66 Metres (24 page)

‘Payment in advance in cash, plus one week's deposit. Breakfast is at 8am, dinner 8pm – not 8:15 or 7:45. No visitors allowed under any circumstances, and I deadbolt the front door at ten-thirty sharp every night.'

He didn't mind. The small B&B was secluded, at the end of the southern promontory, the closest house a kilometre back towards town. Nobody walked this way. His small bedroom looked out over the deserted single-track shale road that ended at Mrs Higgs' place. To the right was the sea, black waves crashing onto black rocks, creamy froth visible in the moonlight glinting through heavy clouds. Down in the dining room, where he sat, the thick beige curtains were closed. It reminded him of his aunt's home, where he'd been made to sit quietly as a child, with toys too young for him at his feet, while his mother had listened to the woman's endless prattle, making him feel like he was trapped inside a doll's house. He'd never been comfortable around old people. He never wanted to get to that stage, preferring to die while he could still screw and push weights and scare the crap out of people younger than him. Humanity should be more like the animal kingdom; when you're too old to fight, you get taken out of the game. He had no pension and no illusion of being around to draw one, not in his line of business. Still, Mrs. Higgs seemed okay, like she could still kick ass when required.

She'd cooked him a good meal, and now he sat facing a mug of tea while she was in the kitchen washing and wiping dishes and pans, cleaning up meticulously, maintaining a discipline. He could respect that. A twinge of pain brought him back on track.

Nadia. She'd seemed ordinary at first, but as he'd watched and followed her, he could see she had a purpose, marking her from the other tourists plodding about. He'd followed her to the dive shack, seen her with the blond-haired guy; there was some chemistry there, for sure. Good for you, Nadia, one last fuck before you die.

The beach had been crowded, so he'd had no trouble surveying her. Danton blended with the tourists, unlike Adamson, who stuck out like a sore thumb. When he'd seen the CIA schmuck, Danton had wanted to confront him there and then, but instead he'd tailed him back to his hotel, then he'd gone to the inn where Nadia was staying, and had a beer. That's when Lazarus had called.

‘How's the seaside?' Lazarus asked.

‘A bit cheesy.'

‘Seen any girls you fancy?'

‘One.'

‘When are you going to make your move?'

‘Tomorrow.'

‘Good. Don't forget the present for Mom.'

‘How could I?' Danton ended the call.

The afternoon had been taken up with getting hold of a gun – an antique but functional Luger, for Christ's sake, all he could rustle up on this sunburnt rock. The dude had been reticent about the ammunition, though. Danton had made up a story that his great-grandfather had been a POW and had lost his Luger without ever firing it, and it would mean a lot to him, given he was ninety-four and suffering from emphysema.

After that, he'd searched for digs, dropped off his bag and come back into town, where there had been an unexpected bonus. He'd popped back to the inn and overheard a couple of girls, a blonde and a brunette, chatting nearby. He was propping up the bar and they were at a table behind him, but he could see them well enough in a wall mirror. His ears pricked up when they mentioned Nadia.

‘So, Jake's screwing Nadia?'

Blondie didn't answer, just looked sullen.

The brunette continued. ‘What are you going to do?'

‘Nothing. His life.'

‘So why are we diving the Tsuba tomorrow?'

The blonde sipped her drink. Her eyes flared. ‘There's something about her, Fi. I don't know, I'm worried.'

‘For Jake? Good grief, Elise, he's fucking her, why –'

The blonde stamped down her glass, drink spilling onto the table.

‘I still care, all right? My problem. Drop it, and don't you dare say anything.'

After that, they talked about the wreck, the Tsuba. Apparently diving it was Nadia's idea. Danton put the pieces together. She'd taken it from the heist in Penzance, and crossed to the Scillies. There would have been Navy and police vessels intercepting any boats inbound from Penzance. The Rose must be at the site of the wreck the girls mentioned, the Tsuba. It was the only explanation as to why Nadia was still here.

He'd taken one last look at the blonde, got his hip flask filled, then paid up and headed back to Mrs Higgs' place.

She'd leant him her old man's slippers. Danton wondered if she was like this with all men who stayed there, temporarily replacing her dead husband, filling a void. He'd asked her to respect his privacy, and to stay out of his room, though he'd locked the Luger in his bag just in case. He needed to fire it, to see if it worked, to feel the recoil so he could adapt to it. A thunderstorm was brewing, which might provide good enough cover. He preferred live targets, didn't like shooting at tin cans, that was for kids. But there were no animals bigger than a mouse around, just him and Mrs Higgs.

The pain spiked again, making him wince. He massaged his thigh just above the knee.

‘Are you all right, Mr Schmidt?'

He hadn't heard her enter. That was careless. Pain was no excuse. ‘A headache, Mrs Higgs. A bad one, I'm afraid.' Had she seen him massage his leg? She didn't glance at it, instead holding his gaze.

‘I have some paracetamol,' she said.

‘No thanks. I think I'll go upstairs, lie down for a while.'

She nodded indifferently, and he climbed the stairs to the top floor with its round window, from where he could see the road leading to the distant glow of Hugh Town.

Inside his small room, he sat on the soft single bed, his left leg on top of the duvet. The stairs creaked, so he'd have plenty of warning if she came up them. He reached down to his bag, unlocked and unzipped it, dug towards the bottom and pulled out the box containing the Luger and nine rounds of nine millimetre parabellum ammo. He twisted around and aimed the empty Luger toward the path outside, lining up the iron sights with the single street light about thirty metres away. The Luger was accurate to fifty metres, and he reckoned he could shoot that straight; he made it to the local gun club in Frankfurt once a week.

He put it down on the bed next to his leg, and recovered his hip flask. He picked up a bullet, held it to the light, and admired the smooth finish, the texture, its silken touch. How easily it would slip through skin and organs, splintering bone inside the body. A true work of art.

His plan was straightforward. Nadia would retrieve the Rose. Adamson was clearly working off the books, and so was here for only one reason, to take it for himself. So, let him take it from Nadia. Then he could kill Adamson and take it from him. The Luger was just a precautionary measure, in case things got out of hand. A nice stranglehold around Adamson's neck, crush his windpipe, watch him choke to death on the floor, his eyes wide in the full knowledge he was dying. Adamson had a gun for sure, but people can't shoot for shit when they're in blinding agony. Those films showing heroes taking aim whilst fatally wounded are full of crap. You're lucky if they don't stink up the place. Unless of course they were used to serious pain.

But just in case, one parabellum for Adamson, one for Nadia. Maybe one for the boyfriend – Jake – if he got in the way. The rest? He'd need them all to stop Lazarus, if things turned grim. He snapped each cartridge into the magazine.

Danton preferred to know why he was killing somebody. It wasn't a deal-breaker if he didn't. But he understood consequences – what goes around comes around. He'd been intrigued about the device – the Rose – and had done some online research on his phone during the journey over. Not the usual sites, of course. The paranoid military geeks – he knew one from the gym, always sucking up to the hard-asses, trying to act the big man – had pinged him about it, sent him a link, the type that only whackos and the CIA read. Rose was short for Rosetta, a translator device, originally part of Reagan's Star Wars defence programme, most of which got shut down, but this one lingered on. Bottom line, it could detect and track any nuclear sub in the world, triangulating via spy satellites, and send commands with full authentication codes. Nukes-on-demand.

Danton had asked the geek why they couldn't just make another one. That wasn't so easy apparently, as the designer was leagues ahead of his researchers, didn't like to share, and had suddenly copped a bullet while shagging one of his researchers. The Brits were probably frantically trying to replicate it in MI6. The geek reckoned it wasn't that easy to use, you couldn't just plug it into a laptop, it needed serious hardware to run, but still. Bad enough if the Russians got hold of it. But if it went missing, the UK and US military would be shit-scared it had gone to Al Qaeda, IS or whoever, and would have to plough billions into new counter-defence ideas. A crap game all round.

He asked the geek why they made it in the first place.

Because they could
.

Danton shook his head. And people think
I'm
dangerous. He took another sip and laid his head back on the soft pillows.

He was just dropping off when Mrs Higgs switched on the television downstairs, its dull drone rising through the floorboards. Not a bad idea; he should follow suit and check if there was any news since his hasty departure from Frankfurt. He sighed, put the flask on the bedside table next to him, eased forward to grab the remote, and switched on the small television in his room. Searching for the news he found BBC World, and realised Mrs Higgs downstairs was watching the same channel.

At first there was nothing much: a flood in some country he couldn't care less about. Then he saw his home surrounded by police. He froze. A photo of Sammy before, and then a few of him afterwards, grainy images of his mutilated corpse. He held his breath, aware he'd begun to sweat. It's okay, they don't have my photo. He'd always been a regular-looking guy, forgettable, invisible. He never let anyone take his photo, nobody had one.

But they did. A newsflash. Breaking news. Right there on the screen. His face. Recent. Must've been Adamson, that motherfucker!

Something was dropped downstairs. The TV was switched off down below. He turned off his. Silence. He eased himself off the bed, but a sharp twinge in his leg made him almost lose his balance. Reaching out for support, he knocked over the flask, which clattered to the floor. Silence again. He strained to hear Mrs Higgs, knowing she'd be listening for him… and reaching for the phone. He remembered the back door was dead-bolted and stiff – it would take time to open it. She'd head for the front door.

Snatching up the loaded Luger, he raced out of the room and bolted down the stairs. Mistake. Too late, near the bottom, he saw something shoved through the bannisters, a broom handle maybe. It caught his trailing foot. He flew forwards down the remaining stairs, hands and forearms over his head as he careened into the wall. Mildly stunned, Luger still in his right hand, he craned his neck upwards to see Mrs Higgs towering above him, something in her bony, white-knuckle hands. An antique bed warmer, a wooden rod with a large round brass end. That's what she'd used to trip him. It gleamed in the ceiling light and he raised his arms again to protect his head.

But she wasn't aiming for his head.

Pain exploded in his leg, the one that had been shattered, the one she'd seen him massaging earlier.
Fucking bitch!
He bit down as pain skewered through his body, followed by a wave of nausea. He got off a round, not aiming at anything in particular, just fired it to scare her, prevent her hitting him again. It worked. She ran for the front door, and fled outside.

He rolled off the lower stairs and staggered to his feet. ‘Move yourself!' he shouted in German. He lurched forwards a few steps then anchored himself in the open doorway. She'd almost reached the street lamp. Thirty metres. He raised the Luger, his hand shaking, his eyes blurry from the pain. She passed the light. He took a breath, steadied his right hand with his left, and lined up the sights on her back. She was running in a straight line. Forty metres. He firmed his wrist, ready for the recoil, but she was moving into the shadows. He held his breath. Lightning flashed, and there she was, lit up in sharp black and white, like Sammy in the photos. Fifty metres.

He pulled the trigger.

Thunder roared in his ears.

Mrs Higgs went down.

He picked up the discarded bed warmer next to him, used it as a crutch, and limped out the door to find Mrs Higgs. It began to rain, then it came down heavy, a cloudburst. She'd crawled a little further, a trail of blood already washing away with the downpour.

As he arrived next to her, she stopped moving, waiting. He had an urge to smash her head in with the bed warmer, but didn't. Instead he flicked her over onto her back with the boot of his good leg. She grimaced with pain, her eyes wet from the rain or crying, he couldn't tell, and didn't care.

She looked up at him with contempt. ‘I won't scream.'

He respected that, and so aimed the Luger at her heart instead of her face. Neither of them spoke. Lightning struck one more time, and Mrs Higgs was gone.

Danton's pain vanished.

He dumped her body in a coal shed in the back garden, covered her with coal and a tarpaulin, and padlocked the door. It would be a few days before the corpse would start to rot, and by then he'd be long gone. The garden was almost a junkyard and fenced off, so nobody would notice for a while. The pain had reasserted itself with a vengeance, and this time he'd taken a morphine cap to get him through the night. He took a shower, then sat back on the sofa where he'd been two hours earlier, and found the news channel again. His plan was screwed, his mugshot everywhere, which meant two things. First, he couldn't operate in public in daylight, and couldn't confront Adamson, certainly not go to his hotel to waste the bastard. Second, Lazarus would see it too, and assume that Danton had changed from an asset to a liability.