The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘I think you’re okay,’ said Marie uncertainly as she peered out of the passenger window.

  Lynch craned his neck to the side but all he could see were hedgerows. He stamped on the accelerator and overtook the tractor. It was only when he drew level with it and saw that the road ahead was empty that he realised he’d been holding his breath. He let it out in a mournful sigh and accelerated. When he reached the B4295, the Mercedes was nowhere to be seen. ‘What do you think? North or south?’

  ‘They’ll only go north if they’re staying in Wales,’ said Marie, this time with more conviction in her voice.

  ‘Yeah, I think you’re right,’ agreed Lynch and turned left. After three minutes of hard driving they saw the Mercedes in the distance, just arriving at Llanrhidian village. ‘Got them,’ said Lynch with satisfaction.

  The Mercedes turned onto the B4271, heading east. ‘They’re going to the airport,’ said Marie, looking up from the map. ‘Or Swansea.’

  There was very little traffic about and Lynch realised that it wouldn’t be long before the occupants of the Mercedes realised that they were being pursued. ‘Hold the map up, play the tourist,’ said Lynch.

  Marie did as she was told and Lynch accelerated. He pulled up behind the Mercedes, indicated that he was about to overtake, and passed it on a long, straight stretch of road. Marie put down the map. ‘So now they’re behind us, now what?’

  ‘Now they won’t think we’re tailing them,’ said Lynch. ‘We’re pretty sure they’ll stay on this road until the junction with the A4118, so we’ll go on ahead.’

  Marie nodded. ‘What was the helicopter doing?’

  ‘I think it’s picking up the rest of the men at the school.’

  ‘Why didn’t they pick up Cramer, too?’

  Lynch pulled a face. ‘I’m not a mind-reader.’

  ‘It’s not a normal helicopter, is it? The army ones are usually green, right?’

  ‘It belongs to the Ministry of Defence. It’s the one that brought Cramer to Wales.’

  Lynch checked his driving mirror. The Mercedes was out of sight. He slowed a fraction and within a minute or so it came into view. Confident that he wasn’t going to lose his quarry, he accelerated once more.

  Marie’s hand stroked his knee. ‘When, Dermott?’

  ‘I don’t know, Marie, love. You saw the two heavies in the front of the car?’ She nodded. ‘They’re tough-looking guys, right enough. I saw one of them talking to Cramer last night and he’s big. Looks like he can handle himself. Both of them are almost certainly Sass. They’re not the sort of odds I want to go up against. One on one, fine. But one against three, no chance.’

  ‘Two,’ said Marie, her voice almost a whisper.

  ‘What?’ said Lynch, checking his mirror again.

  ‘There are two of us. Don’t forget that. I’m in this as much as you now.’

  Lynch was about to argue but he decided to say nothing.

  Simon Chaillon wrapped his wool scarf tighter around his neck and hunched his shoulders against the cold breeze that was blowing off the River Limmat. He pulled back the end of his lambskin glove and took a quick look at his slim gold wristwatch. He was early, a clear sign of nervousness. Like most Swiss, Chaillon was punctual to the point of paranoia, and for him to be early was every bit as irritating as arriving late. He pushed his gloved hands deep into his overcoat pockets and went in search of a café. He found one in a side road and slid into an empty table. A waitress took his order and within two minutes a cup of hot chocolate was on the table in front of him.

  He stirred the drink slowly, a slight frown the only sign of how troubled he was. The coded fax had been lying in his in-tray when he’d arrived, and once he’d deciphered its contents he’d been able to think of nothing else. Even the sight of Theresa in a white silk shirt and the flimsiest of bras hadn’t relieved his anxiety. She’d asked him if anything was wrong but he’d just shrugged and said that his ulcer was troubling him. She’d made sympathetic noises and leaned over his desk so that he could get a closer look at her breasts, but even that hadn’t cheered him up. He’d been unable to concentrate and had told Theresa to hold all his calls. Most of the time he’d sat staring out of his office window at the twin towers of Grossmunster Cathedral, wondering what was so urgent that the meeting had to be in Zurich and at such short notice.

  He put his spoon down and looked at his wristwatch again. Five minutes. Chaillon hated to be unpunctual, hated it with a vengeance. Every minute in his life was accounted for as precisely as the funds in a company’s accounts, and five wasted minutes was time lost for ever. He picked up his cup of hot chocolate and raised it to his lips, but then put it back on its saucer, untouched. Normally there was nothing he enjoyed more than a cup of milky hot chocolate on a cold day, but today was special. Today was the day he’d been summoned to a meeting by a man he’d met only once before. A man who, to date, had paid Chaillon more than two million dollars in commissions for nothing more arduous than sending sheets of paper and photographs to accommodation addresses around the world. The fact that the people featured in the photographs were always murdered within days of the envelopes being sent was something which Simon Chaillon hadn’t dwelt on over the past two years. Since the arrival of the mysterious fax, he’d thought of little else.

  The waitress came back and asked him if there was something wrong with the hot chocolate. Chaillon smiled and shook his head. No, he said, everything was fine. Just fine. He picked up his spoon and stirred it again. There had been no clue in the fax as to why the meeting was necessary. Apart from the first meeting more than two years earlier, the two men had communicated only by fax, computer bulletin boards, messages left on answering machines and couriered envelopes. Chaillon’s client hadn’t needed to spell out the importance of the two men never being seen together, which made the fax all the more worrying. Something must have gone wrong. He looked at his wristwatch again. It was time.

  He pushed back his chair, dropped a handful of change onto the table, and left the café. The fax had given detailed instructions of where Chaillon was to go, but he was at least a hundred yards from the meeting point when he heard his name being spoken. Chaillon flinched as if he’d been struck across the face. He forced a smile and turned to face the man he knew only as Monsieur Rolfe.

  ‘A cold day, isn’t it?’ said Monsieur Rolfe. He spoke perfect French but Chaillon doubted that he had been born in France. Monsieur Rolfe was wearing horn-rimmed spectacles and a dark overcoat and looked like a mid-ranking bank official on his way to his office. There was something different about his hair, Chaillon realised. It was darker than he remembered from their first meeting, and curlier.

  ‘For the time of year, yes,’ said Chaillon. He swallowed. His throat was dry and he wished that he’d drunk the hot chocolate. ‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Wrong?’ Monsieur Rolfe frowned. ‘Why do you think something is wrong?’

  ‘This isn’t where you said you wanted to meet. You said …’

  ‘I changed my mind,’ interrupted Monsieur Rolfe. ‘Come. Walk with me.’

  They walked away from the river, with Monsieur Rolfe leading the way confidently as if he was no stranger to the city. ‘I received your fax,’ said Chaillon. He regretted the words immediately they left his mouth and he cursed himself for his stupidity. Of course he’d received the facsimile. Why else would he be there?

  ‘Good,’ said Monsieur Rolfe as if unaware of Chaillon’s faux pas.

  ‘You received the details I sent you? The Vander Mayer contract?’ Chaillon wondered if there had been a problem with the last envelope he had couriered to London.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did,’ said Monsieur Rolfe. There was something almost absent-minded about his conversation, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

  ‘Business has been good, hasn’t it? It has been a very profitable arrangement. For both parties.’

  ‘Yes, it has,’ Monsieur Rolfe agreed. ‘Very profitable.’

&n
bsp; Monsieur Rolfe turned into a side street. Chaillon noticed that from time to time his companion looked over his shoulder as if he feared that they were being followed. ‘Something is wrong?’ Chaillon asked.

  ‘No. Nothing is wrong.’

  Chaillon swallowed nervously. Something was wrong. Something was most definitely wrong. Chaillon’s mind whirled. He pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and blew his nose.

  ‘You have a cold?’ asked Monsieur Rolfe.

  Chaillon wiped his nose and put the handkerchief back in his pocket. ‘Maybe. I’m not sure. I don’t feel well.’

  ‘You must take care of yourself,’ said Monsieur Rolfe.

  ‘I will. I will.’ Chaillon no longer recognised the streets they were walking through and it had been some time since he had seen anyone else on the pavement. Monsieur Rolfe took another look over his shoulder. ‘We are not being followed,’ said Chaillon.

  ‘No. We are not being followed.’

  ‘Good. So now we can talk?’

  ‘Soon.’

  A narrow alleyway led off the street and Monsieur Rolfe stepped to the side to allow Chaillon to walk in first. Chaillon nodded his thanks and stepped into the darkness. There was a stack of cardboard boxes to the left and an abandoned bicycle with one wheel missing. Chaillon noticed a damp, cloying smell about the place, as if something had died there and been left to rot. ‘Surely this can’t be … ?’ said Chaillon, but before he could finish Monsieur Rolfe’s arms came down either side of his head and something tightened around Chaillon’s neck. It was a wire, Chaillon realised, and the only thing that was stopping it biting into his flesh was his wool scarf. He tried to speak but the wire was pulled tighter and he couldn’t even gasp for breath. His fingers grasped at the wire but it was too tight. He felt a nail break and a sharp pain and then his chest began to heave. He fell forward, his face slamming into the cold concrete floor and then a knee pressed into the small of his back and the wire was pulled even tighter. Chaillon’s lungs began to burn and his eyes bulged and then it all went black. The last thought in his mind was what a pity it was that he would never get the chance to make love to Theresa.

  The boy stood by the sink and rinsed the plate clean before putting it on the draining board. He winced as he heard his mother moan upstairs. The boy had asked his father why the doctor didn’t take her into hospital, and his father had said that it was because there wasn’t anything more that could be done. The boy had spent hours on his knees, praying to God, praying for Him to end his mother’s torment, but it hadn’t done any good. The boy didn’t believe in God any more. He didn’t believe in God and he didn’t believe in doctors.

  His mother’s medicine was wrapped in a dish cloth at the back of the larder. The boy had seen his father put the bottle of tablets there after taking out his mother’s night-time dose. The boy had asked his father why he didn’t give her more of the tablets so that she wouldn’t cry so much, and he had explained that it was because too many would be bad for her.

  The boy wiped his hands on a tea-towel, poured milk into a tall glass and put it on a tray. Upstairs his mother groaned, a deep, throaty sound that made the boy shiver. He opened the larder door and took out the bottle of tablets. He weighed the bottle in the palm of his hand as he read the label. It warned that no more than twelve tablets should be taken each day. He tried counting how many there were but he kept losing track. There were at least sixty. He put the bottle on the tray next to the glass of milk and carefully carried it upstairs.

  His mother looked towards the door as he walked into the bedroom. She had her knees drawn up to her chest again and was hugging a hot water bottle to her stomach. The boy took the tray to the bedside table. His mother stared at the bottle of tablets as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing. She slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position, grunting with each movement. The boy watched silently. She didn’t look like his mother any more. There were dark bags under her eyes, her hair was damp and sticking to her face and her lips were crusted with brown stuff. And she was thin, thinner than the boy thought a person could be without being a skeleton. He handed her the glass of milk and she took it with her left hand. Her eyes stayed on the bottle of tablets as he unscrewed the cap and poured a dozen or so into the palm of his hand. She reached over and put a claw-like hand on his arm. The nails were yellow and brittle and the skin was so pale he could almost see through it. He held out one of the tablets and she took it from him. He watched as she put it to her lips. The tablet disappeared into her mouth and she swallowed. He gave her another tablet. And another. After the fifth she took a sip from the glass of milk. She smiled and he gave her another tablet. ‘How many do you want?’ he asked. It was the first time he’d spoken since entering the room.

  His mother shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. He held out another one and she took it. She swallowed six more before taking another drink of milk.

  ‘Do you feel better?’ he asked as he shook more tablets into his hand.

  She nodded and took another tablet. The boy watched her eat the tablets as if they were sweets and wondered why he didn’t feel sad any more. The bottle was half empty. His mother sighed and leaned back on the pillows. ‘You’re a good boy,’ she said. ‘You’re a good boy for helping me.’ There were deep lines around her mouth that made her look like the old women whom he saw sitting in the park feeding breadcrumbs to pigeons.

  ‘Dad’s going to be mad,’ he said, his voice little more than a whisper.

  ‘He won’t be mad,’ she said. Her eyelids seemed heavy, as if she was having trouble keeping them open. ‘Will you do something for me?’ she asked, holding out the glass.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, taking it and putting it on the tray.

  ‘Tell your dad that I love him,’ she said. Her voice sounded suddenly stronger, more like the mother he remembered, more like the way she was before she got sick.

  ‘I will,’ the boy promised. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’ He crossed himself solemnly.

  ‘You’re not going to die,’ she said, and swallowed another tablet. ‘Not for a long, long time. Just tell your dad what I said, okay?’ The boy nodded and held out more tablets. His mother took them and touched them one at a time as if she was counting them. ‘Why don’t you go downstairs and watch television?’ she said.

  ‘But …’

  ‘I’ll be okay now,’ she said.

  The boy leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She smelled of sick and something else, something he couldn’t identify. It wasn’t his mother’s normal smell.

  ‘It’s time for you to go now,’ she said. She slurred her words and she was having to fight to keep her eyes open. He slid off the bed and left the room without looking back.

  Martin guided the large Mercedes to a stop at the intersection with the main road and waited for a gap in the traffic. A red Golf was parked by the side of the road and the couple inside were bent over a map and arguing. Cramer smiled to himself as he remembered what a struggle map-reading and navigation had been for him. Compared with negotiating his way across the Falklands in total darkness, a drive through the Welsh countryside was an absolute breeze. A truck full of sheep rattled by and Martin turned right and followed it.

  Cramer had a sudden thought. ‘Allan, where exactly are we?’ he asked.

  ‘A couple of miles from Swansea Airport,’ Allan replied.

  ‘So the Brecon Beacons are where?’

  Allan shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Thirty miles or so to the north-east.’ He turned around and grinned. ‘Do you want to go back and relive old times?’

  Cramer snorted softly. ‘I don’t think I could finish the Long Drag these days, never mind do it on time. I was just wondering. I guess I’d lost track of where I was, that’s all.’ Cramer sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Hell, it was a lifetime ago. The Brecon Beacons was where the SAS tested its men almost to destruction. Deaths weren’t unknown on the barren, windswept mount
ains, and the most demanding of the tests was a sixty-kilometre solo march which had to be completed in under twenty hours. The Long Drag, they called it, or the Fan Dance, after the highest peak, Pen-y-fan. It wasn’t just endurance that was tested, but navigation skills and something deeper. Without an inner drive, without a burning desire to succeed, the Long Drag was an insurmountable barrier. Cramer had completed his solo march in a little over eighteen hours, despite getting lost twice. So much had changed since he’d arrived at the final checkpoint and been slapped on the shoulders and told that he’d earned his winged dagger badge. They’d poured hot coffee down his throat and helped him into the back of a truck and he’d never been happier, never been prouder of what he’d achieved. So much had changed since then. He’d seen men die, he’d been tortured, and he’d killed. The young man who’d fought back the tears of joy at being allowed into the regiment hadn’t cried for more than ten years. It was hard for Cramer to determine exactly what emotions he did feel these days. Anger sometimes. Certainly not happiness. Fear? No, he wasn’t afraid. He’d been through too much to be afraid. He wasn’t scared of death, he was sure of that. He’d faced death before and he’d been responsible for the deaths of others, and he knew he was being honest when he said that the thought of no longer being alive didn’t worry him. What scared him was dying. He didn’t want to die a shrivelled husk of the super-fit human being he’d once been, a lifetime ago. He would always be grateful to the Colonel for offering him that, the chance to die like a warrior.

  ‘Here we are, Mr Vander Mayer.’ Allan’s voice jarred Cramer out of his reverie.

  ‘Huh?’ Cramer grunted, rubbing his eyes.

  ‘I said we’ve arrived, Mr Vander Mayer.’

  Cramer realised that Allan was using Vander Mayer’s name deliberately, so that Cramer would get used to answering to it. ‘Great,’ Cramer replied. He smiled at Su-ming. She hadn’t expressed surprise at hearing her boss’s name, so Cramer guessed that she’d already been briefed by the Colonel.