by Blake Banner
Cavendish held me with very cold eyes. “Whom do you work for, Harry?”
“Come on, Charles! This is ridiculous. This isn’t the movies. This is the real world. You’re letting this bozo fill your head with a lot of conspiracy theory bullshit!”
“I’m going to ask you one more time, Harry. Whom do you work for?”
“I work for myself, for crying out loud! I am a multimillionaire in my own right! You think I need to work as a damned hit man? I had enough of that in Iraq and Afghanistan…”
Bill cut across me. “Yeah, but you never really lose the taste for it, do you?”
“Like hell! Maybe for a psycho like you, Bill. But I had my fill and I was only too happy when I got out. Give me a champagne dinner any day over spit roast lizard and bodies decomposing in the desert.”
Cavendish stood and looked down at me. “You’re lying, Harry. I have given you two chances, and you lied to me both times. Just as you have lied and lied since you first seduced poor Sheila. I will get the truth from you, Harry, one way or another. But I shall get it.” He turned to Bill. “Take him below, with Tony and Oscar. You know what to do.”
“Now, come on, Charles!”
Bill produced a Sig Sauer P320 and smiled at me along the sights.
“We ready to go, Harry?”
Tony and Oscar closed in from the sides, each holding a firearm.
I set my martini down and stood. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
They led me through a grotesquely ostentatious lounge with Rococo furniture, silk walls, massive and elaborate gilt mirrors and crystal chandeliers. It looked like Sir Elton John had employed the interior decorators to the Saudi Royal Family and fed them LSD to get them loosened up.
They led me down the kind of sweeping staircase you might expect to see St. Peter skipping down to answer the bell on the Pearly Gates and we eventually came to a passage with a steel door at the end which, when opened, led out of wonderland and onto a cold steel staircase that clanged and clattered the way they are supposed to on ships. It led down into the bowels of the vessel, where the two vast engines powered the props. They led me along a walkway that clanged and echoed among the hum and grind of the motors, forward to a couple of small steel rooms that faced each other across a short passage. Bill unlocked one of them and shoved me inside. He followed me in and Tony and Oscar came in behind him. Oscar was holding a coil of nylon rope.
I looked around, hoping to find a weapon, but there was only a camp bed with a rough blanket on it, a steel and Formica table and a bentwood chair. Bill was grinning.
“Before you make a grab for that chair, Harry, maybe you should think it through. I need you alive, to answer some questions. But I don’t need you in one piece. I’m quite happy to blow your kneecaps off.”
He took a couple of steps closer, his hand relaxed, pointing the gun at my leg. His face was inviting me to try something. He took a hold of the chair and pulled it over to the door. There he sat, with Tony on his right and Oscar on his left. They were both leering.
“For me,” he went on, “torture has always come in three parts: anticipation, reparable damage, like needles under fingernails, cutting the flesh, burning, that kind of thing, and then irreparable damage. That’s stuff like cutting off part of your face, removing an eye, amputation. That can be pretty intense stuff.
“Now, your best victim is the chicken-shit coward who pees his pants just anticipating what you might do to him. He tells you everything you need to know and falls over himself to confirm it and prove it and cooperate with you. Not much fun for the interrogator, but quick results.” He laughed. “Now, I just know you are not going to be one of those.”
He paused and looked up at the ceiling.
“Then there’s the reparable damage. That’s the choice of the hero. He can claim he suffered a lot of pain before talking, and he has the scars to prove it, but he gets away with his looks intact, or maybe even enhanced.
“But the only people I have ever known to get to the irreparable damage stage, without cracking, are mothers. Mothers will go the limit.”
I nodded once. “Thank you.”
His eyebrows made a quizzical twitch. I answered their question.
“I wasn’t sure till now, but now you’ve told me that, I know I am going to kill you.” Bill laughed but I ignored him. I looked at Oscar. “First I am going to break your neck with that rope, Oscar. Then I am going to kill you, Tony. I’m going to shove that Glock where the sun don’t shine and blow what few brains you have out the top of your head. And then you, Bill. I’m going to break your neck with my bare hands. And that will be irreparable, just so you know what it feels like.”
Fifteen
His pale eyes were almost expressionless, but I saw it. A fraction of a second of fear that every soldier knows. It’s the recognition that the moment has come, and death is close to you.
He didn’t lose his smile, but something in it changed. He wasn’t amused anymore, he was acting a part now. He jerked his head at me.
“Tie his wrists together, in front.”
I had little choice. While Bill and Tony covered me, Oscar bound my wrists, then slung the rope through a hook in the ceiling and, climbing up on the bentwood chair, he hoisted my wrists and tied a double knot, hanging on it to secure it.
Then the beating started. I knew that at this stage they would not want to kill me, or do permanent damage. At this stage they would just want to soften me up, a euphemism which meant cause so much pain that the victim will do just about anything to make it stop. But professional interrogators don’t normally ask any questions at this stage. They don’t want to give you a way out. They want you to feel this is going to go on forever, and there is nothing you can do to make it stop.
They didn’t punch me in the face. They slapped me, open handed, backhanders and open palm. They took it in turns to punch me in the ribs, in the floating ribs and in the belly. At some point I vomited. I made no effort to resist or to fight back. I knew all I could do right then was to ride it, absorb the pain and feed off it. I tried to focus my mind on something, anything, other than my body. I visualized my revenge: the hundred different ways I would kill Bill the Kiwi, Tony and Oscar. And then reminded myself I had told them how they were going to die, and I would be sure to make it happen exactly as I had told them.
I allowed myself to become delirious. I sank into a world where pain was the only reality, and I habituated to it and allowed it to carry me into dreams, fantasies and delusions. They probably beat me for no more than twenty minutes, pounding my body, and slapping my face. But it became a timeless nightmare, where everything hurt all the time. I didn’t beg. I accepted, and dreamed of revenge.
Eventually they stopped and left the small room, joking about how they needed a beer.
My legs were the least damaged part of me, but the pain in my wrists was hard to tolerate. So I forced myself to stand something like upright, and clutched at the rope with my fingers. I knew what I was going to do, but I wasn’t sure how. What I was sure about was that, if I was going to do it, it had to be now, because I was not going to recover. I was only going to get weaker, and more damaged.
My arms were numb with the lack of blood flow into them, and that would only get worse too. So I wound the rope around my fingers, knowing it was going to be agony, stood on tiptoes, pushed myself back and swung forward, lifting my feet off the ground. The pain in my wrists and fingers was like nothing I had ever experienced. I gritted my teeth and made an ugly, inhuman noise, swearing at myself to hold on a few more seconds. I swung back again and, tensing all my muscles, raised my legs and propelled myself forward. My feet hooked the bentwood chair and I dragged it back toward me.
I staggered onto my feet again and killed the need to shout out in pain. Then I hooked the chair again, more easily this time, with one foot and drew it close enough to climb onto it.
I was very unsteady and almost fell, but managed to slide the knot over the point of the hook. Then I climb
ed down and sat on the chair with my head in my hands, allowing the pain to ease out of my body, and above all out of my wrists.
After five minutes or so I stood, laid the chair on the floor with one of my feet on the bottom leg, grabbed a hold of the upper leg with both hands, and heaved until the wood splintered and the leg came away in my hands, with a long screw poking out of the end. I turned the stick around with some difficulty and gripped it with the screw shoved hard against the rope, and then started the slow, painful process of sawing through my bonds.
It took ten long minutes that felt like an hour. The rope was tough and each thread was a struggle. The screw scraped against the already raw skin around my wrists and cut the flesh until the blood flowed freely down my hands, making the varnished wood slick, so it was hard to keep a hold on the broken chair leg. But finally the last of the threads snapped and the blood-soaked rope fell to the floor. My arms throbbed and my wrists ached with raw pain.
I took off my shirt and tore away the sleeves, then wiped the blood from my hands and tied the sleeves around my wrists to stem the flow. I rested my ass against the table and breathed slow and steady. I was tired, my muscles ached and were slow to respond—and I hurt. I hurt everywhere.
I knew that sooner or later—probably sooner than later—they’d be back and I would have to deal with them. I’d have to do it fast and decisively. Master Zamudio came into my mind, smiling, relaxed and deadly. “The secret is to be explosive, Harry. You have to explode, bam! Bam! Bam! And it’s all over.”
I needed a weapon. The chair leg would do for an attack to the face, but for little more, and it was slippery with my own blood.
I took the rope, made a coil with it and laid it on the table. Then I picked up the table and set it beside the door. I had neither the strength nor the weapons for a knockout blow. Neither did I know in what order they would be coming in. I would have to improvise, but one thing was very clear. Each attack would have to be surgically precise, fast and definitive. My chances?
I smiled grimly to myself. The end must come to us all sooner or later. The chances of the end coming for me that day, I reckoned, were very high; up in the high nineties.
It came after half an hour. I heard the boots tramping along the steel floors of the engine room and felt the hot burn of anticipation. Tony and Oscar I knew I could take, but in the condition I was in, I knew Bill would be a problem.
I stood on the table beside the door with the coil of rope in my hand. The door opened and Oscar stepped in. I didn’t hesitate. I kicked him hard in the temple, and as he staggered I dropped in front of him, looping the rope around his neck. I yanked it tight as I landed and reached for the piece he had under his arm, expecting to see Tony and Bill behind him. But he was alone.
I grinned savagely, smashed my knee into his balls and as he went down on his knees I stepped behind him, pulled hard on the ropes and kicked him in the back of the neck. I felt his vertebrae crunch and let him slide to the floor.
I took his Glock and slipped it in my waistband behind my back. Right now the last thing I wanted was to make a noise that would attract unwanted attention. I stepped out of the small room, closing the door quietly behind me. The churning hum of the engines grew louder and I moved silently down the passage into the engine room. There was nobody there.
I inched around to the right of the two massive engines. There was a walkway and beyond the engine housing the walkway made a dogleg and funneled into another passage. This one was wide and I could see a door that stood open on the right. Warm light spilled out, and as I grew closer I could hear murmured voices and occasional laughter. I took a few steps and as I reached the corner of the dogleg I was able to distinguish the voices. Tony, Bill, another guy with a gravelly voice, like he smoked too much. He was talking the most and laughing at what he was saying. A fourth voice sounded South African, harsh and flat.
I sighed. I didn’t want to use the pistol. These deaths had to be silent. I couldn’t afford to have the whole crew descend on me.
I thought about it for a full three seconds, then I stepped up, kicked the door fully open, and stepped inside with the Glock held out in both hands. The room was larger than the one I’d come from. It had a makeshift kitchen, a large, round, glass-topped coffee table and some big easy chairs. Bill, Tony and the other two occupied the chairs. I growled, “OK, who’s first?”
Four pairs of very wide eyes stared at me. Bill and Tony were sitting on the near side of the table. On the far side was a man in his late forties, greased hair slicked back, sunburned skin and pale blue eyes. He had a cigarette in his mouth. Across from him was a man in his mid-thirties, tall, tanned, with floppy blond hair and a red goatee. I trained the gun on Bill. I knew the others would look to him for a lead. If the cannon was pointing at him he wouldn’t be giving a lot of leads.
“Drop your weapons.” For a moment he didn’t do anything. He glanced at the other three. I snarled, “I am at the end of a very thin tether, Bill, and nothing would give me more pleasure than to fill you full of holes. Drop your damned weapons.”
He pulled his Sig from under his arm and his knife from his boot, and dropped them on the floor.
“Now, lie facedown with your feet apart and your hands laced behind your head. Don’t worry, Bill. If you’re smart you won’t die today. I’m just making a point to Cavendish. Relax. Just stay cool.”
People tend to cooperate more when they believe they have a chance of living. He dropped, lay down as I’d told him, and I shifted behind him and trained the gun on the smoker.
“OK, pal. On your feet. You know the drill. Drop your weapons.”
He rasped, “I only got the Glock.”
I jerked my chin. “Drop it over there, where you can’t reach it.”
He stood, pulled a Glock from under his arm and tossed it across the floor.
“Now what?”
“Lie down next to him, head to toe.”
He grunted and sighed, like he was bored, but the fear was in his eyes. He dropped beside Bill. Spread his feet and linked his hands behind his head.
I said, “I don’t want to kill anyone today. But the first one to move, I shoot in the spine. Once I shoot one of you, I’ll have to shoot the rest. So be smart. I hope we’re clear. You!” I jerked my chin at the South African blond. “Weapons!”
He stood and dropped a Smith & Wesson M&P M2.0 on the floor and removed a bowie knife the size of a small machete from his belt.
I flicked my gun at Bill and the smoker. “Lie across them.”
He screwed up his face. “What?”
I aimed the Glock at Bill’s head. “You going to give me a problem? Do I need to kill this man?”
Bill yelped, “No!” and the South African held up both hands. “Take it easy. I’m lying down now. Take it easy.”
I snarled at him. “You take it easy, pal. I’m doing just fine. I already told you, nobody needs to get killed today. Let’s just remember that, and do exactly as you’re told.”
He dropped and lay down across Bill and the smoker’s backs.
I snapped, “Spread your legs. Hands behind your head. Lace your fingers. You!” I jerked my chin at Tony. “Drop your weapons. Understand this, the way I have these guys lined up, one slug kills two and immobilizes three. The odds have changed radically, right? Don’t do anything stupid and you get to go home to mommy tonight.”
He dropped a Sig Sauer P320 and held up his hands. “That’s all I got.”
“Good, now remove their laces, tie their ankles and their wrists. And I want to see those laces bite, Tony. Do it right and in two minutes you’ll be running upstairs to take a message to Cavendish.”
That got to him. He worked fast and efficient. I stayed close and saw that the bonds bit and hurt. When he was done I said, “OK, stand with your back to me, hands in the air, I’m going to frisk you. I don’t want you carrying a weapon upstairs.”
He stood and raised his hands, and I smashed the butt of the Glock into the base of
his skull. As he crumpled I slipped my right elbow under his chin and gripped my right palm in the crook of my left elbow. Then I breathed death in his ear:
“Remember I said nobody had to get killed today, Tony? I lied.”
I squeezed hard, twisted and lifted and heard his vertebrae snap. Then I stepped over and picked up the South African’s survival knife. Bill was staring at me. His face had flushed red, but he looked more mad than scared. That wasn’t the case for the owner of the knife. Getting killed with your own survival knife is kind of ironic, I guess.
I didn’t like what I did next, but when you make a decision to survive, you can’t make it conditional, and you can’t be scrupulous. I made it fast and I made it as surgical as the conditions allowed. I cut deep into the sides of their necks, severing their jugular veins and the aortas. They bled out fast, and within seconds they were all dead.
I hadn’t fulfilled my promise to them, but hell, you can’t have everything.
I collected up the two Sigs and the Smith & Wesson. Then I went to the sink and vomited convulsively. When the convulsions were done I rinsed my mouth with water and stood gathering my breath and my strength, and trying to formulate some kind of plan.
I had to escape, but before I escaped I had to eliminate Cavendish, and make it look like an accident. Those were my instructions, and that was what I had to do. Slowly, by degrees, the answer started to form in my mind. I crossed the bloody room and stepped out through the door. The engines were churning and humming. Across the passage was another door, and I figured it had to be some kind of storeroom. I tried the handle. It wasn’t locked. It swung open and I looked into darkness. I felt to the right of the door, found the switch and turned on the lights. I smiled.
There was a large, walk-in fridge, and beside it there were crates of food piled high: fresh fruit and vegetables, cans of everything from tomatoes to artichokes. There were sacks of rice and flour, bags of sugar and salt—everything you could imagine, everything you would need to run a kitchen on a yacht of this kind. But what had dawned on me was that to cook you need fire, and to make fire onboard cruisers you need propane. And right there, against the bulkhead, were sixteen six-foot steel canisters of propane. A system of connected valve-caps linked them to a thick hose which rose up through the ceiling and presumably fed the galley and the bathrooms.