“And Valentin? You’ve forgiven him for invading your life and harming the girl you so clearly adore”
“Totally. He was just doing his job.”
“Aren’t we all? I know I’m getting ready for retirement and the unspoiled white beaches of New Zealand. I’ve had enough of the chase, the thrill is still there but my energy is waning. I could do with some type of work-related Viagra.” He laughed at his own comments. “However I’ve got about eight to go, or as one of my old team used to say…” He mentally calculated, “…ninety six paydays.”
Cade had a considerable amount of paydays to go but also felt as if his energy was being sapped. He spent a while, quietly, watching the gulls circle among the powerful floodlights that serviced the quayside.
“Clever things you know these seagulls.”
“No such thing Jack.”
“Bollocks. It’s a figure of speech. My point is they come and go as they please. No borders. If that one there for example wants to fly to France, he can. He just launches himself off the nearest cliff and as long as he can be bothered to flap his wings he’ll get there. And when he gets to his destination, he can start a new life among similar seabirds. Sans frontières as the French would call them – without borders. Given the ability to move around by a greater authority, at their own pace, to come and go as they please. The diplomats of the skies.”
Daniel started the car and moved off, driving back along the main road towards the Eastern Docks, the main ferry terminal and the hub of vehicular and foot traffic to the continent. He’d driven halfway along the promenade when he screeched to a halt.
“Greater authority!”
Cade was unsure whether the sentence was complete, so waited, but realised that Daniel had made a statement that was always meant to be just two words. He said it again.
“Greater. Authority.”
“I heard you the first time. Care to embellish?”
“Hewett. He’s the key to them getting into and out of the UK. He’s got the status and governmental position to facilitate it. His recent behaviour, evasiveness, anti-establishment attitude. It all adds up to him turning to the dark side – I sense a great disturbance in The Force Jack. And that smug bastard is none other than our own version of Lord Vader. All we need is the proof.”
“Illogical.”
“Wrong film.”
“I know…”
Further north the activity was equally dynamic.
“OK. Get ready everyone, we go in five minutes.”
Stefanescu walked around the unit, looking for evidence of their presence, but found only take away food wrappers in the bin, all of which were due to be transferred to an outdoor makeshift fire and lit as soon as they moved out of the fenced compound.
“You all know the next phase. Van One will head to Dover and board the night ferry. Van Two is heading to Felixstowe already. Vans Three and Four join us soon and Van Five will contain the package. We will head to the tunnel and if God grants it we will meet up with Van Five and our dreams will be rewarded. Make sure that everyone has the correct appearance, like they know what they are doing. Be confident. We have planned for this for many months. There will be no excuses for failure.”
He looked at each man again. He smiled broadly, knowing that in their minds the vans would contain cash or gemstones, when in actual fact most would contain nothing.
He approached Hewett.
“You OK? You look nervous. Do as instructed and you will be fine. You are one of us now. Therefore, we will protect you – with our lives. We expect you to do the same in return.”
He held out his good hand.
Hewett, sensing a refusal would be insulting and life-shortening gripped hold of it and shook it firmly.
The fire was well and truly destroying evidence as they exited the industrial estate. The keys to the short-term unit were couriered back to the estate agent as arranged. She would ensure that the place was sterile, for what they had paid her she would have done anything and besides, they were her people.
Stefanescu looked in the door mirror and saw the orange flames already dying.
“Let’s do this.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Alex Stefanescu stood at the overly large picture window in the lounge of his palatial property and watched the fireworks in the valley below, erupting, exploding and temporarily destroying the peace and quiet of a Spanish evening. He knew the fireworks that lit up the sky, with their brilliant reds, and yellows and electric blues were almost certainly being launched into the ether by expatriate Brits, happy to leave their weather behind but never their customs.
“Guy Fawkes was a hero of mine you know. He and his loyal friends. He lived here, in Spain. Fought against the British in the Eighty Years War. He fought for a Catholic rebellion in England, wanted to replace the Protestant King James with a Catholic ruler.”
He looked over his shoulder at the girl who was sprawled on his sofa, convinced she was hanging on his every word, he continued.
“There was thirteen in all, conspirators they called them. For many months they sought and gained access to the parliament buildings, then stored gunpowder beneath them, ready for Fawkes to light the fuse, escape across the Thames and then back into Europe where he could live a life of comparative luxury. The comparisons between what he did, and what I have planned are very similar don’t you think?”
The girl muttered something vaguely encouraging as she slid further and further off the sofa, half-dressed and less interested.
“But you see there was a flaw in their plan and they were discovered before parliament could be destroyed. Fawkes was tortured and eventually gave the names of some, not all of his co-conspirators. He was, naturally found guilty and condemned to death by being dragged by a horse, backwards, his head near to the ground. As if that were not enough his genitals would be cut off and burnt, before his own eyes and his heart and bowels removed. Then, and only then would they be dismembered and quartered, sent around the land for all to see.”
He laughed, took a small sip of his wine before finishing the story. “I can only admire the British for their ability to torture their fellow man. Remind me next time I need to extract the truth from someone, or teach them a lesson to read the tales of the Gunpowder Plot beforehand my dear.”
He turned away from the window. The girl had slipped off the sofa and onto the floor. She was, he thought, not the most beautiful creature – he had seen much prettier than her. But she was rather willing. Willing to do anything he asked, without any coercion. But she lacked character, and the drugs that he used to keep her in the mountainside home did nothing for her looks or her entertainment value. She could go tonight. He really needed to find the perfect woman.
He had.
And Cade had made him take her away into the next life, just like the British had done with Fawkes – ‘halfway between heaven and earth’.
“To teach a lesson in good manners and loyalty.”
He raised a glass to the vaulted ceiling. “Jack Cade and all who choose to fight with you. May you be hung, drawn and quartered, in a place and at a time to suit me. And may all your acquaintances also meet an untimely and altogether disgusting demise. Next week, next month, in ten years’ time. Either way, I will choose my moment to ruin your world as you have ruined mine. And it will be most unpleasant.”
He walked over to the prone girl and kicked her in the ribs. She was practically comatose. He could do whatever he wished and she would have no recollection whatsoever the following morning, but she never did and she was way past caring. He was bored with her now and needed a replacement.
“I should travel to London and kidnap your girl Cade. Bring her here to my beautiful home, fill her body with drugs and her mind with horror until she begs to be my plaything. My sweet Nikolina resisted, even with all of her skills and training, but in the end she fell for me too. I am, after all, a very reasonable man. And I am far from selfish. I would share your girl with all of my frie
nds. Carrie O’Shea. Interesting name you have, probably Irish. Clever thing, unconventionally pretty, according to my brother, and quite the feisty little office girl. I should have taken you whilst I had the chance instead of allowing that toothless half-wit to poison you. I should have had you brought to me. For me – for my pleasure. Chained to the fucking wall!”
He threw the glass against the exposed stonework, shattering it in a thousand directions.
“Chained up like a bear. To perform for its master whenever he clicked his fingers! Manacled – deprived of your liberty, as I was in Pazardzhik Prison, all those years ago, left to rot, lying in my own filth. Then we could see the life drain from you, the whites of your pretty eyes turning yellow from the damage caused to your organs, your teeth loosened from abuse and malnourishment…”
He picked a piece of glass off the floor and after examining its edges carefully placed it in the waste bin.
He was strutting now, as a specimen would in a zoo, backwards and forwards. Years of anger and suppressed hatred were surfacing, rising to the surface like emotional magma waiting to spill over the rim of a volcano and down the sides of the mountain towards its many and varied victims, searing their skin, ripping their last breath from their fume-filled lungs.
It had taken years but something, a firework, a glass or two of the local wine, the insolence of the girl – how dare she ignore him? Something had festered, and clawed at his insides and now, for the first time his protracted and intense resolve had finally shattered.
He dialled his brother.
“Pick up the phone you useless bastard.”
Stefanescu’s younger sibling answered after four rings to be greeted by silence.
“Are you there, brother? Is everything OK? Speak to me.”
There was a long pause whilst Alex calmed himself down, breathing deeply, focusing on the purpose of his call.
“Brother. I am having a very bad night. I am feeling a little, anxious. A little, how can I put this? Murderous.” He cackled his signature laugh. “I need to vent. To take out my sheer – my total, my complete and utter anger on those people who have betrayed me. I can count them on the fingers of one hand.”
He was in the exquisite white kitchen; white floors, white units, white worktops. He opened a drawer and selected a large serrated bread knife and walked back, through the dining area and into the lounge where he found the girl, still asleep and drooling; undignified and worthless.
“The fingers of one hand.” He bellowed the last word.
Stefan knew the signs. His brother was reverting back to his former self. For some time he had been balanced, rational and enjoying the spoils of war; cash, jewellery, cars, homes, and women, singularly or in pairs, once even three, all clambering over him like a pack of desperate gluttonous hyenas.
What he could hear in his brother’s words were the months of torture he had endured at the hands of the Bulgarian authorities. It was they who had done this to him.
Flashbacks some people called them, catching the unwary when they least expected them. For his brother, Alex, these were subterranean fault lines, waiting to shudder, to collide and tear their counterparts to pieces. It was just a simple matter of when.
“Alex, my brother. Listen to me. We are almost there. I need you to stay calm, breathe like Doctor Petran taught you. Do it with me.”
His older sibling matched the timing of his brother’s commands and could feel himself calming, the bile emptying from this system and gradually he began to return to what he considered a normal state.
“Thank you Stefan.” He hadn’t used his name in years.
“It is OK Alex. It is what a good brother should do. A few more days and we can relax, have fun together, up in the mountains. We could ski perhaps?”
“We could. I have to go. There is something I need to do.”
“OK but promise me you will remain calm. This is our time. In the years to come you and I will be famous among our people. Two young boys from a broken home who became rich and powerful. It is what you have always wanted. Promise me?”
The reality, and they both knew it, was that the familial home had been broken by Alex Stefanescu. Literally, piece by wretched piece. His younger sibling had spent his life, or at least his formative years wondering whether their parents had indeed died at the hands of the communist government and its expert interrogators, for their passing had been so brutal. The limited investigation stated quite clearly that their bodies had been experimented on so cruelly.
The line was quiet, only a feint hiss could be heard. “Promise.”
The older male dropped the phone onto the sofa and picked the girl up, sitting her against the leather sofa. He placed her hand onto the slate floor, spreading out her fingers.
He selected the smallest first, lowered the wavy-edged blade onto the first knuckle. He pressed initially but met with resistance. She didn’t flinch. He pushed now but failed to reach his goal. He gripped both ends of the knife and lowered his weight onto the limb until, with a disgusting crunch it separated from its donor.
“The fingers of one hand.”
He repeated it with the ring finger until it too gave in, the white gold ring that once adorned it now dropped to the stone beneath and sat in a pool of blood. He picked it up with the end of the knife and examined it.
“Nice, white gold, possibly titanium. You have taste. Pity your fiancé isn’t here to claim it back.”
He started on the third finger when she jolted and was abruptly conscious again. He dropped the knife and quickly got hold of her feet and dragged her across the chilled stone floor, headfirst, caring not that her bleach-blond skull struck the corner of a cabinet with a dull thump. He was soon in the garage pulling the once-more unresponsive girl behind him.
He first tied her ankles together, then slipped a ten metre-long blue nylon rope through the knot and hooked it onto the tow bar of his Range Rover, a car he enjoyed immensely and one he had left in the garage in case he ever needed to use its impressive off-road capabilities.
He knelt down beside her, reeled off a half metre length of duct tape and wrapped it untidily around her head, covering her mouth. He looked at her for the last time, stroked her hair away from her face and lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her through the semi-gloss aluminium barrier.
He stood, climbed up into the car and with the press of a button one of three garage doors opened smoothly. He turned the key and the V8 engine purred into life. With another button he shut off the lights to his much-favoured mountain home and having engaged first gear he moved off gently, across the manicured lawn and onto the main track that led to his home. He crossed over it, very slowly and entered the more barren landscape that surrounded his house, rocky with shale and tufts of grass, scattered by nature’s hand, here and there.
He was wise, even among the rage, to realise that he was potentially leaving a forensic trail. The few fibres that now littered his once-perfect, tyre-tracked lawn could be explained away to the police staff that weren’t already in his back pocket. Any other tell-tale evidence, hair, skin, clothing, teeth would soon be scattered over such a wide area that they would be difficult at best to locate, and even sooner the first snows of the Sierra Nevada winter would obliterate the remaining traces of her last moments.
He didn’t once look in his mirror. Now off-road and joining a gravel track he accelerated. The girl was awake now, wide eyes focusing on her new surroundings. Was this a dream? A nightmare? Her arms were free but her feet were tied. Ahead of her two bright red lights stood out against the deepest black landscape, only a single blue rope was illuminated, leading directly from her body to the tow bar.
She clutched and gripped and grabbed, grasping for anything that she could to slow her rate of departure down. Her hands scraped along the arid surface, gripping hold, then instantly letting go of foreign objects, a small piece of a plant, a stone, or branches. All she succeeded in doing was to leave her DNA scattered along a half kilometre of the Spa
nish countryside.
Her arms were raw now and her lower back shredded, the dense, deep muscles that aligned and protected her spine no longer resembled anything human. She was an animal now. Her legs thrashed from side to side, again, desperate to slow the vehicle down. At one point, she somehow found the strength to begin to sit up. She leaned forward and gripped onto her own bound ankles, praying for someone to come to her aid.
For the first time he looked in his door mirror and saw her face, lit up by the red tail lights. She was beyond frantic, this twenty-year-old from northern Spain, not missed by her friends or family and momentarily shown love by a man with more money than she could have ever dreamed of.
Such a pity. But she should have listened to his account of Guy Fawkes. She really should.
He looked away and wrenched the steering wheel from left to right causing his human trailer to whip from right to left. Now he was having fun.
She fell backwards onto the rough track and knew that her time was done. She closed her eyes and willed the pain to stop. As he negotiated a sharp right-hand bend she careered across the track and collided with a larger rock. Her chest took the brunt of the blow, shattering her sternum and caving in her lungs. It was a divine blessing.
Her lifeless torso had given up now. Her heart was almost beating its last. Her arms, no longer mentally connected, thrashed around like a dying fish on a marbled market slab. The hair that he had lovingly groomed only minutes earlier was now stained red; bright, oxygenated red.
Another minute had passed when he pulled over, assured by the fact that he was literally in the middle of nowhere. The dust was reducing now, swirling around in the headlamps, which also picked out a few small trees and an almost lunar landscape ahead of him.
He walked to the rear of the car, untied the rope from the tow bar and shuffled away from the bumper towards the girl, folding the rope perfectly, as a climber would until he eventually reached her.
He lowered himself down to her side and used his phone display to light up her face. Her eyes were lifeless but as he moved the phone, he detected a flutter of her eyelids. She was, incredibly, still alive.
Seven Degress (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 2) Page 43