The Mallorcan Bookseller (The 3R International Series Book 1)

by PETE DAVIES

  “I can imagine you have been wondering how far we might go. Will you walk out of here? What can you tell us that may be okay if you do have to explain to Sonny what you have told us? So here’s my advice for what it’s worth Davit. You deal with the here and now. If you don’t help me, then you will get hurt, no let me correct that, I will kill you. This is a very dear friend who your boss has kidnapped, so I am not in the mood for you messing about with me. No one can help you here, except me. Vardan here looks like he is just a foot soldier, so the responsibility lies with you. Let me ask you again. How many sleep in each apartment?” said Greg.

  Davit didn’t hesitate in his answer. “Between eight and ten in each one. The ones who stay at the villa are his bodyguards and Alex, his second in command.”

  Greg knew he had got him. It was time to ease back and gently encourage him to start talking freely as that was more likely to result in more information coming from him, rather than just question and answer.

  “That’s really helpful. Take some more water. You too Vardan. So what else can you tell us? You don’t know where she has been taken do you?”

  “No mister, I promise I don’t. She could be at a number of places,” said Davit.

  “Yes, I understand Davit, that’s fine. So just tell me the other places you have around the island and whether or not you have heard of any new places being found.”

  Davit had started to talk now and was still talking long after Terri had arrived. She had waited outside the room with Simon as there was no need to break the relationship Greg and Tommy had built with the two men. About twenty minutes later Greg and Tommy walked back into the kitchen area with a list of possible places where Anna may be being held.

  “What do you think? Are we shooting in the dark here?” said Greg.

  Simon spoke first, “Let’s deal with what we have. The police have no idea where she might be. The Porsche hasn’t moved and we’ve got five possible locations. We’ve got the thermal kit here to go and check them out.”

  Terri had opened the boxes she had brought from her apartment. Each contained a military grade drone fitted with cameras that Simon had described as having thermal imaging capability. Greg looked at Terri and Tommy, who both nodded.

  “Let’s do it. We’d better secure our two friends before we go, then we’ll take two cars, the KIA and their hatchback. Tommy, you come with me and we’ll do the first two on the list and you guys do three and four. Whoever gets finished first can crack on with the last one.”

  Tommy secured the two with more plastic ties, gaffer tape across the mouth and a warning they had cameras on them and any attempt to escape would not be wise. The two men nodded. They were broken mentally and were in no fit state to think of trying anything.

  As they loaded up the vehicles with the drones, comms and assorted weaponry, Terri looked at her father.

  “Are you going to hold off telling Lori anything about this?”

  “Yes. To be fair, we’re just scoping and I’m not intending any direct action. Not unless we see something happening that we don’t like,” said Greg, “and there seems little point telling her that Anna’s villa was being watched either, as the guy will be long gone now.”

  “Okay, fair enough,” and seeing Tommy come out of the finca she said, “Let’s get rolling.”

  The two men left in the finca sat looking at each other. Vardan was thankful he hadn’t been asked any more questions whilst Davit was wondering if what he had said had perhaps been too much.

  *****

  Tommy and Greg headed off in the hatchback and with little traffic on the road they made quick time getting towards the first place on the list. It was a finca located off the Ma1040 a few kilometres beyond the residential district of Establiments. They parked up about a kilometre away and got out on foot and started to make towards the finca. This is what would take the time. They needed to approach quietly and it was now almost 2am, so they needed to keep an eye on when the sun would come up. This was a farming area and some people would be starting to get up around the 5am mark. The flat terrain wasn’t going to help them get a view on the place, so Greg decided to hold back and try the drone. Tommy got it up and flying and they looked at the images on his phone. There were no lights on in the place and no people or cars outside. Tommy switched on the thermal imaging camera to see if it could detect any heat source within the house. Greg knew enough about the technology to know that the drone couldn’t actually see through walls, although he wished they could sometimes, just like in the movies, but they could give an idea on heat sources. So whilst it wouldn’t look like body shapes on the screen, the blobs of heat might signify people being present within the building. There was a single blob coming from one of the rooms. Tommy shook his head and indicated they move back to the car.

  “Good call Tommy,” said Greg, once they were back in the car and en-route to the next address. “We can only go on what we’re seeing and whilst it’s a bit of a long shot, they’ve got to have people outside on watch, so that’s what we’ve got to hope we see.”

  As they drove further up the Ma1040, towards Esporles, he texted ‘NEG’ to Terri and seconds later he got a similar message back from her. A few kilometres further on they came into a small village, more of a hamlet that was located in a dip of a valley and according to the SatNav the place was about three quarters of a kilometre away. They passed the side road that would take them to the place. It was another finca. Tommy drove on up an incline that gave them a line of sight over it. Tommy took a little while to find somewhere to get the vehicle off the road, but eventually he found a track that immediately swung behind a dry stone wall where they could keep the vehicle out of sight.

  They approached the finca over a field of olive trees. They both smelled it at the same time. Pigs. They make really good guard animals, so if they picked up their scent it might start them off. Fortunately, what wind there was meant the pig smell was coming from behind them, so hopefully that would mean their human scent was blowing away from the pigs and not towards them. They took their time and therefore it took a little while to get over some more dry stone boundary walls that were topped with two strings of barbed wire they had to cut through, but after fifteen minutes they had found a position looking down on the finca that was surrounded by rows of old vines. They were still about a half a kilometre away and that was the closest they wanted to get. It was still dark, but it wouldn’t be long before the first signs of light started showing through. Greg quickly found the finca in his Pulsar Accolade binoculars. There were lights showing on one side of the finca and he picked out the rear of a car, possibly a BMW.

  “Let’s get the drone up Tommy and see if that’s the Beemer we’re after.”

  Tommy launched the drone and Greg kept monitoring the outside of the finca. His binoculars also had thermal imaging and recording capabilities and even before the drone reached its searching height high above the finca, he had spotted two men outside the finca. Both were armed with what looked like machine pistols. One was sitting by the house in a chair, looking at his phone and the other one was on an outer point, about seventy five metres from the finca. Far enough out to be able to spot trouble before it arrived. This suggested these guys knew what they were doing, but then again there were only two of them. He had to therefore consider the possibility of alarm mechanisms around the site. He moved the drone forward to look at the building itself and turned on the thermal imaging camera. The lights that were showing on the left hand side of the house were giving off some heat, but there was possibly something in the dark unlit part of the premises.

  “Tommy, we’ve got two armed tangos on the outside, one by the finca and one about seventy five metres out, at about six o’clock. See what else you can see from above and I’ll call Terri.”

  Tommy nodded and Greg called Terri. It rang twice and then the call was cut-off. A sign that she was unable to talk and she would call back when she could. Greg watched the screen on his phone as Tommy flew the d
rone high and wide over the finca until it had a good view of the rear of the premises. He focused in on the car Greg had seen and it was a BMW. Hard to tell the colour in this light, but by the shading in the image it looked likely to be a dark colour. The camera was recording video of the fly past and Tommy was also collecting stills of the two men and the car. They were carrying machine pistols. Difficult to tell specifically but they looked something like Škorpions. Greg then saw him focus in on the building itself. The man at the front of the house was now standing up, so Tommy took the drone higher in the sky. There was very little chance he could see the drone, but Tommy wasn’t going to take any chances. There were no lights on the drone showing as they blanked them all with gaffer tape, but there was still the outside chance the drone might be picked up against a cloud, so Tommy held the drone high above until the man sat back down again. He then manoeuvred the drone around to the other side of the finca and directed the thermal camera at the unlit part. There was something there, but it was difficult to be sure and with Greg sensing the first signs of light wouldn’t be far off, he tapped Tommy on the shoulder and motioned to him to bring the drone back. He pulled away from where they had been watching the finca and a moment later his phone buzzed.

  “Had any luck at number two?” said Terri.

  He told her what they had seen and first of all she confirmed that her number two just seemed to be another accommodation block as there were numerous cars there and no guards on the outside.

  “I’m going to get Tommy to dig in and then I’ll pull back and meet you at the finca. We can maybe get an ID on these two guys and then I’ll wake Lori up, although I doubt she’s gone to bed yet,” said Greg.

  “Okay we’re making towards the fifth address as I want to just to confirm that’s a negative and then we’ll see you back at the finca,” said Terri.

  Greg crawled back into position next to Tommy and checked he was set up with water and some nutrition bars and that he was happy with his cover. They checked his comms radio and his phone and agreed a thirty minute text. Tommy was an experienced CROPS guy (trained in Covert Rural Observation Post techniques) and Greg knew he would say something if he wasn’t okay with staying out here on plot. Greg backed up again and left Tommy gathering various pieces of grass and fallen branches and twigs that he found lying around him to provide some additional cover to his position.

  It would take about twenty minutes to get back to the finca, so with time being important, he sat in the car for a moment and cut and pasted the link to the drone and sent it to Lori and Sam’s phones. He then rang Lori and she picked up immediately.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “Just doing some scoping work and now I’ve got something, I am telling you what I have got, okay?”

  “Where is this?” She was looking at the finca and could see the two men and the BMW. “Greg, how the hell have you got this and don’t do any more.”

  “That’s two questions and a statement. I’ll deal with the statement first and then answer the second question first as it’s easier and quicker. I am doing nothing more. Right, I have someone watching this finca in a safe position. He is CROPS trained. I’m sorry I’m not sure what that is in Spanish, but he’s covert rural trained.”

  “Yes, yes, I get that,” said Lori. “So back to question two.”

  “How did we find the finca? We were being followed and I took a decision to see if they could identify the locations Sonny is using across the island.”

  “But what if they tell Sonny?”

  “We’ve still got them,” said Greg.

  “So you’ve kidnapped two of his men?”

  “And technically stolen one of his cars if you are worried about what offences I may have committed against him, but I don’t suppose he will be reporting them to you will he?” said Greg.

  “I don’t know whether to be angry or pleased,” said Lori.

  “Well let’s start with pleased shall we? Can you see the images?”

  “Yes, I’ll get the intel guys on those two images, although I think one is Alex, that’s Sonny’s number two. That definitely looks like the car doesn’t it? But Greg, you must leave this to me. I will get the team out now and we’ll be there in less than an hour.”

  “Good, I was hoping you were going to say that.”

  He gave her the location details and Tommy’s frequency, so that she could use him to help direct their approach to the finca and then he set off to get back to meet Terri and Simon.

  NINETEEN

  Sam hadn’t been able to sleep and when Greg’s text came through with the images he was on his way downstairs when he saw Lori in the hallway.

  “You saw the text from Greg?” said Lori.

  “Yes, it’s looking good, but it’s not 100% that my mother’s there is it?”

  “No, but the car and the two armed guys watching out the front makes it look very promising.”

  Garcia rang Pérez and briefed him on the finca and gave him an hour to get a team up to the area and get a plan scoped out.

  “How did he find it?” asked Sam.

  “He kidnapped two of Sonny’s men.”

  “He did what!”

  “I know,” said Lori. “Apparently they were being followed out of the city and Greg and Terri took them down a side street and reverse ambushed them. He’s now got them holed up somewhere and they gave up a list of five possible sites.”

  “Just a thought Lori. Something we have found in London is that the OCG bosses don’t always trust their guys and they make them put a Tracker App on their phones.”

  She followed his thinking and rang Greg.

  “Have you still got the phones and can you get into them?” said Lori.

  “Yes to both questions, they were happy to open them up with Touch ID and then we changed them to no password and turned them off. Why?”

  She was going to ask why they were happy to help open the phones, but thought better of it.

  “Check if they’ve got a Tracker App. Not teaching you to, what is it you say? Suck eggs, but obviously you’ll need to get the phones well away from where you are, as they will be able to track you as you try to use the phone to track their OCG contacts. Sam says the OCGs in London are doing this to keep track of their people. Sonny may not be tracking Alex as presumably he trusts him to have him as his number two, but Alex might be tracking the rest of them. The finca is looking really good as the likely place but it wouldn’t hurt to get some confirmation if we can.”

  “Yes, good point. We might as well get as much intel as we can and I’m sure our new friends will most likely have the phone details of all the team in their Contacts. I’ll get Simon to head into the city and see what we come up with and get back to you,” said Greg.

  Lori cut the call and looked at Sam.

  “What are you thinking?” said Lori.

  “This is looking good, but I hope they can get something more to narrow things down. If you go for this and she’s not there, Sonny will know and who knows what he might do then.”

  “Sam, you know as well as I do the risks involved in kidnap management. I’m going to wait to see what Greg comes back with on the phone tracking. We still have his man Tommy in place above the finca and he is our eyes for any new movement, plus we have the tracker on Sonny’s Porsche, which at the moment still hasn’t moved from the city, so it looks like he’s maybe holed up in a hotel somewhere.”

  “Yes, you’re right Lori. From where we were when she was taken to now we’ve made some good progress, better than I could have hoped for really,” said Sam. He paused, “So he kidnapped two of Sonny’s men?”

  Lori half-laughed, “Yes, not sure how to write that one up in my Decision Book.” Sam nodded as he knew she was talking about the process of SIOs managing investigations and how all decisions would be recorded with a clear rationale. “And then there’s the small matter of their interrogation.” She shook her head.

  “Still rather be where we are though Lori
and I know this isn’t usual, but can I come with you when you hit the finca? And I promise I will hold back and let your guys do their thing.”

  “As long as your promises are better than Greg’s, then yes. You can stay with me at the outer point until Pérez calls us in. Which reminds me, I should call him to get an update on his plan,” said Lori.

  *****