Thunder (47 page)

How far could the boat take them?

“We need to get clear of the island,” Mercury announced to the salt-caked windshield. “But we’re against the tide – weak as it is round here – so it will take a while.”

It didn’t seem to Ellard like Mercury was in much of a hurry.

~~~~~

I let the engine gently ease us along the surface of the Kolpos Kallonis. I’ve never seen the views from here, but have plenty of time to enjoy them now. Last time I came this way I was laid up unconscious in the cabin. Jack would have been standing where I am. This huge briny puddle is fed from the surrounding sea, an ancient volcanic crater, full of water and teeming with wildlife.

The engine is barely above tick over. I’m not in any rush, and my passenger isn’t in any real position to complain.

I try not to think about Jack, but my mind keeps coming back to him. I thumb through the multitude of images I have of him in my mind. Try to etch them into place. I don’t want to forget. Don’t want to think about not seeing him alive again. Don’t want to think about how he might look when I eventually get enough courage to go into the house again. I haven’t been back in there yet. I can’t. Not yet.

A single frost-laden tear trickles from the corner of my eye. I can feel it on my cheek.

I blink it angrily away.

~~~~~

Ellard came to with a start.

How long had he been out?

The boat was swathed in darkness, pitching up and down on a gentle swell. As his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom he could make out nothing but sea in all directions. Mercury wasn’t at the wheel any longer. The engine was silent. The boat was drifting.

Panicking, he strained violently against his shackles.

He was alone! Mercury had left him here alone! Adrift...

The cabin door opened, briefly pooling the boat with light, and his captor emerged.

“We’re here, Deuce,” Mercury announced, deadpan.

He span his head from side to side. He couldn’t see anything? “Where?” he tried to bellow through the gag but the word was muffled into an incomprehensible mewling sound.

~~~~~

Deuce is thrashing against his bindings, and making indecipherable grunting noises from behind his gag. The island lies behind me, somewhere, about ten miles distant, a barely discernible darker smudge across the star filled horizon. My preparations are complete – all ready and waiting in the cabin behind me.

I wonder if he thought I was going to smuggle him out of here? If he thought that somehow his pathetic offers and bribes would be of interest to me?

I watch as he strains and grunts in the darkness.

No... I really don’t care, one way or the other.

I stand and heft my Browning, balancing carefully against the gentle side-to-side swaying of the boat. There’s a little more swell, out here in the open sea, but it’s a perfect night otherwise.

Deuce’s eyes open wide when he sees the gun.

You should be so lucky.

I aim at the deck and discharge the weapon toward it.

Once, twice, three times, four times, five times. Each shot briefly lights us up with ragged orange flame. Each shot punches down through the flimsy fibreglass shell. Each shot produces a little plume of sea water, like a line of tiny water fountains.

I press the hot muzzle against his temple and see his eyes squint shut as his skin hisses under its touch. Then I reach up, with the stiletto knife I’m holding in my other hand, and slice the gag off. It’s unimportant that I caught him with the razor sharp blade, and he doesn’t seem to notice either as he gasps for breath and immediately starts ranting

“You’re insane, Mercury!” he yells, voice croaking. “Fucking INSANE!”

I smile as I close the knife, and tuck it into my jacket. Then I calmly unscrew the suppressor from my Browning and stow both pieces into my zipper pockets as well.

Propped on the dashboard of the boat’s simple wheelhouse are two belts and a ripsaw. One of Jack’s favourite ripsaws. Great for carpentry. Not for much else. I throw these items into the footwell in front of Deuce. The belts are for makeshift tourniquets. You can’t knock me for not being considerate.

“What the fuck’s this?” he howls. “What kind of fucked up shit is this! Fucking DIY boat repairs?”

He’s heaving against the handcuffs again. That’s not gonna work.

“See ya,” I say, and jump overboard.

“YOU’RE INSANE!” he roars, and continues ranting as I swim casually away, following the rope that leads away from the stricken vessel. I can still hear him shouting as I reach the little inflatable dinghy that waits for me at the rope’s distant end.

I climb into the tiny rubber craft, fish out my knife, cut myself loose, and settle down to make myself comfortable. I can see him searching around for me in the darkness, but doubt he can see either me, or this little craft, against the moonless black backdrop of wide ocean.

The shouting stops.

I watch as he scans around him. See him fruitlessly trying to use his one moveable leg to quell the flood pouring in through the bullet-holes.

I’m sure he can work it out.

He scrabbles around, and I see him brandishing the saw.

Well done, Deucey-boy. Now the choice. Which first? Leg or arm?

A scream of pain rips across the gentle swell.

Leg, it would seem.

The boat continues to sink lower in the water. I can hear him sobbing, see his shoulder moving back and forth. It’s a wonder he’s still conscious.

I see him shuffle around again, and hunch over to place the blade onto his arm.

The boat sinks lower. He hasn’t got long.

I smile and lounge back against the inflatable’s side.

He screams again. A pitiful, sorrowful, sound.

“DEUCE!” I yell, and his head lifts in shock at the sound of my voice. I see his face spinning round, his white hair in stark contrast to the dark, wet, background. “Good effort!” I yell, and lift the radio detonator up, and waggle it playfully.

He must’ve spotted it because he flings himself back to his fleshy carpentry with surprising vigour and I’m laughing as I press the first button...

The boat is sitting so far down in the water that the flash starts just under the surface, casting a bright blue line of almighty fire beneath the wave tops. The four claymore charges were positioned inside the hollow fibreglass shell, one in each corner of the inset seating area, facing inwards and, above their flash-flame, a mist of dark shrapnel converges around his mutilated torso and he vanishes amongst this sudden host of tiny black-metal piranha. The noise is more of a crump than a bang, but earsplitting all the same, and the dinghy rides up dramatically on an expanding circular shock wave.

I don’t take my eyes off the action for a moment. I cling onto the dinghy’s rubber handholds, and ride my little chariot over the resulting watery roller-coaster. There’s no way I’m going to miss a moment of this.

The top half of the boat has turned itself into fibreglass snow which gently swirls around the flaming hull. It continues to burn, even as it sinks quickly beneath the surface. Perhaps both sets of charges went off at the same time? I wasn’t sure whether they’d trigger each other, but I press the second button anyway and, good as gold, quite far below the surface, a second flare lights the deep.

Shit.

That’s bigger than I thought it’d be.

Jack never did show me how to use C4.

A deep booming sound rises from below, making my guts compress, and I feel the dinghy lifting underneath me. The green-blue tinted, underwater, flare of light flashes out in a moment, and the starlight-sparkled dark surface of the water starts to rise.

It’s like the sea is boiling. Weird eddies and whirlpools dance randomly across the surface as it flexes upwards like some inflating balloon, then suddenly the whole space in front of me erupts skyward into a colossal geyser of hissing spray, and tiny pieces of metal rain down amongst the salty downpour, and the dinghy sprints backwards as it surfs the deep bow-wave cutting outward from the centre. Even the ocean is rushing to get away.

As quickly as it appeared, the water spout loses its battle against gravity, and collapses down on itself. Slowly the dinghy drifts to a halt, and like a pebble splash vanishes into a flat-calm pond, soon there is only the scattering of fibreglass fragments to betray that anyone has ever been, or died, here.

With a satisfied sigh, I reach down and pull my vessel’s tiny paddle out of the dinghy’s Velcro straps, and begin to propel myself slowly back toward the island.

~~~~~

London

Greere slammed his cellphone down on the table in frustration. Ellard’s phone continued to go straight to voicemail. Doubtless the thieving bastard was too busy pilfering to bother to report in. It shouldn’t have taken him long to get the job done. On the other hand, perhaps he was busy making sure the bodies had been dealt with properly?

All Greere wanted to know, was that Tin and Mercury were dead.

Ellard’s earlier call had done nothing but raise his expectations that they were alive. “I’m there,” he’d said. “Someone’s home. I’m going in on foot in a few minutes. I’ll call you back when it’s done.”

Then Ellard had gone dark. Greere had pottered around in the office, and then killed an hour or two halfheartedly cruising a couple of pubs and clubs. Then he’d come back here, alone, to his empty apartment.

Ellard’s call had been hours ago.

~~~~~

Copenhagen

It took me a long time to paddle my way back to the island. I finally hit shore, near to the northwestern tip of the Kolpos, cut loose the dinghy, and stood and watched as it drifted gently off along the shoreline and out to sea. Then I’d walked back to the villa.

When I got there, I still couldn’t make myself go into the house. The doors had stood open, the windows had remained smashed out, and our possessions were in there... Unprotected...

But Jack was also in there...

And I couldn’t face seeing what had become of him.

Maybe when I’m finished?

I’ve got something I have to do first.

While Deuce had been hanging around in the barn, I’d used the time not only to prepare for our little boat trip, but also to put a few things into one of the frame-packs Jack and I kept in the storeroom. I reused my trick of borrowing the hollow tubing to hide my stilettos.

Vengeance and the guns, I’d already decided, would have to stay behind.

I will arm myself properly later.

So, in the darkest hours of the most dread night, I’d made a brief detour into the barn, where I collected up this bag, a generous supply of hard cash, Deuce’s notebook and the hire-car keys. The keys had tumbled conveniently from his pocket as I hauled his unconscious body up into the air. Then I deposited my Browning, silencer, spare magazines and everything else I didn’t need, from my jacket’s waterproof pockets, into the strongroom, closed its heavy metal door, and went straight out, down the lane, to where Deuce had left the car.

Then I’d driven to Mytilene.

Now I’m sitting at an almost empty departure gate in Copenhagen Airport, waiting for my next connection. I’m taking the scenic route. Partly for expediency. Partly so I can use different identities for different legs. I’ve been through a number of different airports over the last forty-eight hours.

I rummage in the rucksack to find Deuce’s phone and notebook.

Yep. The PIN code is neatly listed toward the bottom of his passwords page.

The phone fires up and I search for his call list.

Perfect.

Ace’s number is listed as – you guessed it – Ace. I’d expected it might take me a little longer to find him. And to think Deuce had the gall to call me a
‘fucking amateur’
...?

There’s another number too.

The only other recent one on the device.

Incoming call. The day before? Deuce would likely have been en route.

He hasn’t given this number a name tag.

Is there someone else involved?

I need to know.

Here’s as good a place as any.

I press dial...

English ringtone...

“Deuce?” A deep male voice answers, a strangely familiar voice. It’s almost like I’ve heard it before, somewhere. But I can’t place it. Maybe I’m imagining things?

“No,” I grunt.

The line sits silent for a second. Then the voice says, “Mercury.” It’s not a question. It also sounds as if the man is smiling.

“Why?” I ask. I need to keep this quick.

“Why
what
?” asks the man, calmly.

“Don’t play dumb,” I growl, anger is flaring up inside me.

“I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about, Mercury. Where’s Deuce?”

“All over the place,” I answer truthfully. “Why?” I ask again. “What was the point? You know who
I
am so you must know
why
?”

“Where’s Tin?” I detect a hint of, what sounds like, genuine concern in his tone.

I frown to myself. Like he doesn’t know! “Gone. Code 14, you
bastards
!” I spit. Partial mission success. It hurts even to say it in code. I need to end this call soon. I don’t want them to trace the call and, besides, I’m at risk of losing my head and shouting. In this public place, though I’m nowhere I can currently be overheard, that wouldn’t be smart.

The line stays silent.

“I’m coming,” I growl. “Code 40.” Agent in transit toward objective.

“Good luck, Mercury,” the voice says quietly. Strangely, it doesn’t sound like a threat. For some inexplicable reason it sounds like he means it?

The line goes dead.

He’s cleared down.

Which is also odd... No backtrace then...?

I turn Deuce’s mobile off.

~~~~~

London

Greere scanned the Eastern Mediterranean security feeds. Nothing.

He shook his head in frustration. It was unlikely that even an incident of the magnitude of the earlier Hungarian debacle would filter out from the sleepy island of Lesvos. It was almost pointless him looking, but look he did. He needed to do something.