Vicious Circle

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘Silly boy, Johnny Congo,’ he said softly. ‘You are old enough to know that cheap can be very expensive. This bit of slipshod workmanship might just cost you your life.’

  ‘I could not copy that, Hector. Repeat, please,’ Jo said.

  ‘I said, happy days are here again.’ Hector grinned to himself. Then he beckoned for Paul to come to him.

  Two of Paul’s men were each carrying a 10kg shaped demolition charge for this very situation. It took Hector less than five minutes to lay the charges to their best advantage against the hinges of the green door.

  He ordered his men back behind the bend in the tunnel and followed them, paying out the electrical cable from its reel as he went. His men had already adopted the firing position, kneeling with their backs towards the explosives and both hands covering their ears.

  Hector clipped the terminals of the cable to a twelve-volt battery pack. That was all the power required to ignite the primers.

  ‘Fire in the hole,’ he warned them and triggered the charge.

  The conical shape of the charge concentrated most of the force of the explosives into the metal of the door. The shock wave was relatively mild as it swept over them.

  Then they were on their feet and charging back to the entrance of the funk hole. Through the pall of dust they saw that the heavy metal door had been lifted off its hinges and hurled against the facing wall of the tunnel.

  Hector looked down a flight of steps into the interior of the funk hole. Electric lights were still burning in the ceiling of the first cell that he could see into.

  He was carrying one of the M84 flash-bang grenades in his right hand and the machine pistol in his left. With his teeth he pulled the pin on the flash-bang and hurled it down into the bunker. The flash-bang is designed to temporarily blind and deafen its victims, and to confuse and disorientate them. The blast disturbs the fluid in the semi-circular canals of their ears to the extent that they lose their coordination and sense of balance.

  Hector ducked back out of the opening and crouched down, turning his head away, covering his ears and closing his eyes tightly. Even through his closed eyelids he saw the 2.4 million candlepower flash of the explosion and his ears sang with tinnitus as he jumped to his feet again. He found that his coordination was unimpaired as he dashed down the steps into the funk hole with his finger resting lightly on the trigger of the machine pistol. He heard Paul coming down close behind him.

  At the foot of the steps he found a large sparsely furnished antechamber. There were three men in the room, all of them Kazundian guards in motley uniform. They had lost their weapons and were rolling about on the floor. Their eyes were out of focus. One of them was trying to get to his feet, but collapsing again with vertigo.

  Hector would not waste a bullet on them. He knew he would need every single round when at last he confronted Johnny Congo.

  ‘Take care of them, Paul,’ he ordered without looking back over his shoulder. Across the floor in front of him he saw the sprinkling of the blood trail that Carl Bannock had left. It led through the open doorway into the room beyond. With three quick strides he crossed the antechamber, flattened himself against the jamb and then shot a quick glance around it.

  Carl Bannock lay huddled on the floor of the inner bunker. A gale of emotion swept through Hector’s senses, carrying all reason before it. At last the man who had murdered Hazel was completely at his mercy. His vision narrowed, leaving only a narrow funnel of light, at the end of which was Carl Bannock’s loathsome countenance.

  Carl’s face was contorted with terror. His eyes were wide, staring back at Hector. His mouth lolled open as he tried to speak, but no sound came, and saliva drooled over his lips.

  Hector passed through the doorway and went slowly towards him. Carl’s shattered legs were twisted under him. They were wrapped in crude bandages through which the blood had soaked. He lifted both his hands towards Hector in a gesture of supplication. Hector tried to say something to him, but his hatred was a thick bitter paste in his mouth that clogged his throat.

  Then Hector heard a whisper of sound behind him, and his reason returned to him in full strength. He realized that he had made a fatal error, and that he had placed himself in mortal danger. He ducked and spun around, lifting the machine pistol and pointing it at the source of the sound.

  A steel door was sliding across the opening through which he had passed a moment before, cutting him off from Paul and his men in the antechamber.

  He knew then that he was facing the wrong way. The danger was behind him. He began to turn back to face it. He was too late.

  Something hit him with the weight and force of a speeding steam locomotive. It lifted him off his feet and hurled him head-first into the steel door.

  Even though his Kevlar flak jacket had absorbed most of the shock of impact, it felt as though his spinal cord had snapped. The air was driven out of his lungs like a ruptured bellows. The machine pistol spun out of his grip and clattered away into the corner of the room. His ears were ringing from the force with which his head had hit the steel door. Without the Kevlar battle helmet to cushion it, his skull would have been crushed like the shell of a pigeon’s egg.

  Despite the pain he managed to stay on his feet, and turn back to meet the next onslaught.

  Johnny Congo was coming at him again. His face was contorted with a berserker rage. Up until this moment Hector had only seen him at a distance, but now he realized that he had underestimated his size by half. Johnny was a giant of a man. He towered over Hector. His torso and limbs were massive. But he was fast, very much faster than Hector had expected such an enormous man could be. He charged at Hector again.

  He lowered his head as he came. Hector saw that the top of his shaven skull was laced with a pattern of scars. Hector recognized this as the trademark of a head-butter. He knew that Johnny would use his head as a lethal weapon, but he realized that he did not have time or space in which to avoid his rush. Hector dropped his own head and met Johnny full on. The tops of their heads clashed together. However, the battle helmet saved Hector again, absorbing some of the intensity of the impact; still he was stunned by the shock. The steel door at his back prevented him from being knocked off his feet.

  Hector knew Johnny would come again, and that he could not survive another onslaught. He was outmatched in weight, height and strength. He knew that his only chance was to take the fight to Johnny. He used the steel door at his back as a springboard and launched himself from it.

  With his full weight and impetus behind the blow, he swung his right fist into Johnny’s face. He felt the cartilage of Johnny’s nose collapse under his bunched knuckles, and saw the blood jet out of his nostrils in two bright streams.

  Johnny seemed to have barely noticed the blow. He shook his head and came straight back at Hector. But he had given Hector the split second he needed to draw the heavy trench knife from its sheath on his right thigh. He tried to level the ten-inch blade of razor steel at Johnny’s chest. But Johnny’s long bare arms locked around him, like the coils of a giant boa constrictor. The glossy black muscles bunched and hardened into ropes of steel as he began to squeeze.

  Hector’s knife arm was pinned to his side. The point of the blade was aimed at the floor, and Hector found that he did not have the remaining strength to raise it. His left arm was trapped against his own chest.

  He found his strength receding swiftly as Johnny wrung the life out of him like dishwater from a wet rag. The fingers of Hector’s right hand opened of their own volition. The trench knife dropped from them and clattered on the floor between his feet. He felt Johnny lift him off his feet as though he were a child. The great arms tightened around him like an auto-crusher machine compressing the body of an old car. Hector felt his ribs beginning to collapse. He could no longer breathe and his vision began to fade out.

  Then through the agony and the darkness he felt a small hard lump under the fingers of his left hand which was still remorselessly locked to his chest. He real
ized what it was he was touching. He summoned the last kernel of his waning strength. With one numb finger he prised open the Velcro fastener of the pocket in the front of his flak jacket and touched the Hypnos syringe that lay within. Almost of its own accord his thumb moved to pinch the tiny green tube against his forefinger, and to flip open the cover that protected the hypodermic needle. Now his vision had gone completely, but in the despairing darkness he found the strength for one last effort. He rolled the wrist of his left hand. He felt the tiny pressure as the point of the needle touched something.

  He did not know what it was, but he probed the needle into it and squeezed. Then he blacked out completely.

  *

  When he opened his eyes again he thought that he had been unconscious for hours or even days. Then his nostrils filled with the wild animal stench of Johnny Congo’s sweat and he felt his great inert weight bearing down on top of him, pinning him to the ground. He drew a deep breath and then rolled out from under Johnny’s body. He sat up groggily. Only then did he realize that he had been unconscious for seconds rather than hours.

  He looked down at Johnny’s body and saw that the needle of the Hypnos syringe was still buried in the great muscles of his forearm. Johnny was snoring loudly through his open mouth.

  Hector heard a scrabbling sound behind him. He turned towards it and saw that Carl Bannock was on his elbows, dragging his lower body across the stone slabs towards him. His crippled legs were slithering along behind him. In his right hand he held the trench knife that Hector had been forced to drop. His expression was as mad and ferocious as that of a rabid dog.

  Hector rose to his feet. Carl reared up and threw the knife at him. It was a pathetically inadequate gesture. The knife struck Hector’s flak jacket hilt-first and dropped to his feet. Hector stepped over it. He walked slowly to stand over Carl, looking down at him.

  ‘Carl Bannock, I presume?’ Hector asked quietly, but there was a world of menace in his tone. Carl’s bravado collapsed, and he cowered before Hector, sullen and silent. Hector kicked one of his wounded limbs. It flexed at the shattered joint and Carl screamed.

  ‘I asked you a question,’ Hector reminded him.

  ‘Please don’t hurt me again,’ Carl whimpered. ‘Yes. Yes. You know I am Carl Bannock.’

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘Yes. I know who you are. Please don’t hurt me.’

  ‘Who am I?’ Hector insisted, and kicked his leg a second time. Carl screamed again.

  ‘You are hurting me,’ he blubbered. ‘You are Hector Cross.’

  ‘Do you know why I have come to find you?’

  ‘I am sorry. I would change everything if it were in my power. I didn’t mean to cause you pain. I am not a bad person. It is all a dreadful mistake. I beg your forgiveness.’

  ‘How do you open that door?’ Hector jerked his head towards the steel door behind him.

  ‘I think that Johnny has the remote control in his pocket.’ Hector went back to where Johnny lay snoring on his back. He stooped over him and patted his pockets. He found the opener, and he pointed it at the door and pressed the button. The door hissed as it ran back in its guide channels.

  Paddy and Nastiya were waiting on the far side, but they pushed their way through the opening as soon it was wide enough to admit them. Paddy’s voice was rough with worry and agitation as he demanded of Hector, ‘Are you all right, Heck?’

  ‘I couldn’t be more all right, my old son,’ Hector told him.

  ‘I see you have hit the big bastard with the Hypnos needle.’ Paddy looked down at Johnny.

  ‘They work just like Dave said they would. I think he went belly up while I was still squeezing the tube.’ Hector nodded. ‘But now we have to work fast. We have to get out of here before the enemy regroup. Did you bring the cable ties?’

  ‘No worry, mate.’

  ‘Then give them to Paul. Have him and his boys truss Johnny up good and tight.’ Hector touched his bruised and aching chest. ‘He is the most dangerous man I have ever met. He is strong as a bloody bull buffalo. I was like a baby in his hands.’

  ‘Why take any more chances? Let’s just cancel him out here and now.’ Nastiya reached for the holstered pistol on her hip.

  ‘Don’t be so soft-hearted, Nazzy. That would be much too kind and easy.’ Hector shook his head. ‘I am planning something really special for him. On our way home we’re going to dump him out through the rear ramp of the Condor at twenty-five thousand feet. He will have two minutes of free-fall in which to repent his sins before he hits the ground.’

  ‘Beautiful!’ Nastiya applauded the idea. ‘This is the old Hector speaking. The one we all know and love.’

  ‘Paul, get in here with a couple of your lads,’ Hector called, and as they came through the door he pointed at one of the heavy teak chairs that stood against the side wall. ‘Strap him onto that. We will use it as a casevac stretcher on which to carry him down to the airfield. The bastard must weigh well over three hundred pounds. But the chair looks sturdy enough to hold him.’

  As they dragged the chair to where Johnny lay and lifted him into it, Hector turned his full attention back to Carl.

  ‘This is the first prize,’ he told Paddy and Nastiya. ‘This is the only man I know of who has murdered his own father, his mother, his stepmother and both his half-sisters. He has wiped out his entire family.’

  ‘Worst of all, this piece of stinking excrement was the one who killed my best friend Hazel.’ Nastiya glared down at him. ‘Also he was trying to kill our baby Cathy. That I don’t like too very much.’

  ‘But we must give him credit for one thing,’ Hector pointed out. ‘He is an animal lover. He is especially fond of pigs and crocodiles; isn’t that the truth, Carl? You love to feed them, don’t you, Carl?’

  Carl stared at Hector dumbly, but gradually the agony in his eyes gave way to terror as he realized in which direction Hector was heading.

  ‘No!’ Carl whispered, shaking his head. ‘Please don’t talk like that. I will give you everything I have. Money? Do you want money? I can give you sixty million dollars.’

  ‘There is not enough money in this world, Carl,’ Hector told him regretfully and he turned back as Paul Stowe finished strapping Johnny’s huge carcass into the chair.

  ‘You will need all the men with you to help you to carry this great lump of lard down to the airfield. However, he won’t wake up for another three hours so you shouldn’t have too much trouble with him. Paddy, Nastiya and I will take Carl Bannock where he is going. We will probably catch up with you before you reach the Condor, but if we don’t then load Johnny on board and have the pilots wait for us. We won’t be far behind you.’ He slapped Paul’s shoulder. ‘Away with you, then!’

  He waited while they manhandled the improvised stretcher through the antechamber and up the stairs into the tunnel. Then he went back to where Carl lay.

  ‘What are the names of your pet crocodiles, Carl? Please remind me.’

  ‘No, you can’t do this to me. Listen to me. I can explain. You don’t understand. I had to do it. Sacha and Bryoni were the ones who sent me to prison. My father deserted me, and so did my mother.’ He was gabbling incoherently, a rush of jumbled words. At the same time he was weeping and holding up his hands to Hector. ‘Mercy! Please have mercy. I’ve suffered enough. Look at my legs. I’ll never walk again.’

  ‘Hannibal, that’s it!’ Hector snapped his fingers as he pretended to remember. ‘Hannibal and Aline. Shall we go down into the gardens and you can introduce us to Hannibal and Aline?’

  Suddenly Jo Stanley’s voice spoke over the radio. It was shrill with outrage. ‘Hector, I am copying every word of yours. You cannot do this thing you are planning. No matter how guilty he is, you cannot kill him out of hand. You will be sinking to his level. You will be committing a crime against all the laws of God and man. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. What you are contemplating is savage and barbaric.’

  Hector spoke into his mike and his voi
ce was crisp and sharp as he replied. ‘Sorry, Jo darling. We are very busy this end. Can’t talk now. Over and out!’ He switched off his Birkin and gestured to Paddy to do the same. Once they were both off the air he said to Paddy, ‘Let’s stop fiddling about, and get the job finished.’ He grabbed Carl’s wrist and twisted it up between his shoulder blades. Paddy did the same with his other arm. Nastiya squatted down and with a cable tie bound Carl’s hands behind his back.

  Then the two men lifted Carl onto his knees and dragged him up the stairs into the tunnel. Nastiya followed them, carrying their weapons.

  They carried Carl through the labyrinth with his legs swinging under him. Carl kept babbling out his remorse and supplications for forgiveness and mercy, interspersed with shrieks of agony as his dragging feet caught and one of his legs twisted violently, bone grating on bone.

  They reached the postern gate and emerged from it. Once more in the sunlight they paused to catch their breath and gaze about them. Hector looked up at the walls of the castle high above them. The tunnel leading out of the dungeons had burrowed under them and they were now in the gardens.

  ‘You and Johnny have done a great job here,’ Hector congratulated Carl. ‘You have turned this place into a paradise. What a pity that you won’t be around to enjoy it much longer.’

  The airfield lay below them and they could see Paul and his men carrying Johnny down the winding road towards it.

  They turned away and followed the contour of the hillside until they rounded a buttress of black volcanic rock and the water gardens opened out ahead of them. The fountains wove creaming patterns of spray against the high blue of the African sky. And the waterfalls cascaded down the black rock face, spilling into the pools and subterranean funnels on their return to the great lake that lay like a gleaming silver shield far below where they stood.

  They went on through stands of giant ferns and strelitzia, festooned with exotic blossoms the colour and shape of birds of paradise. At last they reached the stone coping around the top of the crocodile pen. Carl Bannock’s cries of pain and his pleas for mercy and forgiveness dried up as Hector and Paddy laid him over the coping on his belly. Paddy held his legs to prevent him toppling head-first over the wall and falling twenty feet into the green pool below. Hector leaned over the coping beside him.