On the Run

by Colin McLaren

  6th June 9.30 a.m.

  DONG, DONG! signalled half an hour to go before the post office would open. Tommy could hear the thunderous sound of the town hall clock as he stepped from his shower cubicle. Only 10 minutes into his early morning jog around the old town of Amsterdam and he was buggered, back at the hotel, undressed and enjoying the sensation of hot water on his traveller’s back. He really hadn’t done any exercise since his last run along the beach in New Zealand, 9 days ago. He hurried himself in getting dressed and pulled closed the door to Room 8. He had the strangest sensation of a countdown, to get to the post office and be front of the queue of the busiest travellers’ Poste Restante section in Europe. He guessed that the parcel would have arrived by now, 7 days after being posted. If not he would call Amsterdam home until it did.

  He headed off to a quaint outdoor breakfast bar on the medieval Dam Square in the centre of Amsterdam. He took his seat under an umbrella to indulge in an assortment of Dutch pastries and magnificent coffee. From his seat, he observed a beautiful woman parading over the cobblestones. The tall, dark-haired girl with the longest smoothly tanned legs sat down opposite his table, wearing a transparent fine white linen shirt with 6 buttons, the top half of which were deliciously undone. Her catwalk good looks and well-endowed cleavage captivated Tommy, who enjoyed a 5-minute game of hidden glimpses with her, as she pretended to read her magazine.

  Massimo, on the other hand, had been up to more advanced pursuits in Room 4 of his hotel. He was too Italian to fuss over breakfast cakes, preferring strong coffee only, and a last-minute sexual frolic with his own treat of the morning, Hettie, who had just left, leaving Massimo time for a last-minute errand before the post office opened. He was in a stamp, coin and military memorabilia store 3 shops away from Tommy’s café. He was negotiating with the stuffy old codger behind the counter but the man, with his ruddy face and pencil-thin grey moustache, was annoying Massimo, asking pesky questions.

  A smiling Tommy casually paid his bill, leaving a 2-euro tip; well worth it, he thought, as he winked a goodbye to the pretty girl. He strolled across the Raadhuisstraat walkway to the central post office. One minute behind him strolled another tourist, Massimo, zero smile, having completed his transaction.

  DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!

  The town hall clock struck as the front doors were flung open and the milling crowd entered. Tommy’s eyes searched around the room. He joined a few people at the Poste Restante counter and took up a position behind them. He hit his back pocket to ensure that his wallet and passport were there. Behind him was a pair of handsome blond Norwegians of university age. Both were Lycra-clad members of their national cycling team, obviously reliving the events of the night before as they laughed over stories. Behind them stood a stoic Massimo. Oddly enough, for such a warm morning, he was wearing a jacket.

  Massimo glanced at the back of Tommy’s head and then down at the crumpled newspaper clipping in his left hand. He returned the clipping to his pocket, and with his right hand, he tightened his grip on the handle of a Great War bayonet, now concealed under his jacket. The small band of travellers seeking mail all edged forward one pace.

  Massimo eased the bayonet from beneath the cover of his black linen jacket, and held it beside his right leg. Coming through the front door of the post office, a little happier than she had been the morning before, swayed the curvy receptionist Hettie, wearing a close fitting floral dress and carrying the hotel mail. She moved briskly towards the counter with her arms full of guests’ correspondence, pointless postcards in the main. She noticed Massimo as she teetered past the Poste Restante counter in her strappy heels, turned to him and said seductively, ‘Massimo, ciao bello.’

  Tommy, a metre closer to Hettie than the man behind him, turned to face her.

  For a split second, he assumed Hettie was looking at him, but then realised that she was in fact fixed on a man directly behind, apparently named Massimo, who by now had his knife arm pulled back ready to thrust into Tommy’s liver.

  The Norwegian cyclist saw it all, and screamed at the top of his lungs. His mate reacted instinctively, crashing his arm down onto Massimo’s thrusting arm.

  The next two seconds seemed like minutes to Tommy as the drama unfolded frame by frame. His body pivoted 180 degrees to his right with his left fist clenched and swinging. The Norwegian was screaming in pain, bone protruding through the flesh of his wounded arm.

  Tommy’s initial contact with Massimo was less effective than he would have hoped, only grazing the side of his face. Yet it was enough to cause the Calabrian punk to fall off balance, drop the bayonet and momentarily succumb to the weight of the Norwegian. The screams of at least a dozen petrified locals and travellers could be heard throughout the great hall of the post office and well into Dam Square. Tommy sprinted through the main door and back onto the Raadhuisstraat to stand facing the square and a maze of curious eyes.

  Tommy stood on the edge of the canal, unsure in which direction to run. He breathed heavily as he felt the perspiration dripping down his neck, soaking his clothes. The post office started emptying out onto the front steps. Fear had turned to panic, and panic had turned to a stampede. Tommy made a deliberate effort to breathe normally, to regain his composure. New Zealand flashed into mind, reminding him he was a wanted man. He couldn’t yell for the assistance of the police. It was imperative that he get away without drawing any attention to himself. He needed to blend in, to stay with the crowd. He crossed Raadhuisstraat, walking briskly.

  Tommy forced himself to move slowly and methodically with the small crowd of people, eager to escape the sounds of the screaming. As Tommy moved forward, he felt a sharp ache to his lower back in the kidney region. He kept walking, touching his back with his right hand. A throbbing pain kicked in. He looked down at his hand and saw the fresh warm blood staining his fingers. The bayonet had actually pierced him, not badly enough to cause a life-threatening injury, but he would certainly require some attention.

  On the Dam Square side of Raadhuisstraat, Tommy looked back towards the door of the post office, relieved to find that Massimo had yet to run from the building. He knew that the now pooling blood on his waistband was becoming noticeable. He turned back to the horde of travellers in the square and worked his way forward and towards his hotel. As he passed a run of tables and chairs at a café he casually lifted a lightweight jacket from the back of an unoccupied seat, putting it on as he walked.

  A lone police car was parked at the front door of the memorabilia shop as Tommy and the crowd moved on. Both lights flashed on its roof. A uniformed policeman ran from the door and towards his vehicle, almost colliding with Tommy. He moved off without an apology and leaned into the squad car, speaking urgently into the radio.

  Behind the counter of the store lay an elderly gentleman with a pencil-thin moustache, a matching bayonet to the one that had pierced Tommy’s kidney embedded in his right eye socket. He was dead. A trail of fruit and vegetables ran from the counter to the rear of the store where his overcome wife sat sobbing on a chair, the now empty shopping bag clutched tightly in her hands.

  The third police car arrived out the front of the post office and parked alongside the other two, and the ambulance. Inside the post office, police busied themselves at the crime scene. An upturned empty cardboard postal pack lay at the centre of the floor. To one side of the post pack was a pool of blood in the exact position where the Norwegian had fallen. He was now in the safe hands of the ambulance medics on the other side of the hall, his arm encased in a splint and a mass of sterile cotton gauze. His friend sat nearby, troubled. Massimo was nowhere to be seen; Hettie’s pointless postcards were scattered on the floor.

  The police sergeant, obviously in charge of the crime scene, stepped from the third police car and entered. A younger officer, who had been first on the scene, walked him over to the upturned cardboard carton. They were both mindful of the congealing bloodstain nearby and crouched down carefully. The yo
unger policeman lifted the box in the air. The bayonet lay discarded on the ground, its sharp tip bloodied. The sergeant looked at the eager young officer.

  ‘We’re missing one victim,’ he said.

  The young policeman’s expression changed as he digested his sergeant’s logic.

  ‘Why would a victim run away, Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, why indeed?’

  The last number of the four-digit code was keyed into the hotel wall safe. Tommy opened it to expose a small wad of euros. He counted them out: 2000 in total. The exact amount he had withdrawn from his account at the Western Union office at JFK Airport thirty hours earlier. He then took the MasterCard from his wallet and stared at it, realising that it was the only credit card he had used thus far in the name of Tommy Paul. He wondered as he stared at the card how Massimo had found him at the Amsterdam post office. Dropping the card on the end of his bed, he picked up one of the hotel bath towels and pressed it firmly against the trickle of blood still oozing from his wound, before lying down. There was more that needed to be thought through.

  Somebody had to be watching the MasterCard. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that the answer to every one of the questions running through his mind was the Mafia. They, like any criminal organisation, could only flourish with the assistance of corrupt cops. The hunch that gnawed at him the last time he had dinner with his team in the Japanese restaurant in Melbourne surfaced again in his mind, as did the face of Inspector Mack.

  Fifteen minutes later Tommy had checked out, happy to use his MasterCard once more. He had a plan. He walked to the front glass door of the hotel to take a taxi, his shoulder bag slung over his left shoulder, in an attempt to give some relief to his hastily bandaged right side. Tommy had borrowed a small guest towel as an impromptu first aid pad to protect his shirt from telltale signs of the morning’s incident. He was about to push open the hotel front door when he noticed Massimo walk briskly along the footpath. Massimo was sporting a cut to the eye. Tommy’s stomach sank when he saw Massimo disappear into the hotel three doors up. He quickly changed course and exited using the rear door that led him out onto a quiet alleyway adjacent to the canal.

  He moved to the back of the hotel that Massimo had entered, and found its rear fire-escape stairs. He tucked his bag carefully under the bottom rung of the stair and then climbed the open metal treads to the first floor. He opened the fire-escape door just slightly, enough to see Massimo four doors down in the left side corridor emerge from his room as the cleaning lady and her trolley entered.

  Massimo was in a hurry, and jogged down the staircase to talk with Hettie at the reception counter. Hettie, uncharacteristically, did her best to ignore Massimo, having realised that he was far too violent and unpredictable for her liking. She threatened to call the police.

  Meanwhile, Tommy had entered Massimo’s room to see a familiar object lying open on the end of the bed: the half-packed powder-blue suitcase. The cleaning lady appeared to be busy restacking fresh white towels in the bathroom. Tommy looked down to the surface of the credenza, beneath a large gilded vanity mirror, and observed a bottle of Hugo Boss In Motion aftershave, which he thought resembled a silver baseball of sorts, as well as an eyelash curler and shiny gold lipstick case, lying haphazardly nearby.

  Downstairs Massimo was having no success in changing Hettie’s attitude. He gave up, realising that she was more of a convenience than a necessity. Having sorted out his hotel account, he turned to walk back upstairs to his room. Once inside, he recommenced packing the suitcase. His work regarding Tommy was far from complete. Massimo grabbed his well-pressed T-shirts and slacks from the wardrobe and turned sharply to face the vanity mirror and what was scrawled boldly across the glass in vivid red lipstick: ‘Get a new job!’

  Massimo flicked his head back ever so slightly as he read the words. Their content and the messenger did not come to mind instantly. Then it dawned on him. He gritted his teeth. His hand reached down and grabbed the aftershave and hurled the bottle violently at the mirror, shattering it to pieces.

  The ATM on Damrak, the main street leading to the central station, spat out 500 euros in 100-euro notes, and then returned the MasterCard to Tommy, who hastily moved towards the station. He did his best to ignore the young, grungy beggars that plagued the street and the incessant number of Jamaicans offering everything from colourful beads to vouchers to hash cafés. As he walked, he scanned all directions, and occasionally stepped into the concealed doorways of the many shops to ensure that Massimo was not on his tail. He was determined, now that he knew that he had been followed, to lose the Calabrian punk—no, not punk, assassin. Things had become seriously dangerous and he needed to become seriously smart, before he ended up seriously dead.

  In the front of the station, Tommy took advantage of another ATM, and withdrew another 500 euros, which he placed in his now bulging wallet, just as the ‘Exceeded Daily Cash Allowance’ warning flashed onto the screen. He moved forward to the ticket office and purchased a one-way sleeper, Amsterdam to Milano. He headed off to his platform to catch a train. As he sat tucked away among the crowd of waiting passengers, he afforded himself the faintest of smiles as he knew he had concocted a cunning plan and now had control of the game.

  7th June

  Eight o’clock the following morning saw the arrival of the Amsterdam train into Milano. Tommy spent the night sharing a twin cabin with an old lady from Scotland. They spent most of the night gazing at the passing scenery, which flashed by under a full moon. As they lay on their backs on their individual bunk beds watching out the window, Nellie recounted stories about her now deceased husband and herself, from earlier, happier years, when together they ran a typical tavern in the seaside town of Aberdeen. Tommy was glad to let her mind run from yarn to yarn, fascinated by her beautiful accent and her enthusiasm for life. The dear old soul had been forced to sell recently, and was now off to see the world.

  Not once did she act at all suspicious about Tommy’s injury, accepting at face value and with appropriate sympathy his explanation that he had been mugged the day before at the station. A grandmotherly type, she kindly offered to play nurse and refreshed his dressing before they went to dinner, exclaiming with a slap to his back, ‘There, there now laddie, dinna’ fash yersel’. It’ll tak’ mair than that tae see ye oot,’ which Tommy roughly translated to mean that he would live, and that it would heal well. He felt a little sad to say goodbye to her. As he stepped down from the train, he looked back to give her a brief wave; she was going all the way through to Rome.

  A short taxi ride later Tommy found himself walking through the Piazza del Duomo. The tourist within emerged just for a moment as he stood in admiration and awe before one of the great cathedrals of the world, beautiful still, despite a heavy draping of scaffold to cater for the current renovations. He wandered over to one of the few municipal rubbish bins in the piazza, opened up his bag and, apart from keeping a couple of favourite items of clothing, he upended the contents, then headed for the Grand Galleria as there was breakfast to be had and shopping to be done.

  Later that same morning, Tommy, sporting a new pair of sneakers and with a bag now brimming with new summer clothes, walked into a hole-in-the-wall travel shop located in a narrow cobbled laneway behind the Galleria. It was the one-way airfare to Kraków at 200 euros depicted in the front window that had grabbed his attention. Yet again that morning, he deliberately laid his MasterCard onto the counter. With his ticket in hand, he walked back into the Galleria and took a seat at a terrazzo table of the Ristorante Savini.

  He had been to Italy many times over the years, often staying in Milano at each end of his trip. He knew the Ristorante Savini, Milano’s finest eating establishment, had recently undergone a multimillion-dollar refurbishment. He and his palate were lost for two hours over a five-course lunch, his enjoyment intensified in the knowledge that he was about to throw Massimo completely off his scent.

  He offered up his MasterCard for the last time. Tommy stood up from
his seat, souveniring a knife from his table as he walked out of the Galleria.

  He stopped in the piazza once more, tore up his airline ticket to Poland and disposed of it into one of the municipal rubbish bins. He then extracted the souvenired knife from his shoulder bag and cut the Tommy Paul MasterCard in half, dumping it and the knife as well.

  With the purposefulness of a local, he walked swiftly through the side streets to the bus terminal. Paying cash for his ticket, he caught a bus to Bellagio and Lake Como, an hour’s ride to the north.

  The in-tray on Donny’s desk looked a little bit different from normal; there was paperwork in it. Donny had come into work on Monday morning having enjoyed yet another weekend away, skiing with his mates at Mount Buller. He had the keys to a dodgy Asian drug dealer’s chalet these days, and availed himself and his mates of as much skiing and après socialising as he could in the five-star surroundings. He was annoyed that he was due back at work this morning but he had drawn the short straw on Friday. The initial sight of the paperwork in his tray made him more than a little despondent, until he picked up the half-dozen MasterCard alert sheets in the name of Tommy Paul. His contact at the MasterCard office had come through with the goods again. Donny hastily sorted the transaction chronology, following the movement of the card and its owner over the weekend: JFK Airport, to Amsterdam, to Milan. Donny clutched the alert sheets in his hand and headed out to find a payphone on the street.

  Leigh sat at his PC reading over a two-page report. It was an application to attend the covert investigation seminar hosted by the FBI in Quantico, Virginia in the USA. If he was lucky enough to be accepted, he would fly to the States, where he would be picked up at the airport, and quite literally disappear within the secret training facility for the duration. Short of a family death it would be impossible for contact to be made in or out until the course was over. Leigh desperately wanted to attend.