by Mark Arundel
I studied Geoffrey. He was panting and sweating heavily. He pulled off his glasses and wiped his face.
I told him, ‘You’re doing well.’
He said, ‘I couldn’t see a door. I knew we had to get out. The lift door opened. I panicked. Sorry.’
The hotel was six storeys high with the ground floor and five others. I’d pushed the top floor button. The lift was rising fast. I knew we had to get back down to the ground floor and get out of the hotel quickly. It was now a different game. If cornered, we might have to stand and fight. I wished I’d brought that knife with me.
The lift stopped. I checked the hallway and we got off. On the corner, beyond the second lift was the door leading to the stairway. I went over, opened the door, stuck my head through and listened. I heard footsteps climbing on the hard staircase. I went back to the lifts and looked up at the digital floor display. The second lift was on the first floor and rising. Just as I expected, one of them was coming up the stairs and the other in the lift.
I considered my options. Either wait and fight or go back down to the ground floor in the lift we’d just come up in. It was an easy choice to make. I pushed Geoffrey back into the lift and pushed the button for the reception. The doors closed and the lift began to descend.
I gripped Geoffrey’s arm and made him look at me. ‘When the lift stops on the ground floor we’re going to walk quickly back the way we came, out of the hotel and along the covered walkway to the road.’
He asked, ‘What if one of them is waiting for us?’
Before I could answer the lift stopped, pinged and the doors slid open. He entered with real speed. The first thing I saw was the knife in his hand. He moved straight toward Geoffrey and lunged with a professional underhand strike of his arm. Geoffrey reacted instinctively, yelling with shock, backing away and raising his hands, which were still grasping his thick leather case. The movement saved him. His satchel, with the point of the knife striking the metal buckle, blocked the stab. It gave me the time I needed to attack. The man was off guard and turned three-quarters away from me. I aimed a right-handed punch to his kidney and felt my fist sink into his body. His breathing hissed and his knees sank as he lost strength. I turned my body and backed up against him, taking aim over my shoulder. I felt myself against him and felt his body turn under my weight. I clenched my fist and my elbow shot back with true venom. I connected cleanly, striking him squarely below the breastplate. It was a favoured strike by men trained in close quarters combat. When it’s done hard enough it causes loss of consciousness for as long as several minutes. The man’s breath rasped in his throat and he went down heavily. He was out cold.
I bent down to search his pockets, while at the same time telling Geoffrey: ‘Hold the lift door.’ He had to step around me.
I found a pistol in the man’s waistband. It was a subcompact Glock 29, a 10mm auto, lightweight and reliable, perfect for carrying concealed. I transferred it to my own waistband. I picked up the blade, a black Ka-Bar combat knife with a fixed, partially serrated blade. These guys were professionals. I found the sheath and kept it.
I pulled out his passport, which was Ukrainian. His name was Vladimir Karyotin. I knew the accent I’d heard had been Russian.
Geoffrey coughed and then warned me, ‘The concierge is coming over.’ I stood up and turned towards the door easing Geoffrey away. The concierge looked concerned and frowned at me.
I shrugged and explained, ‘I think he fainted. He said he wanted to go up.’ At the same time, I pushed the fifth-floor button and stood clear of the doors. The lift ascended with Vladimir still inside. I smiled at the concierge who grimaced as though I’d insulted his wife. I pushed Geoffrey and we walked calmly but quickly to the double glass doors, leaving the concierge to stare after us with his grimace not improving.
Outside, we continued our smart pace around the fountain and along the covered walkway with the shops on either side. Geoffrey glanced at me a couple of times.
‘You were right, ‘I said, ‘one of them had waited at the lifts for us.’ He didn’t respond to that. Instead, he said, ‘You’re a good fighter. How did you make him unconscious so quickly?’
‘My elbow sunk into his solar plexus.’
Geoffrey nodded as though he didn’t require any further explanation.
I said to him, ‘Do you know why these Russians are after you?’
He replied, ‘No, not exactly.’
I had just asked, ‘What does that mean?’ when I saw the silver saloon parked by the kerb at the entrance. The third man who had stayed with the car was sitting in the driver’s seat. He saw us at the same time, just after we appeared through the crowd heading straight towards him.
He pushed open his door and rushed to get out. My reaction was instantaneous. I sprinted the short distance and arrived as the man had one foot on the pavement, one arm out of the car and his head moving upwards. I slammed the door with a shoulder charge, smashing his leg, arm and head. I pulled open the door and he crumpled back inside. I pulled the Glock from my waistband and using the butt, struck him with real force against the side of his head. Although the lightweight Glock pistol is made of plastic, it is still very solid and the butt is more than capable of inflicting a telling blow. He moaned involuntarily as the air left his lungs and he toppled over. He ended with his face in the passenger’s foot well.
I put the Glock back in my waistband and checked the man’s pockets. His passport was Ukrainian, like Vlad’s, and his name was Franz Berne, which I thought, sounded German. Anyway, the two men I’d now seen up close, both looked eastern European, so I was sticking with my guess they were Russians. After all, the passports could always be forgeries. Franz was also carrying a Glock 29 and a Ka-Bar knife. I relieved him of both. I wondered how they had brought the weapons onto the island. I also found his phone, which I took. I pushed his feet in, before pulling out the ignition key, pocketing it and then closing the door. I noticed people were watching, so I needed to get away fast.
Pleased with my performance, so far, both physically and mentally, I turned back to Geoffrey. He stood patiently with his satchel and an Elmer Fudd expression.
I said, ‘If we ever make it back to England alive, I’m going to buy you a deerstalker hat.’
He glanced back, down the covered walkway and predicted, ‘The third one will be coming any minute.’
He was right, of course. It was time to move. I spotted a white, estate taxi, parked thirty paces down the road. It was empty of passengers. There was just the driver. This one wasn’t getting away.
I pointed and told Geoffrey, ‘Let’s take a cab.’
I opened the rear door and Geoffrey climbed in. The driver turned and looked. I jumped in behind and gave the cab driver the address. He nodded, put his newspaper on the passenger seat and pulled away.
I looked at Geoffrey. He was hugging his satchel. I asked him, ‘What’s in that bag?’
He raised his eyes and answered, ‘Just papers.’
‘Put these in there.’ I held out the second Glock and knife, and my K106 and Franz’s phone. Geoffrey unbuckled his satchel and I dropped them in.
A couple of minutes later we were on the strip in front of the beach. I said to the driver, ‘Drop us here.’ He pulled into a parking space and I gave him a ten-euro note. I pushed Geoffrey out and followed him onto the pavement. I noticed a pay phone but decided to get safely into the villa first. I’d come back to call Charlotte Miller.
I said, ‘Geoffrey, this way.’
We walked up the road, turned right, walked a bit further and then arrived at the archway. I unlocked the door and we went in. I closed it again, but I didn’t lock it.
‘Stay here by the door. Don’t move.’
I wanted to be sure that we didn’t have any more new friends waiting for us. I ignored the front door and went around the side. Leading into the bedroom, shut and still locked, the glass doors reflected the sunlight. The terrace and pool area were untouched and all the glass door
s, here too, were closed and locked. I peered in and couldn’t see anything unusual. I went back up the other side and around to the front where Geoffrey was waiting. He saw me and questioned with his eyes. I unlocked the front door and took a step inside. I listened; it was silent. Happy the villa was secure; I went back and locked the outside door. Geoffrey went inside and I followed, locking the door behind me. We were safe again. At least for now.
Chapter 10
After playing the first card, Dummy lays out his hand face up for all the other players to see.
Inside the villa, I walked through to the open kitchen area, went to the fridge and took out an ice-cold bottle of water. My throat felt like flypaper and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.
I said, ‘What do you want?’
Geoffrey replied, ‘A cup of tea, please.’
I opened the water, took a couple of big gulps and then put the kettle on. I made Geoffrey his tea and a cheese and tomato roll, one for the both of us. I opened a big bag of crisps and we went out by the pool and sat at the table.
We ate in silence for a couple of minutes while we both thought about what was happening and considered our situation.
For me, the reversal of turning from killer to protector had been easy and gone smoothly. I think I probably preferred my new role. Not because I had any difficulties about being a cold-blooded killer, but because I was in a completely new position, one that was much more like a combat mission and it suited my training as a soldier. The first thing I needed now was intelligence; I needed information to understand what I was dealing with and how best to react. I would need a plan and a strategy for certain, but first I needed the intelligence.
I looked at Geoffrey and said, ‘Tell me everything you know.’
He swallowed his mouthful of cheese roll and drank some tea. His eyes met mine and he said, ‘I knew my life was in danger back in Oxford three days ago when a government man came to see me and warned me. That’s when I left and came here.’
‘What government man?’
‘I didn’t know him. He just appeared at work one day and said I was going to be killed and that I should leave the country and hide somewhere.’
‘What was his name?’
‘He said his name was Bartholomew Meriwether.’
‘You believed what he told you, why?’
‘He was highly credible and very convincing.’
‘What do you do? What’s your job?’
‘I work for a publisher in Oxford; educational and academic books, mostly economics and finance.’
‘What do you do for them?’
‘I’m the technical proofreader.’
‘So, you spend all day reading academic books about economics to see if they’re right.’
‘Yes, I suppose I do.’ Hardly a threat to national security, I thought.
‘So, why are those three Russians trying to kill you?’
‘I suppose they’re the threat that Bartholomew Meriwether warned me about.’ I smiled wryly.
‘Yes, I suppose they are.’
This wasn’t helping very much.
I asked, ‘How do you know Charlotte Miller?’
He answered, ‘I don’t and I’ve never met her. She telephoned me on my phone yesterday evening and introduced herself as a colleague of Bartholomew Meriwether. She told me a man from England was coming with instructions to kill me. She described you to me in some detail and then told me if I went to the café around midday, you would be sitting there. She said you would be easy to spot like a man fishing who hadn’t caught anything yet. She said I was to make myself known to you and to tell you that, actually, you’re not supposed to kill me but that you should ring her from a pay phone and she would explain. She said you weren’t to use your K106. She was very specific about that.’
Geoffrey pulled my K106 out of his satchel and asked, ‘Is this the K106?’
I didn’t answer. I was thinking. Anyway, he already knew it was my K106 as he’d seen me use it at the café. I remembered something from earlier, which was important.
I said to Geoffrey, ‘The three Russians knew where we were because I used my K106, which is why Charlotte was so insistent I use a pay phone.’ Geoffrey was concentrating on my K106.
He asked, ‘Is this a satellite phone?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘When you use it a signal is sent that can be used to pinpoint your location. Providing someone has the right receiving equipment and knows what they’re doing.’ He was right.
I said, ‘We better switch it off then and not use it.’ He nodded at me, turned it off and put it back in his satchel.
I said, ‘Why was it safe for Charlotte to call you on your phone?’
He thought for a moment before he answered.
‘Mine’s just a normal phone, and it’s a pay as you go. So, the number isn’t registered, which makes it impossible to trace to me.’
My phone, which I’d brought, was on a contract. It had a registered number, which meant it was probably traceable if I used it. Not as accurately as the satellite phone but close enough. Therefore, I couldn’t use it, but maybe I could use Geoffrey’s phone. This made me remember what Charlotte had said about bringing my own phone. She’d told me to transfer her number from the K106 onto it. This must mean she thought it would be safe for me to use it. Therefore, since then she’d found out about the Russians and the fact they could track phone calls. This showed it was an evolving situation for Miss Miller, too. We were both working hard.
I stood up and walked to the edge of the terrace. I looked out across the bay to the town beyond. It made me remember something else. I pulled the Russian’s car key from my pocket and went to toss it into the sea, but for some reason, I wasn’t sure why I changed my mind and put it back in my pocket.
I went back to the table. Geoffrey was finishing his tea and watching me.
He asked, ‘What do we do now?’
I asked him, ‘Is there anything you haven’t told me?’ He shook his head.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
I said, ‘I’m going back around the corner to the pay phone to call Charlotte. You should stay here and keep out of sight. I’ll only be ten minutes. If anything did happen you’ve got the pistol.’ I took it out of his satchel and gave it to him.
‘If you pull the trigger all the way back it’ll fire.’ He took it from me but didn’t speak. ‘Stay inside with the doors locked. Don’t stand by the edge where you’re easy to see. A sniper might shoot you.’ His face registered suitable concern, which was what I wanted. ‘I won’t be long.’
I changed my t-shirt to one with a darker colour and left carefully through the archway door, locking it behind me. It was hot on the street in the afternoon sunshine and the strip was busy with holidaymakers and shoppers, relaxed and happy. I noticed two young women, dressed in cut-off jeans and bikini tops, laughing and chatting together in Spanish, and I thought of Alicia and wondered if I would ever see her again.
I still had my pockets full with my wallet, passport and driving licence, and now I had a knife and a Glock in my waistband. I had heightened senses and I realised why Charlotte had picked me. I was a combat soldier on a mission.
At the pay phone, I pulled out my phone to get Charlotte’s number and then all the one-euro coins I had. Standing in the open pay phone, which consisted of just a plastic cover for my head and shoulders I dialled Charlotte’s number.
She answered after one ring and said, ‘What’s happened; is Geoffrey still alive?’
‘How did you know it was me?’
‘My phone tells me where the call is coming from. This one said Tenerife. Is Geoffrey all right?’
‘Yes, he’s alive and well. I’ve left him at the villa with a loaded Glock in his hand. I’m in the pay phone around the corner. Charlotte, tell me what’s going on.’
‘Where did the Glock come from?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘The assignment has changed. As I s
aid, you’re now required to keep Geoffrey alive, at any cost.’
‘At any cost; what does that mean?’
‘You know what that means; do whatever you have to.’
I asked, ‘Including killing people?’
Without hesitation, her answer came back clear.
‘Yes, if you have to.’
‘Why’s this guy gone from being on your hit list one day to being personally protected against being hit, at any cost, the next?’
‘Things change. It’s a complicated world.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
Charlotte ignored me and asked, ‘Why did it take you so long to call me back?’
‘We got held up by three guys who wanted to stop Geoffrey from getting to his next birthday. When is his birthday by the way?’
‘What happened?’
‘As you thought, they must have been nearby and got a fix from the satellite phone call. I’ve switched it off now and left it with Geoffrey. They turned up a minute after you’d hung up. Three of them, Russian professionals, I think.’ I paused, but Charlotte didn’t say anything, so I continued. ‘I got two of them…’
‘…killed them?’
‘No, I just knocked them out. I didn’t know then that I’m allowed to do whatever it takes.’
‘Go on.’
‘Yes, so, the first one’s name was Vladimir Karyotin and the second’s was Franz Berne. Their passports were both Ukrainian. They were carrying Glocks and Ka-Bars and they were after Geoffrey, not me. It was just Geoffrey they wanted.’
There was a pause in the conversation, before Charlotte asked, ‘Where are they now?’
‘I’ve slowed them up, but not for long.’ There was a pause. I said, ‘You knew these men were after him?’
‘I knew, yes.’ Good, a straight answer at last. I tried my luck again.
‘Why do the Russians want Geoffrey dead?’
‘If you see them again you’ll have to ask them.’ I almost laughed—almost.
‘Charlotte, that’s not an answer.’