepting Slater's covert glance. 'And knickers by La Perla. Anything else I can help you with?'
To replace the jeans, she took Potato-Head's shiny Adidas pants and belted them round the waist. With the Levi jacket the effect was a bit weird, but not so unusual as to attract attention.
As Slater stripped to his boxer-shorts and began pulling on the cosh-man's grey track-suit pants, Eve soberly examined the bruises on his upper body.
'They were really quite cross with you, weren't they?'
'I think it was the guy whose thumb I shot off that did most of the damage,' said Slater. 'To be honest I'd probably have a good go at anyone who did that to me.'
'But nothing broken? You're not pissing blood or anything?'
Til let you know,' said Slater, pocketing the Stechkin and the Tokarev. The weapons were so heavy that Slater had to tighten the draw-string at his waist to prevent the track-suit pants from being pulled down as he walked.
When they had taken the clothes they needed, the remainder went into the boot of the Audi. 'There was a place I passed about half an hour's drive back towards Paris,' said Eve. 'A kind of dump. We can get rid of these there. In the meanwhile' - she stabbed at the buttons of her mobile - 'we should get up to date. Andreas, yes, tell me.' She listened in silence for thirty seconds. 'Understood.'
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^Pressing the off-button she turned to Slater. 'Right. Here's the position. Andreas has Fanonayat under surveillance. He's in a hotel called the r-Lux near Charles de Gaulle airport, and as far as sas can tell he's there alone. There's no sign that i going anywhere -- he's just holed up in his room. s's got back-up there, he hasn't made face-to-face ttact with them.'
ifFanon-Khayat's got a hard decision to make,
iumably,' said Slater. 'Either to go for safety and run
Belgrade, or to go for profit and glory and tie up
I^Ondine deal. Am I right in thinking that he has to
here to do that?'
According to our assets, he'll want to do the deal If he goes back to Serbia and his contacts ?w him there, then the RDB will find out light away who they are and cut FanonKhayat i'of the deal. By staying here and operating outside orbit he can keep hold of all the strings, and : out of the whole thing looking like the single ied saviour of Republica Srpska. This'll ensure hero status in Belgrade -- never underestimate jf need of a middle-aged man to impress his baby trophy wife - and a fat backhander from the ier.'
lich he's going to need when Branca hits the s,' Slater added wryly.
fou better believe it! I only saw her for thirty ads but she looked to me like a girl who knew ' to give a gold Amex card a hard workout.'
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'So we think he's going to lie low at the hotel, then?'
'That would be my calculation.'
Slater nodded. 'So we have to do him there.'
'That or persuade him to come away with us so that we can do him somewhere else.'
'And he's got the disc there? The Cambodia pictures?'
'He must have. He wouldn't leave them in the flat without the bodyguards there. And the bodyguards all went off with you.'
'So one way and another we've got a better than average chance of completing the operation as intended?'
'I think so, yes. But the first thing we've got to do is make this Audi disappear. You haven't seen a slurry pond or anything like that?'
'I haven't seen anything. I was in the boot. But mightn't it be a better idea just to dump it? Somewhere it's absolutely bound to get nicked, replated and sold on. Do you know any really rough Parisian housing estates?'
'Yes, I do. And you're right, that would be the best way to get rid of it. We've got to go into Paris anyway.'
Slater looked around him, at the farm buildings bathed in afternoon sunshine, at the peace and quiet and solitude of the place.
'What's the plan?' he asked.
'Let's get rid of the clothes and the car,' said Eve. 'I'll
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Chris Ryan ryou on the way out to the airport.'
: dump was a vast, hellish smear of a place, covering eral acres. Bulldozers shovelled mountains of refuse, wheeled overhead, and smoke rose from a of fires. With the heat of the day the smell was ^eakable. Slater threw the armful of clothes and ; over a stinking garbage cliff-face, hurried back to /Audi Quattro, and gunned the engine in pursuit of !?� Peugeot.
hour later he wiped the controls and steering el clean of fingerprints and parked the car in the ijr-strewn shadow of a high-rise public-housing in Arcueil, two kilometres south of the icrique ring-road. With his hands inside the ; of his sweat-shirt to avoid leaving further prints : himself out of the car and walked away, leaving key swinging from the ignition.