Black Horn (A Creasy novel Book 4)

by A. J. Quinnell

  The Commissioner walked up behind the constable and looked at his screen. As he stood there, a voice came through the right-hand speaker.

  It was the voice of Damon Broad saying: ‘Rendezvous on the beach in three minutes. Flash your torch twice after two minutes.’

  Another voice said: ‘I copy.’

  A third voice came through the speaker, saying: ‘We are lying one nautical mile off the Ninepins. I have the Black Swan on radar. We are on silent mode.’

  The Commissioner looked down at the constable and said, ‘What was that?’

  The constable turned his head and explained. ‘That was Damon Broad, communicating with Guido Arrellio. In three minutes, he’ll pick Guido up from the beach in a silenced dinghy and take him out to the MV Tempest, The other voice was Tony Cope, who’s commanding the Tempest. Guido and Tony Cope will attack the Black Swan just before dawn.’

  The Commissioner drew a breath to say something, but was interrupted by the sound of another dialogue from the speaker.

  It was Jens Jensen, talking to Creasy: ‘Dawn is at six hundred zero seven hours and the garbage truck moves out of Sai Kung village, at six forty-five. Its speed is reduced to less than ten miles an hour at map reference E/I2.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ the voice came back.

  The speaker went silent and the constable looked up at his Commissioner and explained, ‘That was Creasy talking to the Dane, Jens Jensen. The Dane is at the Peninsula, co-ordinating communications between the team. The Dane is also a computer expert.’ The constable glanced at his watch. ‘In half an hour, the team will move towards Sai Kung and infiltrate close to the villa.’

  From behind him, the Commissioner heard Inspector Lau say, ‘The 14K have demanded five million US dollars from the American woman Gloria Manners by noon today, against the release of Lucy Kwok. They will call her again at six a.m. She will play for time.’

  The Commissioner stood there with his hands folded, looking at the computer screen. Then he looked at the three loudspeakers on the wall. Then he looked back at the constable and said, ‘You’ve done a very good job, constable.’

  The constable twisted in his chair, and looked up at his Commissioner.

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  The right-hand loudspeaker came to life. It was Creasy talking to Eric: ‘Are you back in position?’

  ‘Affirmative,’

  ‘Any movement?’

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘I wake the team up in twenty minutes. We’ll be in position in one hour.’

  ‘Info on the woman?’

  ‘Guido’s on his way.’

  The Commissioner settled himself into a chair while Inspector Lau switched on the coffee percolator. Constable Ho was tapping the keys of his computer. He turned and said to the Commissioner, ‘Guido will board the MV Tempest, in about forty-five minutes. From past transcripts, we know that Creasy and Do Huang will hijack the garbage truck as it leaves Sai Kung villa, at about six forty-five a.m.’

  The Commissioner glanced at his watch. He looked up at the row of loudspeakers and said, ‘Inspector Lau. Are we sure that Tommy Mo and his chief henchmen are in that villa?’

  ‘We are sure, Sir.’

  Chapter 62

  Guido had left his car a kilometre from the shore and scrambled down the low coastline to the beach, holding an illuminated compass in his left hand. He held a black canvas bag containing clothes and his weapons, and weapons for Tony Cope. He waited on the rocky foreshore, listening for the sound of an outboard engine. He waited for two minutes and heard nothing. He pulled a torch from his canvas bag, and flicked it on twice. From the sea came an answering flash. It was remarkably close.

  Two minutes later, the black shape of the dinghy slid on to the beach. Guido dropped the bag over the prow and saw the dim outline of Damon Broad at the helm. As the dinghy reversed off the beach, Guido said, ‘I heard nothing.’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ Damon said. ‘We extended the exhaust below the water-line and encased the motors on all the dinghies.’

  As they sped across the silent unruffled water towards the Ninepins, Guido said, ‘Give me a sitrep.’

  Damon Broad said, ‘The Black Swan is anchored in among the Ninepins. Tony did a recce about an hour ago. You thoughtfully provided us with night-glasses. There were two look-outs on deck, but they’re amateurs. They sat on the wheelhouse roof, which meant they could see far out to sea, but could not observe the waters immediately below them. Since there’s only a new moon covered by cloud, they could see nothing far out to sea. Tony’s worked out the assault.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  There was a long pause and then Damon said, ‘Tony approached to within three hundred metres of that junk and drifted at the same distance past it, for about an hour. For the first half of that hour, he heard intermittent screams . . . Then they stopped.’

  They continued the forty-minute passage in silence, until Damon Broad said quietly, I wish I could assault that junk with you.’

  Guido’s voice was quiet and almost caressing. ‘Don’t worry, Damon . . . When I get on to that junk, I’ll do what you want to do.’

  Chapter 63

  The Commissioner sat and drank coffee and, for the next hour, watched the row of loudspeakers. Not a sound came from them. By nature, he was an efficient, but impatient man. Finally, his impatience broke through. He said to the constable, ‘Has your communication set-up gone down?

  Wang shook his head.

  ‘No, Sir. Any minute now, things will start to happen.’

  Another five minutes passed and then voices began to come through the speakers, and the constable started interpreting who the voices belonged to and where they were coming from. First, it was Guido talking to Creasy; telling him that he was aboard the Tempest and about to move on the Black Swan. Creasy advised back that the team were preparing to move out of the safehouse and head to Sai Kung. Every transmission was cryptic in the extreme, and without Constable Ho’s explanation, the Commissioner would have been confused.

  Then, at 6 a.m., another loudspeaker carried the transcript between Gloria Manners and the smooth talking go-between. She told him that she agreed to the terms of the investment and that the money was being transferred to Hong Kong and would be available before noon. He informed her that payment must be made in gold sovereigns and that she could exchange her dollars for sovereigns at the Hang Seng Bank, which always kept a large stock. He would call back in two hours, to give her the details of the exchange of the sovereigns and her Chinese friend.

  Ten minutes later, Creasy was talking to Guido, reporting that he and Do Huang were in position outside Sai Kung village, waiting to hijack the garbage truck. Ten seconds later, Jens Jensen was reminding the team that first light was in twenty-three minutes.

  The Commissioner tore his gaze from the row of loudspeakers, looked at Inspector Lau and said, ‘Your friends are well-organised, but my money is still on Tommy Mo.’

  ‘How much, Sir?’

  ‘Inspector, you know that gambling for money is illegal in Hong Kong . . . dinner at the Sung Wah restaurant.’

  ‘You’re on, Sir.’

  Chapter 64

  Guido and Tony Cope went through the ‘buddy’ routine. They stood facing each other, dressed in black and fully-armed. Their faces were blackened, and they wore black knitted skull-caps. They checked each other’s submachine-guns, ensuring first that they were on safety, and then that the magazines and spare magazines were primed. They then went through the same procedure with the pistols that they carried in holsters on their right sides, and the grenades attached to the webbing on their chests. Damon Broad looked on. He had never seen the procedure before, but the logic of it was obvious.

  Earlier, Tony Cope had explained the method of boarding the Black Swan. It was a method that the Special Boat Service had adopted from the centuries-old pirates who, up until the present day, were the scourge of the straits of Malacca. Those pirates would come up at night behind
a vessel in fast boats. They would have long bamboo poles with cloth-covered hooks on the end, and latch on to the stern rail, and then storm up those poles.

  Tony Cope had explained that, although they did not have bamboo poles, they had two very long boat-hooks which he had adapted. They would approach to within two hundred metres of the Black Swan with silenced engine and then row in under the stern. If the look-outs were still sitting on the Black Swan’s wheel house, they would see nothing.

  There was a very slight northerly breeze. As they attacked the Black Swan, Damon Broad would bring in the Tempest towards the north, switch off the engine and drift down towards them. At the first sound of gunfire, he would man the heavy machine gun on the stern and cover the decks of the Black Swan, by which time, the look-outs would be dead and Guido and Tony would be below deck, cleaning up. The plan had the perfection of simplicity and Guido offered no argument. They completed their checks and climbed down into the dinghy.

  It took fifteen minutes to approach the Black Swan, Tony Cope steered with a luminous compass in his left hand. Guido sat in the prow and watched the little stalagmite islands loom into shape. Then, in their midst, he saw the dark ominous shape of the Black Swan. Tony cut the engine and they both crouched down. It was not even necessary to use the oars. Over the next ten minutes, a gentle breeze carried them under the stern of the junk.

  Tony rose with one of the long padded boat-hooks in his hands, reached up and gently hooked it over the stern rail. Guido went first, pulling himself up hand over hand until he gripped the rail. He lifted his head and heard the two look-outs talking on top of the wheel-house. They were just shadows, about eight metres away. Quietly, he pulled himself aboard. He felt, rather than saw, Tony beside him. He touched Tony on the shoulder and pointed to the two shadows and then touched his chest and pointed at the open door of the wheelhouse, moved forward on his rubber-soled boots and ducked through the entrance.

  Guido looked down the hatch into the saloon and saw four men sitting around the table, playing mahjong and laughing and drinking. There was a bottle of almost empty Black Label whisky on the table. He flicked off the safety of his FNP90. Then he slowly started down the companionway. He had almost reached the bottom before one of the men looked up and saw him.

  It was the last thing he saw. In a two-second burst, Guido sprayed bullets across the table. Two of them died immediately. The other two scrabbled on the deck, screaming in agony. As Guido changed a magazine, he heard Tony Cope’s SMG open up on the top deck. Guido switched to single shot, and put a bullet through the heads of the two wounded men. Shouts came from his left. A bulkhead door opened and a man came through, holding a pistol. A one-second burst and the man was punched back through the door. Guido ran and jumped over the body and his eyes took in the tableau: Lucy — tied to the bed on her stomach and the naked man scrambling off her body. The naked man hit the floor, rolled over and held up his hands. Guido emptied the rest of the magazine into him.

  Chapter 65

  The garbage truck came slowly around the tight corner. The driver hit the brakes as soon as he saw the obstacle in front of him. It was a small tree, its branches lying right across the road. The truck came to a halt and the driver said to his assistant, ‘Pull that out of the way.’

  The other man cursed from under a rice wine hangover. He opened the cab and jumped down. As he approached the tree, the driver heard a voice on his right. He turned and saw the dark muzzle of a pistol pointing between his eyes. Behind it was a blackened Caucasian face, under a black skull-cap.

  Twenty seconds later, the driver and his assistant were lying in the roadside ditch, handcuffed together, both by their ankles and their wrists. The garbage truck was trundling away down the road.

  In Inspector Lau’s office, the voices came through the speaker, again, very cryptically. First, it was Do Huang talking to Maxie MacDonald. Wang identified the voices for the Commissioner and his Inspector.

  ‘We have possession of the vehicle.’

  ‘Timescale?’

  ‘Between ten and twelve minutes.’

  ‘We’re ready.’

  Then Guido’s voice: I’m coming ashore.’

  The sun had risen. Eric Laparte, with Maxie beside him, holding the first of the bombs, was a hundred metres away to the east of the compound in a clump of bushes with his mortar set up. Above them on the hill, Tom Sawyer was looking through binoculars at the compound. All was quiet. Two men were squatting in front of the villa, half-asleep in the early sunlight.

  Tom took the binoculars from his eyes, looked to his right and saw the garbage truck approaching. He unclipped the small mobile phone from his belt, punched the buttons and said, ‘About two minutes.’

  His voice carried into Inspector Lau’s office, into the suite at the Peninsula Hotel, into Creasy’s ear, and into the earplugs of the rest of the team.

  Do Huang reached the gates and hit the horn of the truck impatiently.

  Tom watched as the two men in front of the villa roused themselves and went to the gate. A minute later, the garbage truck was passing through the gates and moving down the road beside the villa. Tom spoke into the mobile phone: ‘Mortar . . . about sixty seconds.’

  He watched as the garbage truck pulled up in front of the service building. He heard the sound of its horn again, and saw the two men carrying out black garbage bags. The automated back of the truck lifted, and as Do Huang came out of the cab, Creasy came out of the back.

  The war started.

  Do Huang shot the two men with the garbage bags, and then ducked behind the truck, facing the service building. Creasy ran towards the villa. The two half-awake guards at the front of the villa grabbed their submachine-guns and ran towards the truck. Creasy lifted his SMG and, while still running, emptied his magazine at them. They spun away into the dust.

  Eric waited until Do Huang had backed away from the garbage truck towards the villa. The moment he was clear of the intervening space, Tom lifted his phone and said: ‘Mortar.’

  Two seconds later, Maxie dropped the first bomb down the mortar tube. Tom heard the crumps of the detonations and then watched the result. He signalled: ‘Back ten metres.’ Eric adjusted the mortar and then Maxie was dropping the bombs down the barrel. Six mortars were in the air as the 14K fighters spilled out of the service building. The bombs dropped among them at three-second intervals, killing them instantly.

  Tom dropped the binoculars, picked up his SMG and ran down the hill. He came up beside Frank, who had the barrel of the RPG7 over his shoulder. He watched as the rocket took off slowly, gathered speed and smashed into the wall. Seconds later, he heard an explosion on the other side of the compound, which had to be Maxie’s rocket, also breaching the wall. He saw the shape of The Owl beside him, racing for the breach, and raced after him.

  Creasy reached the front of the villa. He could hear shouts from inside. He did not try to open the door; he just lifted his submachine gun and blasted away at the lock. Do Huang was behind him, facing out, his SMG held high and ready.

  Creasy went through the door in a crouch. There were two figures in the passageway on his left. He fired a full magazine and, a second later, had replaced it. Beyond the hallway was a large room with ornate furniture and, beyond that, another passage. Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder. Do Huang was walking backwards, guarding his back.

  Creasy shouted, ‘Do! Stay right there. Be careful on your trigger. It could be one or more of ours coming through that door.’

  Then he turned and ran down the passage. From outside the building he could hear the stuttering of small-arms fire on both sides, and he knew that both teams were inside the compound. Creasy had seen photographs of Tommy Mo and his top people, and for the next three minutes, he hunted them down from bedroom to bedroom. Some died in their beds, some died rushing out of their rooms, some died with their hands in the air. Creasy had no mercy. At the end of the corridor, he paused at a massive mahogany door. He heard running steps behind him and Do’s vo
ice calling: ‘Maxie’s guarding the door.’

  From behind the heavy door, they could hear a voice screaming out in Chinese.

  Do said, ‘That’s got to be him.’

  Creasy said, ‘Back off. You fire at the lock and I’ll go through in a roll. Come right after me.’ They moved back about five metres and Do raised his SMG and fired a magazine into the lock. The door was half-ajar. Creasy ran forward, hit the door with his shoulder and rolled into the room.

  Tommy Mo was in the far corner, wearing a pair of white underpants and holding a pistol with both hands. He managed to get off one shot, which winged Creasy. Then Creasy was firing his SMG and sending death across the room.

  In the compound between the two buildings, the battle raged on. Eric Laparte lay dead, cut down as he tried to storm the service building. Tom Sawyer had taken a bullet in his left shoulder, but he leaned against the corner of the villa and with his right hand sent a deadly fire as the 14K fighters poured out of the building. Frank Miller was at the other corner, lobbing grenades.

  They began to pull out. Maxie ran across the compound and crouched beside Tom Sawyer, ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered.

  They headed for the breach in the wall. From the front of the villa, Creasy and Do emerged. They headed for the same breach. The Owl stood over the body of Eric Laparte and knew immediately that he was dead. They also moved out, firing a last burst at the service building. He stayed at the breach while the others went past him, and watched as the last of the fighters gathered. He lobbed two grenades, and then started running.

  About twenty 14K fighters had survived the assault. They gathered themselves and their weapons and gave chase. As they came down the path towards the sea, they saw their tormentors ahead, and they saw the elegant motor vessel waiting off-shore. They ran faster. From the hill on the right, a submachine-gun opened up, and from the launch, a heavy machine-gun began to cut them down.