Authors: R. D. Ronald
Mangle tried to quieten the surging panic inside him. He scanned around him for any sign of assistance. Surely the police would sense the impending danger, especially if Bryson’s involvement had been uncovered. They should be about to move in now.
‘Detective Bryson is a man, much like myself, who enjoys to gamble,’ Steiger went on. ‘Unfortunately for him he doesn’t know when to call it a night and subsequently fails to learn the ultimate lesson in gambling. Do you know what that might be, Mr Garrett?’
Mangle remained silent. The four of them were completely alone. He had the 9mm tucked into the back of his pants, but unquestionably Steiger and Jupiter would be carrying weapons, and be a lot more proficient at using them than he was.
‘Eventually the house always wins,’ Steiger said with a knowing smile.
That was why Mangle had detected no anger in the man when they’d first arrived. Why should he be angry, when he was in
complete control? He’d written the script himself and knew exactly how the meeting would pan out. They were just playthings of which Steiger would grow tired and then dispose of.
A cloud of dust in the distance over Steiger’s right shoulder grabbed Mangle’s attention. A large van was coming towards them along the track. Steiger noticed his focus and casually cast a look over his shoulder. He and Jupiter glanced at each other uncertainly, but remained calm. If Bryson had never intended them to be saved by the police, and this wasn’t part of Steiger’s plan, Mangle wondered who the hell it could be.
Another moment and Mangle recognised the van. It was the camper that had been parked inside Tazeem’s lock-up. Sure enough, once it drew closer he could make out the figure of Tatiana behind the steering wheel.
‘What the hell is this, the cavalry?’ Steiger asked, mockingly. ‘The best she can hope for is to come back to work for me. The only other out is to die along with the rest of you.’
Jupiter climbed out of the black Mercedes and moved into position behind it. A firearm that dwarfed the one Mangle had brought along was clenched readily in his black-leather gloved hand.
The camper van pulled up alongside the red Nissan, against the perimeter fence. Tatiana climbed out of the cab, walked around and stood beside Mangle.
‘Well, well,’ said Steiger as Tatiana glared defiantly at him. ‘Our little mockingbird has come home to roost.’
‘I’d rather die than go back there,’ she said, and spat on the ground.
The rumble of a car’s engine from the south, beyond the perimeter fence, drew everyone’s attention, momentarily shaking Steiger’s air of control and second guessing Jupiter’s resolute demeanour. An old Dodge sped over the mounds of grass-topped sandy earth as it careered towards the fence.
Jupiter braced his weapon against the roof and took aim. There were too many variables in play now even for Steiger, who retreated
to a position beside him. Tatiana ushered Mangle and Tazeem behind her, one hand against the side of the camper van.
‘There’s no way out of here for you,’ Steiger yelled from behind the shelter of his Mercedes. ‘By now there are men in position by the top gate, under instructions to let no one out. Whatever you have planned you’d better forget it while you still have any chance to save yourselves.’
The rear door to the camper van was flung open and a cacophony of gunfire filled the air. Mangle and Tazeem crouched down with Tatiana behind the Nissan as spent shells tumbled to the ground around them. ‘Wait for my signal, then follow me,’ she shouted.
The car on the other side of the fence slid to a halt. Two men got out and began firing at the Mercedes, while there was a lull in the firing from inside the camper van.
‘Now!’ Tatiana shouted. She grabbed a thick piece of carpet from the cab of the camper and clambered onto the roof of the Nissan. From there she scrambled up onto the roof of the camper. Not waiting for a further invitation, Mangle and then, reluctantly, Tazeem began to follow.
‘Decker?’ Tazeem said, incredulously.
Mangle looked over his shoulder and saw the unbelievable sight of his friend climbing awkwardly out of the camper van, brandishing a large calibre revolver. A second man emerged, holding a machine pistol from which bullets sprayed with a roar.
Mangle tugged at Tazeem’s shoulder and they continued their ascent onto the van’s roof. Decker and his companion ducked down again to reload. Jupiter returned fire whenever the opportunity arose, but the ravaged, almost sieve-like appearance of the side of the Mercedes indicated he was completely outgunned.
More shots were fired from the Dodge as Tatiana threw the piece of carpet onto the razor wire. Using it to protect her body she vaulted over and landed onto the sandy earth on the opposite side. Unhurt, she dusted herself off and yelled for Mangle and Tazeem to follow. Tazeem needed no further
encouragement and jumped the few feet of fence adorned with razor sharp barbs.
By now Jupiter had given up the cat-and-mouse game of returning fire and chose his targets more selectively. He resisted shooting as a yell sounded from one of the men at the support car to hurry it up, but when Mangle stood up to vault the fence a volley of bullets was sent in his direction. He thudded to the earth on the other side and gasped in pain. One of the bullets had whispered by so close that he thought his heart would stop with fright, but regaining his composure the only pain he felt was from his awkward landing. Tazeem and Tatiana scrambled over to the Dodge, but Mangle knew Decker, who was obviously still badly wounded from his last encounter with these men, would need assistance after he made the leap.
A cloud of dust rose in the distance as three support cars approached from behind Steiger’s Mercedes. Once they arrived the odds would be stacked heavily against them, and any chance of escape would be seriously diminished. Decker struggled up onto the roof of the Nissan as his accomplice emptied another magazine at Jupiter. He lent over, propped an arm against the side of the camper and gave a deep grunt as he swung himself across. The cover fire came from the support car now as Decker scrambled onto the roof of the camper and his companion began to clamber onto the Nissan. Jupiter was poised behind the Mercedes, eager to take a shot, unwilling to wait for support to arrive.
Decker let out a growl of pain as he thrust himself over the fence and fell heavily to the ground below. A deep laceration had opened along his thigh and began to stain the sandy ground red. His more agile companion sprang onto the cab of the camper, placed one foot on the roof and released a final barrage as he readied himself for the jump. The gunshots from south of the fence continued to ring out as Jupiter planted both feet, stood calmly amid the hail of bullets and began to fire. The man on the camper staggered in his run-up. His arm, thrust out in front
to brace himself on the carpet, slipped, and he pitched forward face first into the concertina of steel barbs.
‘John!’ Decker yelled through clenched teeth.
John’s arm slid between rolls of razor barbs and hung down, his body suspended on the top of the fence. The ‘Carpe Diem’ tattoo on his forearm was quickly obscured with splashes of blood that fell from his obliterated face.
Mangle was by Decker’s side, attempting to drag him to his feet. The cargo of men and guns spilled from the three cars on the north side of the fence. A tripod-based assault rifle was slammed down onto a roof and the gunman immediately opened fire. Mangle thrust an arm around Decker’s waist and pulled Decker’s arm around his neck, and they staggered towards the waiting Dodge.
The windscreen bucked then shattered as the first two bullets penetrated, showering shards of safety glass across the dashboard. A rear door was thrown open and Mangle shoved Decker onto the back seat, squeezed in as best he could, then slammed the door. The driver spun away as the blunted thuds of three more shots lacerated the side of the car.
They drove for a couple of miles before the driver pulled into the parking lot of a multiplex cinema. The two men in the front jumped out.
‘We’re more than even now, Decker,’ one of them said grimly, looking back through the destroyed side window. ‘Here, take the keys to John’s Chevy.’ He tossed a set of keys at Decker, ran around to the trunk and pulled out a can of fuel. Decker, Mangle and Tatiana had barely cleared the car before he started slopping it generously over the interior.
They climbed into the Chevy as an implosive whoomph of fuel igniting sounded behind them. None of them turned around to watch as the bullet-riddled Dodge was consumed by flames.
17
Mangle struggled to follow Decker’s directions whilst concentrating on keeping his speed down, as the slightest contact with the accelerator caused the revs to surge and the car to lurch forward. John had obviously maintained the engine a lot more meticulously than the car’s threadbare interior.
He pulled into a housing estate, parked by a cluster of small shops and Decker, with Tazeem supporting him, led the way to a nearby flat. They trooped up the stairs and into a small living-room. Decker took two six-packs of Coors from the fridge in the adjoining kitchen and handed them around. He took a small medicine kit out of a cupboard, cracked open a beer and began to clean his wounds.
‘As grateful as I am that you all turned up like that and saved me,’ Tazeem said as he popped the tab on his beer, ‘I’d still love to know what the hell has been going on.’
‘Right,’ Mangle agreed. ‘It’s great to see you again, Decker. We thought you’d died that day at Sadiq’s apartment. The news channels reported three bodies.’
‘I must have been lucky with some of the shots I fired through the window, which made our friends cautious. At first I panicked
at the amount of blood on my shirt, and thought I was on the way out, but after lying there for a few minutes and not hearing anything else from inside, I decided to try and get to my feet. I’d stumbled down a couple of levels before the shooting started up again, but by then I’d put enough distance between us to give me a chance to escape. I fired a shot back every few steps to keep whoever was left pinned down, but if I hadn’t been lucky enough to flag down a passing cab I would never have got away.’
‘The cab driver picked you up like that? Waving a gun around and covered in blood?’ Mangle asked. Tatiana had put down her Coors unopened and curled up against him on the couch.
‘Once I got round the corner and saw it coming I stuffed the gun in my pocket and pulled my jacket over the bloodstain. The driver was happy enough to do most of the talking anyway and didn’t look like he’d noticed anything.’
‘So where did you go?’ Tazeem asked.
‘The only place I could think of going for help was to the guys I’d been trying to stay away from since I got out of prison,’ Decker said softly, and rubbed the palms of his hands across his face. ‘Bri knew a crooked doctor who came and looked at the wound. He reckoned the bullet went straight through, possibly just nicked the bowel on the way, accounting for the blood loss. He cleaned it out as best he could, then I chilled out there for a few days while I recovered.’
Decker stood up and unbuttoned his shirt. Medical gauze was taped around the left side of his torso. A fresh bloodstain had begun to emerge in the centre as a result of his fall.
‘So how come you ended up down there today?’
‘I tried to meet up with you and Tazeem back at the lock-up. We drove up there in Brian’s car and almost ran into Tatiana coming out in that camper van. She didn’t recognise me, and took some convincing that I was actually a friend of yours, didn’t even seem to hear half of what I was saying to her, but eventually she told me what was going on. Said she’d seen Sadiq on the phone making a deal to sell you out, and turned the place
upside down looking for keys to the van. Brian and the other two went back to pick up the guns, then we went to find the bakery where Tatiana said the meeting was with that Bryson guy. By the time we found it the only person there was Ermina.’
‘Ermina, is she OK?’ Tazeem blurted.
‘Sorry, man,’ Decker said, shaking his head. ‘Her car was really smashed up. She’s dead.’
Tazeem sat forward and dropped his head into his hands.
‘For whatever reason, they must have turned on her, and I knew if I didn’t get down there to help, you would both end up the same way. The only thing I could see in our favour was that they’d think the meeting point at the fence was a dead end.’
‘You knew that the camper would be high enough so that we could jump over?’ Mangle asked.
‘No, Tatiana told us about the fence but she didn’t know the height. That was the only thing we could think to do, though, so we hoped for the best.’
‘But why was Ermina at the bakery?’ Tazeem said, straightening up again.
Decker shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to tell you, man. There was no sign of Mangle, that Bryson guy, Sadiq or anyone else when we got there.’
‘Bryson was working for Steiger, so maybe he’d been given instructions to kill Ermina when she came to collect the disks, then deliver them in person,’ Mangle said. Tatiana stirred beside him, sat up and reached for her beer.
‘Whatever happened, it looks like Steiger is gonna get away with it,’ Tazeem said. ‘He paid little attention to conversations he had around me, as he never intended for me to be released alive. On the phone he talked of overseeing a final shipment of girls and explosives.’
Tatiana was visibly distressed at the thought of more girls being forced into the life she had barely managed to escape from.
‘What’s the deal with the explosives?’ Decker asked.
‘More of those bombs that blew up Latif ’s shop and restaurant?’
Tazeem nodded. ‘Sounds like Steiger’s plan is to roll out a wave of terror across the city. Any targets that are likely to get as much media coverage through destruction and loss of life as possible.’
‘But why the hell would he do that?’ Mangle asked, struggling to make sense of what he was hearing.
‘Other than the disks we saw of the mayor, he has other high-profile figures woven into this web of blackmail. He causes utter mayhem, then the people he’s controlling step up to the cameras and promise the violence won’t be tolerated and they will put an immediate end to it.’