Suddenly a scream carried through the thickness of the night. It was high-pitched, repeated in several short staccato bursts, a noise of terror and of pain, and instinctively every part of Ruari’s body froze. He had never heard a rabbit die before.
He hurried forward, followed at every step by the rattling of his chains. He thought he must be nearing the hamlet but it was difficult to judge distances in the dark, and the lights kept disappearing behind the thickets of trees and the hillocks. A mist had sprung up and was beginning to close in on him. He had no idea how far he had gone or how long it had been since his escape, yet he knew it had been too long since he’d last seen any sign of the hamlet. The track was winding, full of potholes that threatened to turn his ankle, and littered with sharp stones. When he came to an intersection of his track with another, he knew he had to make a decision but had no idea how to make it. He stood for many minutes, plagued by doubt, until he had forgotten even which direction he had come from. He went a hundred yards in one direction, then another, with every step adding to his confusion. And, in his tiredness, his foot slipped on a damp stone and threw him down, gashing his knee through his trouser leg and deep into the flesh. It was all going wrong. He knew he couldn’t go on. His captors must already be in hot pursuit, closing in on him, and he had nowhere to run. The mist had begun to turn to a light, soft rain, and as he sat feeling the dampness creep through his clothing, sucking the resilience from his body, the warmth of his prison cell began to seem painfully appealing. He began sobbing, knowing he was beaten.
It was then that he saw the lights, advancing slowly through the mist, without urgency, bumping along the track – a set of headlights – and Ruari felt joy flooding back through his body. Fate was giving him a way out, handing him back his freedom. He hoisted himself up, hobbled to the middle of the track, and as the headlights drew near he waved his arms, shouting, demanding that the vehicle stop. It slowed and drew to a halt in front of him, dipping its front end as it hit a pothole, blinding him with its lights. He fell across the bonnet, felt its glorious warmth, wiped the tears from his eyes and hauled himself around to the driver’s door. The driver’s window wound down.
Ruari found himself staring into the face of his worst enemy. It was Pieter de Vries.
CHAPTER TEN
In the bar beneath the railway arches on the other side of Europe, far from where catastrophe was yet again pouring over Ruari’s life, Harry had decided to make it one of those evenings. He felt he deserved it. He’d been intimidated by his old lover and threatened by a leprechaun half his size and twice his age – well, that’s how it seemed halfway down the bottle, and it wasn’t any better by the time he’d finished it. ‘Time to say goodbye, Harry,’ he muttered as he drained the final glass. He was a man who not only flew on his own but had also lived on his own, and too long for comfort.
He decided to walk back home; it would sober him up. His feet weren’t working so well, but perhaps that wasn’t surprising after the best part of two and a half bottles. He was sick of carrying so much responsibility, being a man stuck out on a pedestal, it was draughty and bloody lonely up there. He didn’t take the shortest route back from the South Bank to Mayfair. Instinctively his tired legs carried him towards Waterloo Bridge. It wasn’t the most gracious crossing on the Thames but at this time of night, when the traffic had slackened off and the lights had begun to glow on all sides, it was one of the most magical spots in London. In every direction there were symbols of what had made his country great: Wren’s majestic cupola and spire atop St Paul’s, beyond that the bejewelled minarets of Mammon that formed the financial heart of the City, and if he turned he could look down the river towards the art-deco triumph that was the Savoy Hotel, where he’d once spent a glorious night in the honeymoon suite with all its buttons and bell-pulls, and Julia had pulled them all, bringing staff galore knocking on the door while he was standing naked and eager. Oh, how she had laughed.
On the other side of the Thames stood the soaring, multicoloured London Eye and beyond it, on the hidden curve of the river so that it looked as if it had jumped banks, was the gingerbread cake of a building that was Parliament – his building, where his life was supposed to be focused. Supposed to be. But there were times when he knew his heart wasn’t in it any longer, when he wondered whether he still belonged there. Often – too often – the game of politics seemed to be about little more than filling potholes and sweeping up broken twigs. As he stood leaning over the parapet of the bridge, staring into the silt-laden waters, smelling the salt and listening to the chuckle of the ebb tide as it flowed around the piers, his mind wandered back to his conversation with the Prime Minister. It was a tempting offer that Campbell had made, one that would enable Harry to step over the potholes and leave the broken twigs for others, and yet . . . He was hesitating. He liked getting mud on his boots, perhaps he wasn’t ready for a life of chauffeur-driven lunches and over-elaborate dinners. On the other hand, maybe that was better than simply getting pissed all by himself. His life needed sorting, and fast, it all had to be settled before Christmas. Three weeks. Bugger. He walked on.
His route took him through Aldwych, where the theatres were beginning to disgorge their crowds, and onto the cobbles of Covent Garden. The piazza was already filled with Christmas revelry and one drunk, recognizing a fellow traveller, invited him to stop for a drink, but Harry pressed on, keen to get home and shut the rest of the world out.
It was only as he closed his front door that he realized he’d left his phone switched off. He’d done that when Terri arrived so that they wouldn’t be distracted, and he’d forgotten all about it. Now the screen glowered at him, almost as if it was scolding him, telling him he had missed several calls. Two were from his parliamentary secretary – he suspected he’d forgotten some appointment, but right this moment he didn’t care and skipped quickly on. A message from a woman with whom he’d enjoyed what might be described as a few physically ambitious evenings but who clearly wanted more. He’d overheard her describing herself as his latest squeeze, but Harry didn’t particularly want a squeeze, he found the word ugly, which somehow made the girl less attractive, too. He moved on again. A restaurant confirming his booking for the following day. An invitation to squash. And three messages from Glen Crossing, his friend from the telephone company, the one he’d asked to investigate Ruari’s call.
‘Damn you, Harry. I’ve been busting my balls’cos you said it was urgent. So call me back. Soonest. You’re not going to believe what we’ve found . . .’
As soon as they got Ruari back to the farmhouse they threw him into the cellar. It was small, damp, full of cobwebs and dust and stank of old vegetables. This time they chained both his arms, securing them around a thick pillar hacked from a single oak trunk that was strong enough to support the farmhouse, which meant it was more than a match for Ruari. The boy wasn’t going anywhere. They also took his clothes, every stitch, until he was naked, leaving him with nothing more than an old blanket for modesty and warmth. They didn’t beat him up, which he thought a good sign, it seemed he was still of value to them, but they treated him roughly and threw him down the rickety cellar stairs, and as he fell he struck his face and nose once more. More blood, much more of it, and so much pain that he threw up. No one cleaned up either him or it.
For the Romanians, the humiliation of losing the boy in the first place was compounded beyond measure by the fact that it was de Vries who had brought him back. Nothing was said at first, they remained silent as they sorted out Ruari’s new arrangements. De Vries’s instructions were obeyed without either question or comment, and with eyes that avoided his. Only when they had slammed the cellar door, leaving the boy in total darkness, did the moment of reckoning arrive.
The guards gathered disconsolately in front of the fire. The smoke was drifting, blown by a downdraught from an unhelpful gust of wind that made the burning wood flare and spit. They watched as de Vries wandered across to the table that was still laden with bottles, pi
cked up one, sniffed it, took a swig, and spat it out on the floor. ‘You bastards!’ he screamed. He was the smallest man amongst them yet the venom he generated suddenly made the room feel claustrophobic. The Romanians stiffened, shuffled uneasily. Then de Vries and Grobelaar gathered all the bottles and smashed every one of them in the rough stone sink, as if they were cracking heads.
When the last of the Terrano had disappeared, de Vries stood silently, leaning over the sink, his shoulders shaking. He was drawing in great, rasping breaths, struggling to control his anger. When he turned, his face was stretched white with fury. ‘Who was guarding him? Who? Who?’
Toma swallowed several times before choking up the words. ‘I was.’
The world of the mercenary is one that has no forgiveness. Guns for hire, lives for sale, there is never a comfortable ending. Someone always suffers. De Vries was standing confronting the Romanians with a pistol on his belt and his hand hanging close, too close, to it. Toma grew afraid as he watched de Vries’s every move. The South African’s finger twitched, a movement so slight that it was almost imperceptible, but Toma saw. Theirs was a world in which many lives were valued at no more than a handful of dollars, and he had just placed in danger an operation that he knew must stretch into millions. He expected no pity. He was like a sled dog who was of no further use, except as food for the rest of the pack.
They all knew this was the moment. There was silence but for the crackling of the fire, the silence that sometimes comes before a death. Then Cosmin stirred. He took a pace forward with a heavy, deliberate foot, until he was standing beside Toma, shoulder to shoulder. ‘We all in this. It was mistake,’ he muttered defiantly in his fractured English and through his broken nose.
De Vries was on the point of hurling abuse at him when he looked into his eyes, and in them he saw a reflection of his own, filled with rage, and a desire to kill. This man was dangerous and he was defiant, and he needed to be taught a lesson, the rest of them, too. Toma knew it, knew what was coming to him, and decided not to wait. He leapt to the table and grabbed a knife, waving it in front of him for protection.
‘So, you want it, do you?’ de Vries whispered.
Instantly Grobelaar had cocked a weapon, covering the rest of them. This was to be a fight between the two, not the many.
De Vries couldn’t get to the table with its knives, instead he picked up a chair and smashed it into the floor until he was left with a chair leg as a club. The two began circling each other, then de Vries took a step forward and the fight began.
Toma was stronger in his broad shoulders and was the better armed, he needed only one chance. One chink in the South African’s defences and de Vries might never smile again. But these battles are not simply about what can be seen on the outside but how a man is prepared inside, and one look at de Vries told Toma that he was in a fight he could not win. This man had the violence of an animal, one that fought not because he had to but because he enjoyed it, lived by it. The code of the wild. That was not Toma’s way, and for all his strength he was slow and lumbering. As they grappled and thrust at each other and rolled around the room, smashing chairs and glasses as they went, the Romanian knew it would take a miracle for him to win. The South African was more agile, more committed, and was a far more practised killer. Even when a lucky stab with the knife managed to slice through de Vries’s sleeve and into his arm, it seemed only to increase his ferocity, as though Toma could stab him a thousand times and still he would not stop.
It ended abruptly, and unexpectedly. Toma lunged, de Vries danced nimbly on his toes and parried, catching the Romanian on the side of the head. The blow stunned him, and de Vries was on him, pinning Toma down even though he was twenty pounds lighter. He grabbed the Romanian’s arm, smashed it onto the flagstone until the hand released the knife, and suddenly it was his. He raised it, ready to strike, not to kill but to slice through the hand so that it could never be lifted in anger against him again.
But although he fought like one, de Vries was not an animal. He was a man with a job to do, one that was difficult enough as it was, one for which he needed the men around him, and that included Toma. This operation had been prepared in a hurry, with corners cut, and the Romanians had been one of the economies. De Vries had chosen them because they came from the right part of the world, had the right backgrounds, the right degree of brutality, but they were not his men, and would be even less his men if he started butchering them. And what use would a one-armed Romanian be? He saw the fear in Toma’s unshaven face, knew it was flooding throughout his body, and de Vries decided that would have to be enough. He let the bastard writhe for a few seconds more, then threw the knife away and sprang to his feet.
De Vries wasn’t expecting gratitude. Instead he got Cosmin.
‘It was mistake!’ the Romanian said yet again, the defiance undiminished.
De Vries countered with a smile, condescending, as if it made no difference, but it did. He could smell the resentment on these Romanians, resentment that was binding them together, placing them as one against him, yet he had the upper hand, and hadn’t he just shown it? The lesson had to be driven home, to all of them.
‘A mistake,’ the South African snarled, spitting out the word. ‘You’re right. It was a stupid, cretinous, Romanian half-wit’s mistake. And mistakes need paying for.’ He stared at them still, but now they returned his gaze, feeding off Cosmin’s insolence. ‘So that mistake just cost each of you ten thousand dollars. Straight off your fee. You listen to me! There will be no more fuck-ups.’
Cosmin shuddered and slowly his shoulders relaxed as the fire left his eyes. But de Vries knew it wasn’t over. Despite his victory, he knew he wasn’t invincible, and his slashed arm was beginning to hurt like hell. He hadn’t bought these men, he’d only rented them, and he had just dropped their price. They were going to be disappointed, ten thousand times over, and disappointment had a terrible habit of breeding disloyalty. He was going to have to watch his back very carefully.
Back in his prison cellar, Ruari was at his lowest ebb. He had gambled and lost everything – his renewed freedom, his strength, and the last of his hope. His injuries and his bindings now left him in constant pain, he was desperately cold in this place where the warmth of the fire did not reach, he was in total darkness, yet he could hear the scurrying of rats from somewhere close at hand, and there were times when things he could neither see nor identify crawled over him. There was to be no escape, not even in his sleep. He turned one way, only to find Mattias with a hole in his chest that was staring at Ruari like an accusing eye; he turned the other way, and there was Casey. He curled into a ball, trying to hide his eyes from the ghosts, and cried for his mother. And as he tossed and turned, he found himself spiralling down into a world of ever-deeper despair.
Then, through the darkness, came sounds of anger from up above. His jailers were no longer shouting at him but instead were shouting at each other. And he heard their anger grow until they were smashing things to pieces, and he knew they were fighting viciously amongst themselves.
As he listened, Ruari began to feel stronger. He was no longer the only enemy here. And that, he came to think, might give him a chance. It also gave him new hope. He wrapped his blanket around him more tightly, against the cold and the things that crawled, swallowed back his tears and finally drifted off to sleep.
‘Glenny!’ Harry hailed from a distance as he saw his old army chum trotting along the pathway around the Serpentine in Hyde Park. The telecommunications man returned the wave. He was already blowing hard in the freezing morning air that had left the trees and parkland clad in a seasonal hoar frost. ‘Much more than this and you’ll be auditioning for Santa Claus,’ Harry greeted, noting the straining girth on his friend’s tracksuit.
‘OK, so I’ve put on a bit of weight. Occupational hazard,’ Crossing muttered, glancing at Harry’s flat stomach with more than a little envy. Judging by the gentle glow on the Jones brow he suspected Harry had already done a couple of
laps. Typical. He already regretted allowing himself to be talked into an early morning run; there were only so many challenges a man could deal with before breakfast.
‘Corporate life getting to you, Glenny?’
‘No, not that. It’s kids. They eat nothing but crap and chips. I can’t keep up. You know what it’s like.’
‘Domestic bliss.’
‘Kids can be seriously damaging to your health.’
‘I’ve heard.’
Twenty years ago the two had been ferocious opponents on the squash court when they had been stationed together in Hereford, their matches always sweaty, aggressive, often epic and usually unpredictable. Neither of them gave quarter, and although Harry hated to admit it, Crossing might even have bested him more often than not. Yet it seemed those days were now a flickering memory for his old friend.
‘Come on, gentle lap to warm us up. While you tell me all about it,’ Harry suggested.
They set off around the lake, scattering grumbling ducks. ‘It’s all in the signalling, you see,’ Crossing began. ‘When a call is made from a mobile, before it’s connected, it has to get permission from the system to make sure the user’s account is valid for what it wants to do. To make sure the bill gets paid. You can imagine we’re pretty hot on that. And all the information’s archived, so there’re location updates and account credentials and signature streams and—’