Authors: Jeremy Duns
‘Let me off on the corner,’ he said.
Dark took a sharp breath when he found it. There were half a dozen men in the photograph. All had beards and wore ramshackle camouflage and caps, and all were holding rifles,
leaning on them like Greek shepherds clutching their crooks. The man on the far left of the picture was a few years younger, but the nose – the skin a shade darker than the rest of his
complexion – the shape of the face, the piggish little eyes . . . he was unmistakable. It was the birdwatcher from Haga Park.
Dark held the photograph up to Manning, stabbing a finger at the man.
‘Who is this?’
Manning squinted at it. ‘I don’t know.’
Dark glanced meaningfully at the telephone on the desk.
‘I don’t, I swear! All I know is that they’re Selous Scouts.’
Dark’s head cocked. There had been a faint noise from the street, something out of place with the other sounds. He crossed to the window and drew the curtain to one side. A building at the
next corner was lit by two spots of bright light. A car had just turned into the street and was inching along it. It was a taxi, and Dark could see part of the driver’s face in the
windscreen. Grey hair, burly . . . it was the man who’d brought him here earlier.
Dark quickly walked through to the bedroom where he had found the girl earlier. He stepped over a pile of books and papers and opened the wardrobe. The trousers all looked far too big for him,
but jackets were more forgiving. He picked one out and put it on over the Sabena overall. It looked incongruous up close, but it changed his outline. He placed the photograph in an inside pocket
and went back into the living room.
‘What the hell are the Selous Scouts?’
Manning hesitated and Dark leaned in with his right hand and grabbed his throat. Manning’s eyeballs bulged, red veins scribbling across them, and he strained to breathe.
‘Rhodie . . . special forces,’ he whispered, and Dark relaxed his grip slightly. Manning’s head tottered forward in the chair and he gasped for breath.
‘I’ve never heard of them,’ said Dark. ‘A new outfit?’
Manning didn’t answer and Dark stepped forward.
‘Yes!’ he said, his voice a notch higher than it had been before. ‘Set up a couple of years ago. They turn Africans and use them back out in the field.’
Dark nodded. That fitted with Claire and Ben’s kidnappers. The birdwatcher – his accent had been Rhodesian, of course, not Dutch – had conducted the surveillance, then
they’d carried out the actual snatch using black Africans, meaning nothing led back to them. Clever.
Another noise from the street. He would have to leave in a few seconds. But not yet. Part of his mind was screaming
get out get out get out
, but the professional instinct overrode it.
In here, he had access to specialised information – to intelligence. Out there, he’d be blind again.
He strode to the filing cabinet and rifled his fingers through the section on Rhodesia. There were dozens of dossiers, and to save time he took them all out and splayed them across the floor,
then kneeled down and started looking through them until he found the one with ‘Selous Scouts’ typed on the front panel. He glanced across at the attaché case, which he’d
left by the door when he came into the flat. He decided to leave it. He needed to be fast on his feet. He picked up the Selous Scouts dossier and took the papers from it, then folded the bundle and
stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket, next to the photograph.
He glanced around again. Was he forgetting anything? Yes. Money. He rushed back to Manning and searched his pockets. He had a couple of hundred francs in notes.
‘Is that it?’
Manning nodded. Dark looked around for a safe, but didn’t see one. Perhaps behind one of the paintings? But he could hear the taxi’s engine in the street – there was no time.
He went to the door. Manning grunted, writhing in the chair.
‘For Christ’s sake, you can’t leave me like this, Paul!’
Dark closed the door behind him and ran down the staircase. As he came out onto the street he saw the taxi turning the corner nearest him. He started running in the other direction. Further up
the street, a figure on the same side of the pavement was walking towards him, the soles of his shoes echoing against the cobblestones. He passed under a streetlamp and Dark caught a better look at
him: a white man with a tan and fair, short hair, dressed in slacks and shirt sleeves, peering up at the street numbers. As if conscious of being watched, the man abruptly lowered his head and
looked across at Dark. Their eyes locked, and Dark knew in his bones he was one of the Rhodesians, and that he’d come here to kill him. In the same instant, the man started running towards
him.
Dark froze, suckered by having two pursuers suddenly appear either side of him. Behind him, he could hear the taxi slowing – had they seen him yet?
He had just two options: keep going in his current direction and meet the man rushing towards him, or turn and head towards the taxi. In a flash he decided the man was less of a threat than the
car, because whoever was in the latter hadn’t spotted him yet – if they had, they’d have already speeded up to reach him, or he’d be hearing a car door slam by now. The
decision made, he started running again, heading straight for the Rhodesian. In his peripheral vision, he registered a low doorway a few feet ahead of him and to his left, and he slowed as he
neared it. A printed sign on the door read ‘ACCES/INGANG’.
He veered left and flung his weight against the door. The body of it shook for a moment, but then bounced back onto the hinge.
He glanced up at the street. The Rhodesian was now less than twenty feet away and he’d removed a gun from his jacket, its barrel catching the light from the streetlamp.
Dark threw himself at the door again as the shot rang out, and this time as his shoulder slammed into it the hinge gave and he stumbled into darkness, nearly losing his balance. A moment later
he clasped his hands over his ears as the shrill screech of an alarm rang out.
Rachel searched the street for a white Sunbeam Rapier. After she’d threatened to cable London and have him sacked, the security officer at the embassy had given her the
model and licence plate. She was about to find a phone box to call and ask again when she saw it parked opposite an African restaurant. Thorpe looked up in alarm as she rapped on the window.
‘I’m Rachel!’ she shouted at him as he wound it down. ‘From London. Sandy signalled I was coming?’ There was no response. ‘Phoenix!’ she called out.
Thorpe nodded and opened the door. She bundled in.
‘Where’s Collins?’ she asked.
‘He went to Manning’s. My instructions were to wait for him here.’
‘When did he leave you?’
Thorpe looked down at his watch. ‘About ten minutes ago.’
Rachel stared at him. ‘How far away is Manning’s?’
Thorpe was about to tell her when the sound of an alarm broke through the air. Rachel jerked her head towards the street.
‘Shit.’
She opened the door and started running towards the sound. Thorpe watched her, stunned for a moment, then opened his door so he could follow her.
The alarm was ringing on a single high note, and Dark felt like it was tunnelling into his brain. He reached a hand out to right himself against the nearest wall and searched
around, blinking rapidly so his eyelids moistened, improving his vision. He was in a tiny hallway and just ahead of him was a glimmer of light. As his eyes adjusted he saw it was reflective glass:
another door.
He groped forward and grabbed at the handle. It, too, was locked. His pulse was pounding furiously now, panic rising as he realised he had nowhere to go and just seconds before the Rhodesian
arrived. He threw his shoulder against the door’s upper window until the glass cracked and then shattered, shards crumpling in a shower over him. He braced himself and hurtled his entire body
forward.
Once through he righted himself again. The temperature was a little cooler here. He saw a long marble-floored corridor with iron grilles running along the walls, a strip light flickering from
the ceiling. It was a shopping arcade, closed for the night, the shops locked away, the shoppers all gone home, just him and a mad Rhodesian commando chasing him.
He edged around the door and flattened himself against the grille directly behind it, trying to calm his breathing. His entire body was now tensed, from the trapezoid muscles in his neck to a
clenching in his abdomen. His hands were sweating as he glared at the door, waiting. He wiped them against his trousers and blinked away the droplets stinging his eyes. He strained his ears to
catch the sound he knew was coming, but the peal of the alarm was near-deafening. He could sense something, though. Vibrations thudding beneath him. Footsteps.
Dark leaped on Weale as he came through the door, chopping at the back of his neck with his left forearm and punching down into his stomach at the same time, releasing all his pent-up rage and
letting out a scream as he did. Weale groaned and keeled forward, his gun falling from his hand and clattering to the floor. Dark caught him by the neck with his forearm and took him in a
chokehold, then moved his other hand up to cover his mouth and nostrils before pulling him down to the floor. He kept his grip steady, and time slowed as the sweat dripped down his throat and into
the other man’s hair.
Then the moment passed, as the Rhodesian kicked out wildly and clawed at Dark’s forearm. Struggling to keep the chokehold, Dark clamped his fingers over the man’s nostrils with more
force, both to inflict more pain and to make his breathing harder. When the man’s legs started jerking a little less insistently and Dark felt there were only a few seconds of life left in
him, he pulled his hand away and threw him against the metal grille draped against the wall.
‘Where are they?’ he screamed, and the vibration pulsated in his eardrums. The Rhodesian had slumped back to the floor. Dark repeated the question but the man didn’t answer so
he lashed out with his foot, catching the man on the jaw and sending him flying.
Dark realised he needed something to convince him, something greater than mere pain. He scoured the surrounding area for the gun, but most of the area was in shadow and he couldn’t see it.
He turned to the Rhodesian again. He was breathing hard and his jaw was lolling to one side, dislocated. Trickles of blood ran down his neck. He looked a mess, two beats from death, but there was
also a glint in his eye. It was defiance. The man was a professional, and he would rather die than give him anything. He grinned as Dark realised this, drooling pinkish red liquid.
Dark felt another surge of rage come over him, almost overpowering in its intensity. The thought of Gunnar and Helena, mown down like animals. His family taken from him, his Claire, his little
boy . . .
And this bastard had been involved. Had perhaps even planned it.
Dark drew his leg back to kick him again, but as he did the alarm abruptly stopped. His eardrums pulsed, and as the ringing subsided he picked up new noises: the faint sound of traffic, the soft
thump of the music from the discotheque, and something else beneath it all. A low, gravelly sound.
He looked around frantically, confused, and then he saw it. Just a couple of feet away, a small air-conditioning unit was attached to the wall. The alarm must have triggered a generator that had
switched it on, but the machine was making a noise like it had something caught in its blades and it was also leaking, a shallow pool of water gathering on the floor beneath it.
Dark leaned down and grabbed the Rhodesian by the feet, then wheeled around and dragged him across the marble. The man let out a low groan. Dark reached the puddle. It was dirty, with greyish
flotsam floating on the surface. He pulled the man forward until he was lying face down in it and then pushed his head into the water, hearing the crack of a bone as he did and continuing to exert
pressure, forcing the man’s mouth and nose into the puddle until his movements slowed and his spine shuddered and squirmed and finally there was a muffled gagging sound from below and then
just quiet and stillness.
Dark withdrew his hand, and an ache pulsed through his forearm. There was a new sound in the small space, and he looked around to locate it. Footsteps, a colliding mess of them. The door opened
and Dark caught sight of two figures, a young woman with black hair and a man in a ruffled shirt, a face like a bloated fish, who he recognised from some distant time, some distant file.
Service.
They ran forward, and the woman leaned down to pick something off the floor. The gun. It had been lying there within his grasp all along and he hadn’t seen it. Dark got to his feet and
started running from them, taking a turning into a long corridor of shops selling hats and carpets and televisions. He heard a shot being fired behind him but he hadn’t been hit and he kept
running until he came to the main entrance and emerged onto a wide, tree-lined boulevard. His teeth were chattering and his whole body was shivering. He stood for a moment, catching his breath,
then gathered himself together and started walking rapidly down the street.
The taxi driver parked the car outside 64 Rue de Stassart. As Proshin paid him, a sharp sound emanated from somewhere in the street.
‘Was that a shot?’
Cherneyev opened his door, loading a round into the chamber of his Browning as he did so.
‘I’ll handle this,’ he said.
The door of the house was ajar, and Cherneyev strode through the hallway, Proshin following a few feet behind. They climbed the staircase three steps at a time. Manning jumped when he saw them,
his eyes now popping out of his skull with fear.
‘Who the fuck are you?’
Cherneyev ignored the question and raised the Browning.
‘Where is Dark?’ he said in English.
Manning looked like he might pass out, but managed to nod his head at the open door. Cherneyev was about to ask another question, but before he could a small hole opened up in the back of his
skull, and a fraction of a second later the sound of the shot echoed through the room. He fell forward and crashed into the desk, making the typewriter jump and emit a high pinging sound that hung
in the air. Then the body slid away and fell to the floor, the face buried into the parquet.