Whispers in the Rigging

by steve higgs

  The first was the Ukrainian/English dictionary. I had thought nothing of it at first. With so many Ukrainian staff, it was a natural choice to learn a few words; a good managerial tactic. Only this morning did I realise that it was the wrong way around. If he was English, he would have wanted an English/Ukrainian dictionary. By itself it was too tenuous. Then there was the firing of Cedric Tilsley. Cedric claimed that Alex dismissed him when he reported the missing uniforms. The uniforms were those being worn by the ghosts which suggested to me that Alex knew what the uniforms were being used for. Also, firing Cedric felt out of character for the man I had met, a man that played the role of caring boss too well to have made such a move so easily. In isolation I would have dismissed my thoughts, but then there was the clock on the wall opposite Alex’s desk.

  Once again, I hadn’t picked up on it at first but somewhere in the dark recesses of my head the maker’s mark on the clock had stuck. Kleynod was a Ukrainian clock manufacturer. I didn’t know that, of course. My general knowledge far too limited to name the Ukrainian manufacturer of anything. However, the clock was a modern item and out of keeping with the centuries old feel and look of the room. It had been enough to ask Jane to look it up and dig a little deeper into Alex’s genealogy. It had taken her minutes to find out that Alex Jordan was indeed English. He had been born and raised here, but his grandfather had travelled to England from the Ukraine at the end of the second world war. What had started out as a tenuous link had become a working principle.

  Alex Jordan was the man in charge after all.

  I really didn’t know how he would react when I took him the evidence, yet I thought only one or two scenarios were likely.

  The first was that he would do exactly as he had and try to make me disappear. The second was that he would thank me and take the evidence, bluffing his way out by saying he would take it from there onward. It had occurred to me that a third option existed where he just had me killed on the spot, but I had elected to ignore that as it was unhelpful.

  Choosing to force Alex’s hand was my best way into the tunnels beneath the Dockyard. A belief that held true and was vital to the next part of the plan. The plan I outlined to Big Ben required that he find Alan at the Dockyard, round up all his colleagues and friends and meet me at the river entrance to the tunnel system.

  Alan Page and his friends were retired from the Special Boat Service, a Royal Navy version of the SAS. That was the tattoo they had shown me, silently telling me everything I needed to know. My father had one as well, though he and I had never talked about his time in the Navy or about my time in the Army. It was a well acknowledged fact that one didn’t talk about your service if you were special forces. This was mostly because it made those that did stand out as liars. If someone said they were special forces then they weren’t.

  If I were locked in a battle of banter with the Navy boys, I would have called them a watered down, weak, slightly-drunk version of the SAS, but in truth they were every bit as elite and well-trained as any other special forces unit on the planet. I knew what it took to earn the badge, so when I needed help and getting it required a water-borne infiltration, I didn’t hesitate to include them. Sure, they were old. What did old mean though? They still worked a full day. They were still mobile and able, though people would call them sprightly rather than athletic now. I would get a full report from them later. Right now it was fighting time. I went with them as they charged into the tunnel, wet suits shedding water and each of them armed and ready to do violence.

  In the confined space of the tunnel the first shots fired were impossibly loud. After that, my hearing was impaired, and it didn’t seem as loud even though it was. The Ukrainians had gone from looking startled to acting scared. Many had already turned and were fleeing the ageing army advancing on them. Others were armed and had drawn their weapons to return fire. None of them had anything bigger or more accurate than a hand gun though.

  ‘Shoot to wound!’ I yelled as loud as I could. It occurred to me that we could just kill everyone we saw and deny we were ever actually there. Alan’s crew might be up for that as well, but I couldn’t be sure there were not innocent persons down here that had been coerced into the work they were doing.

  The first volley of shots had been aimed at the ceiling as Alan and his motley crew charged into the tunnel. Shooting a warning rather than trying to kill anyone. With fire being returned, the tactic changed. The distance between opposing sides had been no more than fifty feet when the door opened. Now it was less which meant that whoever shot first was going to win.

  I was unarmed but hadn’t let that deter me from charging toward my Ukrainian opponents, so I had a front row view to the first four of them being cut down. The pensioners were all firing single shot not automatic fire, each target receiving only one or two hits, which took them down right enough, but probably wouldn’t kill them unless it hit something vital.

  Devoid of sympathy for the wounded, I snagged a handgun, and made sure we did not advance beyond anyone that was still armed lest they shoot us in the back. In the three seconds since the first shot was fired, the tunnel ahead of us had emptied. There were no Ukrainians still in sight other than half a dozen that had been shot and were now groaning on the damp stone floor.

  I swung around to face Alan’s team. ‘Anyone wounded?’ I asked. Several bullets had come in our direction, in the tight space it would have been hard to miss us all.

  A voice said, ‘Yeah. Over here.’ The owner of the voice wasn’t wounded though. At his feet was Boy George, his weapon discarded next to him and blood coming between his fingers as he pressed them to his leg.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Georgie. Are you some kind of bullet magnet?’ Alan sounded genuinely annoyed. ‘You’re making us look bad in front of the Army boys. Get up, will you?’

  ‘Not this time, Al.’ Boy George replied leaning back against the wall.

  ‘Let me see.’ The request had come from a new voice, but one I was very familiar with.

  ‘Dad, what are you doing here?’ I asked, my head bowed in defeat.

  He didn’t answer straight away. He was examining the wound, but as I crossed the few feet to him, he looked up, a big grin on his daft face. ‘The doctor let me out. He told me to take it easy but didn’t specifically say I couldn’t get involved in underground gun battles while rescuing my son from a gang of organised Ukrainian criminals.

  ‘Right.’ I drawled. ‘Does Mum know where you are?’

  ‘Of course. I told her I was going to the supermarket for rum. That’s where she thinks I am.’

  I thought about that for a second. ‘How long ago did you go out for rum?’

  ‘About three hours.’ He giggled. Actually giggled. He was going to catch hell when he got home. I wasn’t going anywhere near their house for the next few weeks because Mum would most definitely find a way to blame me.

  ‘Can we do the family reunion thing later?’ Big Ben asked as he crouched down next to me. ‘I can’t stand up straight in these stupid tunnels made for puny humans.’

  ‘What are you then?’ Asked Alan.

  ‘Man plus.’ His instant reply. ‘Also, I think it likely they have gone for reinforcements or better weapons, so we need to scarper before they come back.’

  ‘Righto.’ Said Alan taking charge again. ‘Bob, Charlie, Whizzer, get Boy George here back to the river and out. He’ll need to get that scratch properly attended to.’ He turned to me. ‘What do we do with the enemy wounded?’

  ‘We leave them here. I don’t think they are getting better weapons and I don’t think they are coming back.’ I stopped talking to create a moment of silence. ‘See? Nothing to hear. This was always part of the plan. The police are on the surface…’

  ‘Are they?’ Big Ben interrupted me, his voice full of surprise.

  ‘They should be. I gave Quinn an easy way to be the hero and make the big bust. I told him I was going in and would be driving them out. All he had to do was bring officers in wearin
g plain clothes and have uniformed back up waiting around the corner. Since none of us know where the stairs come out, I couldn’t direct him to a specific point, so he is up there now looking for a flood of people exiting a building and blinking in the sunlight because their eyes are accustomed to the dark.’

  ‘That’s a bit thin, son.’ Dad observed.

  ‘This whole plan has been a bit thin. It’s working though, and we are nearly there.’ I scanned around the tunnel. Two ex-army guys and a good handful of well-trained but ultimately almost geriatric former Royal Navy against an unknown force. I really wanted to send my father away, but I knew he would never leave unless I was going with him and I wasn’t convinced the Ukrainians would be caught unless we forced them into the open now and let the police do what was necessary. On top of that, I still believed that the two Daves and Joseph were also captive down here somewhere. Remembering them made the decision easy.

  ‘I’m off to clear some vermin out of this sewer. Anyone who wants to come along is welcome.’ Then I set off, a handgun in my right hand and Italian leather shoes on my feet. My feet were long since soaked through from splashing in puddles on the damp floor. The shoes would be going in the bin and were the least of my concerns.

  My greatest concern was that I was wrong about the Ukrainians getting reinforcements and weapons.

  Henchman are Hard to Beat. Thursday, November 24th (still no idea what time it is)

  I filled the rest of them in on the likelihood of hostages as we advanced. I wanted to find the two Daves and Joseph as a greater priority than anything else, certainly it was more important than catching anyone. I had all the evidence I would ever need for the police to raid the place, plus it was my investigations that had placed the three missing men in danger. Sneaking along the tunnel, fanned out as best we could so any shots fired in our direction wouldn’t get us all, we were trying to balance caution with a sense of urgency. There was no desire to give them time to regroup but also no wish to run headfirst into an ambush. It took less than a minute to get back to the room I had been held in and pass it. Ahead the tunnel formed a tee junction.

  ‘Which way.’ Asked Alan.

  I shook my head. ‘I was blindfolded.’

  ‘Best we split up then.’ He turned and issued a fast order, splitting the group. ‘We’ll take right. You go left?’ He asked me.

  I simply nodded and wished him luck. Half a dozen of his men, including my dad came with me.

  The tunnel to the left quickly curved away to the right and as it did, we began to hear noises. Voices echoing along the corridor and then the faint sound of machinery in the distance. I picked up the pace, the others keeping up with me easily enough despite Big Ben having to move in a permanent crouch.

  There was a shout ahead of us. A word in Ukrainian that was followed by a volley of bullets. The shooter wasn’t hanging around though. We saw three men duck into view and quickly vanish again before anyone could get a shot off. They were running away, which was good news, I wanted to drive them to the surface, but there was bad news as well. Everyone else had already left and these three had been left behind to torch the evidence. The stink of petrol hung heavy in the air as we skidded to a halt in the room they had just fled.

  It was the room they made the cigarettes in. There were boxes of cigarettes stacked next to several machines and boxes of paper and tobacco and other raw materials. Some of the boxes were exact duplicates of the one I had found on the beach. How it had arrived on the shore of Upnor would forever remain a mystery, but my best guess was that it fell off whatever they used to bring it in.

  ‘We saw loads of these in the tunnel we came in through.’ Said Big Ben by my ear. ‘They have a pair of small ribs that tow what looks like a pod in and out. It was all rigged up next to the pontoon where we came in.

  I wanted to hear more about it, but the smell of tobacco one might expect was overwhelmed by the smell of the accelerant. Before anyone could say anything else, I heard the petrol catch ahead of us and out of sight. Around the next bend in the tunnel, they had lit the petrol, the light from it scaring the dimness away. I screamed for everyone to get back. If they made it out of the room, they would have to fight against the fire drawing oxygen from the tunnel to feed itself, but they would escape the heat and flame and be out of danger.

  I had travelled too far into the room though. To go back was further than to go forward and my brain was trying to remember how fast a flame travels in petrol. As time slowed down, an old science teacher drawled out numbers for equations. Fifty metres per second sounded right. It was a terrible last thought to have.

  The force of Big Ben slamming into my back drove my breath from me as he lifted me and ran toward the line of flame now whipping down the centre of the tunnel floor toward us. It became a wall of intense heat for a heartbeat as he dived over it, bearing me to the floor where the cold, wet stone had mercifully already forgotten the passing flame.

  Then Big Ben was hitting me. Slapping out a fire on my shirt. Smoke was rising from both of us as the light overhead twitched once, twice and went out.

  ‘Bugger.’ Said Big Ben.

  Fortunately perhaps, the cigarette room was an inferno. Standing once more, I could just about see the faces of those on the other side. My dad was with them but all I could do was wave that we were alright. The fire created too much noise and it was beginning to deliver some serious heat. I didn’t know all that much about thermodynamics, but I worried the tunnels were about to be a very inhospitable place.

  Big Ben thumped my arm to get moving even as we were being forced to back away from the oppressive heat. We turned and ran.

  Straight into Pasha, Andriy and Danylo. They were emptying cash into bags from a large locker.

  Both Big Ben and I had lost our weapons escaping the flames. Now unarmed, the three hugely muscular opponents presented a difficult obstacle.

  Pasha glanced over her shoulder to see who was there and was turning her eyes back to the money when she did a double take. I guess they hadn’t told her it was me causing all the fuss.

  Andriy and Danylo caught her reaction and turned to face us as well. Three against two. I was half beaten to pulp and they were each bigger and probably stronger than my unstoppable friend. I was really hoping they would see the danger in the fire behind us and run away.

  They didn’t though. Smoke was beginning to fill the top of the tunnel. I saw Andriy notice it, looking above his head to examine then dismiss it. His attention came back to Big Ben and me.

  It was Pasha that spoke first. ‘Do you remember when I told you I had a huge boyfriend that would beat you up? Well here he is.’ She said indicating Danylo to her left.

  Danylo looked confused. ‘I am not your boyfriend.’ He argued.

  ‘Yes, you are, Dany.’ Then her brow wrinkled. ‘Hold on, what do you mean you are not my boyfriend?’

  ‘Why would you think I am your boyfriend?’ He asked, mystified.

  Pasha’s attention was no longer on us as she turned to face the larger man. ‘You had better be thinking hard about the sleeping arrangements, Dany.’ She hissed. ‘You have been tapping this ass for months and you think it is just a bit of fun? Or are you getting it somewhere else as well?’

  Andriy sputtered with a laugh he was trying to hold in. ‘Busted.’ He managed between sniggers.

  Pasha raised one eyebrow, then, barely taking her eyes off Danylo, she rotated on one foot and kicked out hard with her right heel. It caught Andriy in his groin forcing an involuntary intake of breath from both Big Ben and me. He folded inward slightly, fought it, tried to recover, then accepted his fate and sank to his knees whereupon she kicked him in the head with the same heel.

  Danylo now looked like a dog caught halfway through taking a poop on the carpet. He wanted to run away or make himself invisible, but he couldn’t move.

  ‘What did he mean?’ She demanded. ‘Why did he say busted and then laugh?’ She had fixed him with a hard stare, her hands clenching and unclen
ching by her sides.

  ‘I don’t know, um… darling?’ He tried unsuccessfully.

  ‘It’s that skinny blonde bitch that does the books for the protection rackets, isn’t it?’ Pasha was working herself into a frenzy, there was spittle on her lips and she looked angry. Like bite a man’s cock off angry.

  Danlyo, the huge man that he was, took a pace back, looked at us, considered his options and ran away. Suddenly, the blocked escape route was open, and we hadn’t needed to do anything. Only Pasha blocked our path. But whatever else was going on in her head, Pasha was planning to leave with the money in the bags at her feet and we had to get by her to get out.

  ‘I’ll get this one.’ Big Ben said as he advanced toward her. ‘You have a rest, this won’t take long.’ He took two loping paces toward her and swung a hard punch that I have witnessed to great effect on several occasions. It was the sort of punch that a lumberjack would use to fell trees.

  Pasha caught it in her right hand, looked Big Ben hard in the face and twisted while simultaneously closing her hand to crush his knuckles.

  If I was surprised, then Big Ben was shocked to his core. He was a fighting machine that never lost, and he felt he owed Pasha a lesson for his treatment on Tuesday night. He wasn’t going to be the teacher today though.

  She kicked out with a vicious boot to his inner left knee and followed it with a clubbing blow to his right cheekbone from her left hand. He was hampered by the height of the ceiling still, the only man down here that just didn’t fit. He backed away and circled, trying to find an opening, then charged her, but he was outwitted again as she moved to meet him before he could position himself.

  Her arms whipped out to deflect his, a high elbow caught his jaw and she converted his stumble from the latest strike so that she was able to grab his left arm and fold it into a lock. He was about to be pinned.

  I hit her with the pipe wrench. Somehow, I had forgotten I had it in my pocket.

  Pasha let go of Big Ben’s arm, ‘That’s what you get for hitting my dad.’ I sneered in her face. She blinked twice and fell over backward.