“We know everything, you piece of filth,” he snapped, showing the first signs of emotion. Again, he breathed deeply, slowly, fighting to control his anger, or so it appeared.
“All you had to do was let the matter drop. But no, you had to take it to the next level. The men on this floor and the ones outside, they didn’t have to die tonight. They could have lived. I would have left you alone. No point trying to destroy all the evil in the world. I have others to protect. No, Viktor. I would have sent evidence of your role in Robert Prentiss’ murder to a friend I have in the UK police, and he would have passed it to Europol. Eventually, they would have moved against you. It might have taken a while and given you a few more weeks of freedom. A few more weeks of life. But … it’s too late now. Much too late for that.”
The Englishman was starting to ramble.
“Ordering the deaths of the extended Prentiss family was a big mistake. Your final mistake.”
“What?”
How did he know?
The Englishman continued, ignoring the interruption.
“As I told you, Marian Prentiss is under my protection and, by default, that includes her whole family. I couldn’t let your man hurt them.”
He knows everything. How?
“What you mean?”
The dead eyes of Őrült narrowed. They locked on his. Death grew even closer.
“I imagine you wondered why Andris hasn’t been in touch since you sent him on his merry way?”
“Andris?” Viktor gulped. “What you know of him?”
Őrült shook his head slowly, pretending to be saddened. “I’m afraid you won’t be hearing from poor Andris, at least not in this life. Truth is, he didn’t even make it to the main road into Győr. I killed him before he left the valley. He’s still there. His carcass is feeding the local wildlife.”
“Andris dead?”
“Yes. You see, he wouldn’t listen to reason. He insisted on joining his friend, Balint. I was happy to oblige.”
Andris and Balint, both dead at the hands of this skinny Englishman? His longest serving men, his loyal friends dead. How was it possible? An informer inside the house. The only explanation.
“How you know I send Andris to kill Prentiss family? Lajos? Did Lajos betray me? Is that why you return him?”
Őrült smiled and shook his head again. “No, Viktor, old sport. Lajos gave me the layout of this mausoleum. He told me where your bedroom is and the disposition of your guards, pitiful though they were. But no, he isn’t a spy, Viktor.”
“How you get information? Answer me, damn you!”
“You told me!”
“What?”
Another smile stretched out on the bearded face. This time, it appeared genuine. “Or, to be more accurate, the wheelchair told me.”
“What?”
“Before sending Lajos home, we planted a bug in his wheelchair. Whenever you spoke to him directly, we heard it all. Everything.”
“No!”
“’Fraid so, old man. In fact, Lajos’ leg isn’t broken,” he said. “All your son has is a badly gashed ankle. I had my medic encase his leg in plaster to give a reason for the wheelchair.”
“Te rohadék!”
Őrült pressed a finger to his ear. “No, Viktor, I’m not a bastard, but I am a killer. And when the mood takes me, I’m not averse to a little thievery.”
“Thievery?” Viktor frowned. “What is ‘thievery’?”
“Theft, Viktor. Stealing. Robbery. Larceny. In short, when the opportunity presents itself and the victim is a piece of filth such as yourself, I take whatever I see fit. In your case, I took all your money. A friend of mine”—he tapped his ear once again—“the same chap who developed the translation app, emptied your account in the Magyar Bank of West—”
“No!”
“Yes.”
The way Őrült spoke, with confidence and certainty, left Viktor in no doubt of the truth of his words.
“Thirty billion forints left your account this afternoon, headed to”—he waved his free hand in the air—“who knows where.” Őrült paused.
Viktor could not speak. He flinched and another blast of torture exploded from his knee.
“Thirty billion forints sounds a lot, but it’s only ninety million euros, or eighty million pounds. Not too bad a haul, especially when added to the fifteen million from the ransom—”
“Ransom? But you burn the money! You burn it!”
“Nope. I only made it look like it went up in flames.”
Madness!
“How?” Viktor asked, shaking his head. “Why?”
“The ‘how’ is easy. The explosion was a precisely shaped charge, designed to blow the rubbish out and away from the skip. It also ignited two jerrycans of petrol while the money bags remained safe behind the lid of the skip.
“As for ‘why’. That’s simple really. I wanted to keep you off-balance and confused. If money wasn’t a driver for me, I wanted you to wonder what was. I even thought it might make you back off. My mistake was to imagine you were rational, but you turned out to be a total fruitcake.”
“Money? You do this for my money? Simple greed?”
“No. Some of the money’s going to Marian Prentiss, to help set her up in a new life, and some will pay for my men’s time. The rest will go to your victims. The women and girls we are about to release from your cellars. After what they’ve suffered, they’ll need counselling and long-term support. And that’s all the time I’m wasting on you, Viktor Pataki, Giant of Győr!”
He slapped his free hand to his knee and used it to push himself to his feet, grunting as he did so.
“And now, I die?” Viktor demanded.
“Yes, Viktor.” Őrült nodded. “And now you die.”
He raised the gun and took careful aim at the right eye of the Giant of Győr.
This is the end?
“What of my son, Lajos?” Viktor forced out the words through a parched mouth.
Őrült shook his head.
“More than once he tried to convince you to change your mind about killing the Prentiss family. It made me think there may be hope for Lajos. I’m prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’ll be keeping a close eye on him for a while, but Lajos is going to live. At least for the moment. Goodbye, Viktor. Goodbye, Giant of Győr.”
Viktor raised his hands. “No! Please, no! I beg of you.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sunday 14th May – Afternoon
Bristol Channel, Off the North Coast of Devon, UK
The leased fishing boat bobbed and weaved in the high-running swell. A stiff south-westerly breeze cut the caps off the waves and a cold sun cast long shadows over the roiling water, shooting sparkles of light into Kaine’s eyes. He blinked as the stinging salt spray hit his eyes, making them water. At least, that’s what he’d tell anyone who asked.
Salt spray.
Yeah, that’s right. The salt.
Danny loved the sea, as did the others—Rollo and Mike. They’d lived on the sea, trained and fought on the sea. Some of their friends had died on the sea. The sea was where they all felt most at home.
He wasn’t so sure about Lara, they’d never really discussed her association with salt water. She swam well enough, but preferred riding her horses. She held tight to the boat’s rail as though in fear of falling over the side and into the grey foaming swell. The auto-inflate life jacket would have kept her afloat, but who would want a dip in that water without a full drysuit?
Kaine released an involuntary shiver at the thought.
Cough and Stefan looked green and seemed one more corkscrewing lurch away from hanging over the side and hurling their breakfasts into the murky deep. Back on dry land, in Ilfracombe Harbour, he’d offered them both an out. As landlubbers, they didn’t have to brave the dangerous waters and the bucking little trawler. They could stay safe and dry. Neither had wavered. Danny, their friend, their crewmate, needed a good send off, and they wanted to be there to say goodbye.
> That was then, back on the firm safety of dry land. If he asked them the same question now, in the heart of an angry and highly agitated Bristol Channel, would they change their minds?
Probably.
Paddy, PeeWee, and the other members of Task Force Győr waited back at the harbour—the boat could only hold so many mourners. They’d done their part. They’d all risked death to avenge Danny, but they would be around to send him into the next life at the wake. Yes, Ilfracombe Harbour would see one hell of a party that night, but for now, the men waited. Cough and Stefan had won the draw. They even appeared to appreciate the honour … at least they had at the time.
Connor Blake had asked to attend. Like so many others, he wanted to pay his respects, but Kaine asked him to stay on the farm with Melanie Archer. Blake was her bodyguard and, despite the eleven-year difference in their ages and their highly disparate backgrounds, the two seemed to enjoy each other’s company. Blake had agreed to be a permanent member of her protection team for the duration of her time as a fugitive, however long that might be, and was duty-bound to stay with her. After the wake, Cough and Stefan would assume their duties alongside Blake. As for where they’d be hiding Melanie, that remained to be decided. She certainly couldn’t stay with Mike much longer. At some stage, his neighbours would surely notice all the extra activity on the farm, especially if it were in the shape of an escaped convict and her three-man escort.
As the wind blew and the waves slammed into the boat, Kaine’s mind shifted back to the second worst thing about the whole sorry mess—second only to watching Danny’s life drain away in his arms. The day after returning from Győr, he and Lara made the trip to Bobbie’s university.
Lara offered to break the sorry news alone, but Kaine couldn’t allow that to happen. Although he dearly wanted to, he refused to hand over that particular task. As team leader, delivering such information was his responsibility.
At first, Bobbie took the news in stunned disbelief. Then, the tears started flowing.
Kaine expected anger and recriminations. He expected her to blame him for Danny’s death, but she just fell into his arms and cried her broken heart out. He hugged her, patted her back, and allowed his own silent tears to fall. Lara stood back and left them to their shared grief.
As it turned out, Bobbie and Danny had discussed the possibility of him dying on a mission. A military man—and a damned good one—the quiet, nine-to-five life was not for Danny. He chose danger over safety. The battlefield over the office. After all, Bobbie and Danny only met because she and her mother were members of The 83, and Danny had been part of Kaine’s team who’d risked their lives to save her and her mother from butchers.
Danny knew the dangers, as did Bobbie. But it didn’t make his loss any easier to carry.
“Danny loved you,” Kaine had said, when she’d cried herself out, at least for the moment. “He wanted me to tell you that.”
Kaine didn’t add that Danny said it with pretty much his final breath. Some details were best left hidden.
“I know,” she said, wiping her eyes on a tissue. “He loved you too, Captain. Would have done anything for you.”
“He saved my life, Bobbie.” He hadn’t intended to tell her, but she deserved to know at least that. “He took a bullet that was meant for me. I’m so sorry.”
She sniffled and wiped her nose.
“You’d have done the same for him.”
“In a heartbeat.”
They moved to a sofa under the only window in the small room, and Kaine helped her sit.
“The mission,” she asked, looking up at him through the tears, “was another one of The 83 in trouble?”
“No, not this time,” he said, unable to lie, but unwilling to elaborate.
“What happened? Why was he in Derbyshire?”
Kaine’s control left him as the emotion took over. He turned away, unable to speak.
Lara answered for him. “Danny was doing what he did, Bobbie. Helping people. Saving lives.”
With Kaine’s silent, nodded permission, Lara gave Bobbie the details, leaving out only the names and locations. They stayed with Bobbie until her mother, Angela, arrived to offer comfort and take her daughter home.
Before Kaine and Lara left, he told them of his plans for Danny’s body. They wanted to attend, but Kaine forbade it. He couldn’t allow either to be part of an illegal burial at sea. Instead, they’d be able to visit the headstone he’d erect on Mike’s farm any time they wanted to.
Danny had loved the farm almost as much as he loved the sea. Reluctantly, Bobbie and her mother agreed.
Kaine tore his eyes from the grey water and stared up at the cloud-filled sky, fighting the tears. He couldn’t show his emotions to the men. Not the thing to do. Not at all. Stiff upper lip needed, damn it.
Where’s the rain? It should be raining.
Beside him on the bucking boat, Lara allowed the tears to fall unchecked—a much healthier way to grieve. While Kaine gripped the rail and stopped them falling overboard, she hugged tight to his free arm, needing his support. He needed hers, too. She propped him up as much as he did her.
God, what a bloody mess.
Danny’s attempt to save Marian Prentiss from an abusive marriage had ended in violence and multiple deaths. Only now, with time on his hands, might Kaine give vent to his true feelings. Yet, still he refused.
Overhead, herring gulls screamed and jeered at him, reminding Kaine of another time he’d been on a fishing boat at sea. That time, the mission changed his life forever. This time was different. Just as traumatic, but different.
Kaine lowered his eyes to the heavily weighted body wrapped in the Union Flag, and lying on the wooden board. Then, he turned towards the living.
The men waited, expecting him to say something over Danny’s body before sending him to the deep.
Danny’s body. Jesus!
During his time as an officer in the Royal Navy, he’d sent so many letters of condolence home to families but, until now, he’d never spoken over a grave.
What the hell could he say?
“Tell the truth,” Lara had said that morning. “Speak from the heart.”
Sounded easy enough at the time, but how could he say anything with a rock rammed down his throat? Lara released her tight hold on his arm long enough to squeeze his hand.
Time.
They couldn’t stay out there all day. Someone on a passing boat might notify the coastguard.
He nodded to Mike in the wheelhouse. The CPO eased back on the twin throttles and cut the engine revs. The prop slowed, giving them only enough forwards motion to give the boat steerage and keep it facing into the swell, which minimised the rolling and reduced the potential for the waves to swamp them.
No need for a Bible. Danny wasn’t a believer. He wouldn’t have wanted Holy words spouted at his burial. Kaine stepped away from Lara. The next part, he had to do alone.
“Danny was a good man,” Kaine said, pushing the words past the restriction in his throat, desperate for his voice not to break. “One of the best I’ve ever known.”
Crap.
The words were so damned weak. Pitiful.
Speak from the heart.
“Danny was a quiet man. A man of few words, he didn’t talk about himself much. But, over the years, I learned a few things about the man I called a friend. Danny … never really knew his father. The man buggered off when he was still a kid. His mother died from cancer when he was a teenager and he spent a couple of years in care. He joined the navy at sixteen and discovered his first real family. Danny found friendship and a life he loved.”
A huge black wave broke over the side of the boat, soaking them through and washing away in the scuppers. Kaine ignored the ice-cold water and carried on.
“First time I met Danny was in a bar in Germany. If I had any sort of an imagination, I might be able to embellish the story, make it more interesting. I’d say something like, Danny saved my life, but he didn’t … not that time.
Back in Germany in ’09, he actually saved my best leather jacket …”
Kaine spoke for a few more minutes, raising the odd sad smile of remembrance. Danny had been loved.
In turn, Rollo, Mike, Cough, Stefan, and Lara spoke a few words over the body and touched the hem of the flag. When they were done, Kaine and Rollo raised the foot of the board, and Danny slid into the welcoming water.
They stood in silence for a moment while the sea claimed the body of their friend. Kaine had no idea what to do next. How to end the tribute.
“Ah the hell with this,” Rollo roared, slapping Mike on the shoulder. “Let’s get back to dry land. Bloody freezing out here. Danny wouldn’t want us catching our deaths. He needs to be sent on his way with a drink or three, and I need some rum to warm my belly.”
Cough and Stefan forced out a bawdy laugh. Rollo’s words even made Lara smile.
Mike clambered back into the wheelhouse and opened the throttles, full bore. He spun the wheel to port and they ploughed through the heavy seas.
Kaine held Lara tighter and they stared into the rumbling grey waters.
Danny was gone.
He was gone, but he’d be remembered by so many good friends.
His family.
The END
The Ryan Kaine Series
On The Run: Book 1 in the Ryan Kaine Series
On The Rocks: Book 2 in the Ryan Kaine Series
On The Defensive: Book 3 in the Ryan Kaine Series
On The Attack: Book 4 in the Ryan Kaine series
On The Money: Book 5 in the Ryan Kaine series
On The Edge: Book 6 in the Ryan Kaine series
On The Wing: Book 7 in the Ryan Kaine series
On The Hunt: Book 8 in the Ryan Kaine series
For a free Ryan Kaine origins novella, go to
fusebooks.com/ryankaine
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