Reaper

by A P Bateman

  The drive back up the mountain took longer than King expected, there was no overtaking room and if it wasn’t clapped-out mopeds or motorcycle-pickup wagons with little in the way of horsepower and turning ability, then it was groups of Lycra-clad cyclists testing themselves on the twisty passes. It took an hour to get to his villa, just fifteen miles from Castagneto Carduci. It was a modest villa of two-bedrooms and a swimming pool set in well-tended grounds. King had taken it over the place he had been told to check into. He hadn’t even considered the pre-paid villa that his paymaster had booked. He needed to perform what was asked of him to save Caroline. So, he would do it on his own terms. He imagined a property bugged and tapped, wired and rigged to cameras. He was damned if he would give Helena that much control. She texted the target, the photo and left documents in the cloud. That was what he needed to get the job done. He wasn’t going to be her puppet. He was doing what he was good at, right up until he stood a chance to save Caroline, or he hoped, give her enough time to get control of her situation and get away. He had never met anybody more rounded, more capable. She was a force to be reckoned with, and she had proven that with her last assignment.

  If only King could say the same about himself. He knew that Caroline was held prisoner because of him. Because of his sense of justice, his need to exact revenge. He had rescued Caroline, gone after the person who had attempted to kill her, but he should have done it differently. He shouldn’t have sought justice for her victims. He should have simply detained her or killed her. But he had wanted her to know, to feel what was happening, that what she had done had caught up with her. It had taken him away from Caroline, and it had left her vulnerable. Helena had exploited this in ways King would not have imagined. And now Caroline was paying the price.

  14

  King laid his purchases out on the bed. He did so meticulously, counting out what he had bought and making a note of anything else he would need. It was too late for rethinking things. Outside forces had aligned locations, people and opportunity. There was no better time than now, not for one man with relatively few resources. He had resigned himself to thinking the plan was fluid at best, unrealistic and doomed to failure at worst. No, at worst it would be the death of him. But he didn’t fear death. He didn’t want to die, but he was not scared of dying. He had finally compartmentalised the emotion. What he feared was not fulfilling his objective. And now, as he started to get into the mindset of the task, it was no different. Ultimately, Caroline’s freedom, her life, would be on the line. But he couldn’t be blinkered by this, he needed to set himself objectives, process steps for the task. A to B to C. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  He looked at his watch, figured he had time for a swim. The water and exercise would help him calm and finalise his plan. He stepped through the open glass doors and out onto the patio. The pool glistened in the late afternoon sunshine, the garden taking on shadows as the sun moved past the top of the mountain and warmed the western slopes of olives and grapes and tended meadows. King looked to the east, miles of pine forest mountain slopes, interspersed with the odd church spire or farmhouse.

  The water was cool on his skin and he enjoyed the sensation as he swam the first two lengths underwater. He rose to the surface and settled into a crawl and got his rhythm, tumble-turning as he reached the side every ten strokes. He stopped after twenty lengths, pushed backwards and floated on his back, regretting it almost instantly as a persistent horsefly shadowed him, buzzed in front of his eyes and bit his cheek. He got to his feet and fended off other attacks. There were four or five of the insects in all, and they were going to town on him. The bites hurt as much as wasp stings, but the pain thankfully dispersed within seconds. It was both painful and annoying, to say the least. King dived under the water, flipped onto his back and blew through his nose to avoid taking water into his sinuses. He could see the insects buzzing above him, flitting on the surface. He spun, swam and pushed himself up when he reached the side. The flies were coming in again, and he flicked his towel at them as he made his way back up the lawns to the patio. He wondered if other villas in the mountains suffered the same infestations. The mountains were heavily forested, and villas had been constructed amid the wild land, without other habitation or amenities. He knew about the wild boars, had seen some crossing the lane on his way down to the villa. He had seen some sort of mountain goat on an impossibly steep, practically vertical mountainside on his drive down into town. He wondered what other wild animals lurked on the edge of his fenced-off and well-tended gardens.

  King showered the chlorine from the swimming pool off his body with cold water, but did not use soap or shampoo, and when he towelled himself dry, he did not apply deodorant either. He would be infiltrating a hostile environment and knew the importance of keeping a neutral odour. Likewise, when he ate a small meal of bread, tomatoes, cheese and prosciutto, he chose not to eat the garlic and chilli olives he had bought earlier. He took his meal on the patio, drinking plenty of iced water and picking at the food as he looked out across the beautiful countryside.

  It was the sort of place he would have loved to come to with Caroline. The hills, the mountains and forests, the idyllic mountain towns with its bars and restaurants, the ice cream and gelato parlours. The kind of delis and bakeries and butcher shops where Caroline would shop and prepare delicious meals for them both as they talked and read and watched the sun go down over the Mediterranean. He couldn’t help longing for her, wishing he had not left her to hunt down a cold and callous killer, or that he had not wasted time exacting revenge for a family caught up in someone’s agenda. If only he had stayed with her…

  King pushed his plate aside. He was feeling wild and aggressive. He knew the task that lay ahead of him, and he breathed deeply to calm himself. He wanted to hurt the person behind this, but he did not want to lose control and fail. His target tonight was a clinical process, part of an equation which would ultimately lead to getting nearer to Caroline. That was the objective. Not getting even, and certainly not exacting revenge. That had been his downfall. He would learn. He would learn too, from his mistake in France. He had underestimated the ego and vindictiveness of the Russian mafia boss. Again, Rashid, who he had put in place for backup, had fluidly worked with events and saved his backside.

  The target tonight was a cold and ruthless killer. A man surrounded by his own security. Those men would be armed, and King doubted the local law enforcement would turn anything but a blind eye. He had seen evidence of this at the town of Monteverdi Marittimo.

  King would learn not only from his mistake in France, but from his enemy. Collateral damage was a phrase used by people behind the decisions to use lethal force. King found the phrase abhorrent. It had always been something he fought stridently against and tried to avoid. He had even hung onto his job when the new MI5 director was appointed by vehemently arguing the pros of a man on the ground against the cons of missile strikes by drones. He felt a hypocrite now, because tonight there would be people forming collateral damage in his plan. All he could hope for was that they remained unpunished from previous crimes. He would do his best not to kill, but he also knew the dangers wounded and scared men presented. They often felt they had nothing to lose, or they became charged-up with endorphins and adrenalin, often taking on superhuman strength and a will not easily broken. But King was wounded too. He felt a numbness inside, an emptiness that he knew would not go away until he held the woman he loved in his arms again. And yet, he was driven within by a force he had never experienced before. He would never give up on this. He would get Caroline back. Or he would die trying.

  15

  There were many tracks leading off the mountain roads. Some led to villas or farmhouses, others led to meadow pastures hemmed in by forest. Others simply seemed to lead nowhere. Enough room to turn a car, or to park a couple of vehicles. King assumed these were the starting points for hunters, climbers or hikers.

  King had driven down several of these tracks until he was confident he had fou
nd the most suitable. He looked at his watch again, decided he could spare an hour, although he was confident it would take only half that time.

  King opened the boot of the car and took out the crossbow. He had assembled it back at the villa but kept hold of the multitool and spare bowstring to be safe. He had rolled up a thick woollen blanket he had found with the extra bedding in the wardrobe. He had fastened it tightly with a length of washing line that he had cut down from two trees in the garden. He walked out across the opening and placed it against a tree trunk and paced out ten metres. He pointed the crossbow to the ground and slipped his foot into the loop and pulled back the string until it locked firmly in place. The bolt needed to slide back as far as the mechanism would allow and was held in place by a spring clip. King was aware that it felt less safe, less substantial than a gun. He made sure his finger was nowhere near the trigger as he shouldered the weapon and took careful aim at the roll of blanket. He flicked off the safety and squeezed the trigger. The string lurched off its hook and the bolt was shot forward at tremendous speed, but not much accuracy, missing the roll and disappearing out into the forest. King was pleased he’d bought two packs. He reloaded, but this time he was ready for the crude trigger release and the second bolt fared better but hit low of where he was aiming. He kept his aim-point and the next arrow tucked neatly alongside the other. He fired another and was relieved to see it near the other two. This was called grouping, and now King had to adjust the sights, confident that he was firing the weapon skilfully enough. He looked at the two adjusters and twisted the one on the side of the sight four clicks counter-clockwise to adjust elevation. The next bolt struck dead centre and three inches above the other three bolts. King fired two more bolts, and again, he had a grouping. He wound the elevation adjustment twice as much, and after another three bolts, he was bang-on target. He walked forwards and collected the bolts, surprised at the degree of penetration. The blanket was thick and had been folded in three before it was rolled, and King counted off seven layers. At twenty-one single layers, he likened the penetration of the bolts up there with a 9mm pistol. Or at least in the same ballpark.

  Next, King walked to a firing point of around fifty-metres. He fired the first shot at the top of the blanket and was surprised to see it hit just a few inches lower. He followed up with three more, getting a good feel for loading and handling the weapon. It was cumbersome to handle, yet light and easy to fire. King was stunned at how quiet it was to fire. A slight twang as the bowstring relaxed. King was confident nobody would hear a thing if they were twenty-feet or so away from him. Hopefully, they would be a lot further away than that.

  16

  Georgia

  She would never have believed how good a bath could be. To her disgust, the water had turned dark and after she had soaped and rinsed and washed her hair twice, she had drained the water and run a second bath, where she washed again, rewashed and conditioned her tangled hair, and languished in the warmth of the water, with the aroma of citrus shampoo and coconut soap attacking her senses.

  She had checked the windows of the tiny bathroom, only to find they were barred. She had checked these too, heaving them, but feeling no give. She could see she was in a rural location, and thanks to the time she had been given alone, and the travel of the sun, she had ascertained which way was east, and from that, she had all four points of the compass in her mind, with the large hillock in the distance acting as a marker. She figured that by sunset, she would know the time to within an hour.

  She had been given curt instructions when the man had handed her the clear, plastic bag of toiletries, which had included a single-blade disposable safety razor. All the bottles, even the toothbrush and hand soap were to be returned. The towel provided had been little bigger than a hand-towel, and that too, was to be returned.

  When she had towelled herself dry, she opened the door into the bedroom and looked for something to wear. Her dirty clothes had been taken away. The towel was barely large enough to cover herself, let alone wrap around her, and she felt vulnerable once more. She heard a knock at the solid oak door, looked around and then pulled the sheet from the bed over herself. The door unlocked, then opened. The door had no lock or handle from inside, and the sound had been like that of a bolt and padlock.

  The man looked at her impassively. She had not seen him before. He seemed a little embarrassed. He dropped a pile of clothes on the bed, held out his hand.

  “Your toiletries,” he said.

  “I might want another wash,” she replied.

  “You smell clean now,” he said, but he seemed embarrassed and hastily added, “The soap is strong.”

  Caroline looked at the man. She figured he was in his early twenties. He did not look the same as the brute who had touched her, or the two East-Europeans who had driven her here. “I am Caroline,” she said softly. “Thanks for the clothes.”

  The man nodded. “I know who you are,” he said. “I am to take your toiletries away,” he repeated.

  Caroline reached out to the table, struggling to keep herself covered with the sheet. She picked up the bag and handed it to him. “Here,” she said. She looked him in the eye. She could see there was something there, something less cruel than the rest of her captors. She had been trained to make the most of every situation. She smiled again, “What is your name?”

  The man hesitated, then said, “Michael.” He had no real accent, not that Caroline could make out, at least. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “Famished!” she exclaimed. “Oh, please, could you get me something to eat and drink?”

  He nodded but said nothing more as he backed out of the doorway and closed the door behind him. The bolt slid home with a heavy thud. Ominous, final.

  Caroline looked at the clothes. Nothing much, and a little calculated. Plain white cotton underwear more on the skimpy side than Bridget Jones, and a white linen dress. She put them on, pleased that the dress covered her knees and that all were a good fit. She looked out of the window, saw from the position of the sun that she was looking northwest. There was a distant mountain range ahead of her. The terrain looked like farmed pastures, with many knolls and clumps of trees, but otherwise open ground all the way to the mountains. She would guess the mountains were twenty miles away. Any escape on foot in that direction would be a fruitless task. Too much ground to cover, nowhere to hide and besides, what would she do if she reached the mountains? Cold, high and deadly. Not the best terrain for a summer dress and bare feet.

  The bedroom windows were barred also. Again, she opened the window and pulled at the bars. They were solid. She left the window open, the cool early summer breeze felt good on her flushed skin after the hot bath.

  There was a sharp knock on the door, then the sound of the bolt opening. Michael stood in the open doorway with a tray. Caroline went to walk forward, but he said sharply, “No. Stay there. I will put it on the desk.”

  Caroline shrugged, like it was no bother, but she knew that he had been briefed to take no chances with her. She knew that if she were to escape, then it was better attempted in the first few hours of a new location. But she also knew that her stomach was almost touching her spine and she had never felt so hungry, nor had lost weight so quickly. She looked at the tray of food and knew she would never chance escaping until she had eaten. The thought annoyed her, like she was becoming submissive, reliant on her captors, but she was a realist. She hadn’t given up, she just needed to bide her time.

  Michael stepped back, and Caroline hustled forwards. She picked up a chunk of bread and bit down. There was a satisfying crunch as she bit through the crust and she chewed quickly, then dipped the bread into a large mug of soup. She took another mouthful, but this time her mouth felt the explosion of flavour from the onion, garlic and beetroot. She knew it was borscht and that narrowed down her location a little. The flavour was overwhelming, and she knew it was only because she had not eaten in so long. There were slices of cold sausage on a tin plate next to the soup and
she ate these quickly. She looked at Michael as he made to leave. “Thank you, Michael. It’s much appreciated,” she paused. “Please, stay,” she said, taking a sip of the tepid soup. “I haven’t talked to anybody in such a long time…”

  “I am not allowed,” he said. “I have to get more food…”

  “Just a minute,” she said. “I’ve been so scared. You look like a kind person, Michael. I can tell that. You look a bit like my brother,” she said. “I miss him terribly. He’ll be so worried about me…”

  The young man looked at his watch. It was a cheap, plastic digital model. He wore gold rings on his fingers and was fiddling with one subconsciously. “I can’t,” he said.

  “Where am I?” she asked. “I was travelling for hours, days even.”

  Michael shrugged. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “Now, I must go and get food for the others…”

  “Others?”

  “I can’t tell you!” he snapped. The change in his expression shocked her, and he could see this, and his face softened. “Now, I must go,” he said.

  Caroline looked sadly at him. “Okay,” she said. “But promise me you’ll come and see me when you’re done. You could bring more food,” she smiled.

  The young man nodded, and Caroline caught him staring at her legs as she tore off a piece of bread and dipped it into the soup. She was annoyed, there hadn’t been a spoon or anything else that would be useful in her escape.

  17

  Dover, England