Dead Line (27 page)

Trent handled the driving. He’d taken the keys from Viktor without any discussion. He didn’t intend to lose the blue van. He wanted to be in complete control. And besides, Viktor was in no shape to drive. He was curled up in the front passenger seat, his scarred hand tucked protectively under his right arm, his body twisted to one side, as if shying away from the situation. He kept sneaking a look out through the windscreen, then cowering back into his seat.

Trent asked himself if he should pull over and let Viktor out. But he didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to delay. Traffic was heavy in central Marseilles. They could get snarled up and lose sight of the van. It wasn’t a chance he was willing to take.

‘The guy with the tattoos and the watch,’ Trent said. ‘Is he Xavier?’

Viktor shook his head, quick and wary.

‘You’re sure? You said they always wore masks.’

‘They did. He’s not Xavier. But he’s definitely one of them.’

‘Based on the watch thing?’

‘I remember it. And the tattoos. The way he stands. His shape.’

‘OK,’ Trent said.

‘It’s him.’ There was no faking the terror in Viktor’s voice. His words were shaky but his conviction was strong.

Trent nodded. ‘I believe you.’

He reached inside his shirt pocket, removed his mobile and flipped it open. He offered it to Viktor. Told him the four-digit security code.

‘Type in the number plate,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to forget it.’

Viktor almost dropped the phone. He scrambled to catch it, then prodded at the keypad with clumsy fingers.

The blue van was a Renault Trafic. It was probably no more than three or four years old. It was clean and well maintained. It featured no signwork and no distinguishing marks. Chances were high that the plates were fake but it was about the only thing they’d have to go on if Trent lost the tail.

The van was moving east through the city, heading towards the tunnel that ran under the Vieux Port where Trent had pursued Jérôme, Stephanie and Alain in the Mercedes.

Viktor prodded a final button. ‘Should I call the police?’ he asked.

Trent didn’t respond. The van was preparing to turn left at a junction up ahead. Trent moderated his speed. He didn’t want to get too close but he didn’t want to get trapped by the lights, either. There were two cars between them.

‘I think we should call the police,’ Viktor said, like he’d reached a decision for both of them. ‘I can do it. I can give them the licence number.’

The lights were green. Trent hung his tongue out of his mouth and made the turn. The van accelerated on. An average speed. Not conspicuously slow. Not unusually fast. Trent didn’t believe that they’d been spotted. He guessed it helped that the guy was driving a panel van. There was no glass in the back doors so he was having to use his side mirrors, supposing he used them at all. And none of the gang members would be expecting him to be driving a black Golf.

‘Or you can call them,’ Viktor said. ‘You can tell them what we’ve learned.’

Trent shook his head. ‘No police.’

‘But we want them caught, right?’

Trent reached across and snatched his phone. He checked the plate number that Viktor had recorded and then he closed the device and slipped it inside his shirt pocket.

‘These men are dangerous,’ Viktor told him. ‘They could kill us.’

Trent squeezed the steering wheel. Focused on the van. ‘Not if I kill them first.’

The van left the city on the A7 autoroute. It passed the docks, then the airport. Its speed stayed just north of legal. It made no erratic manoeuvres. No sudden lane changes. There was nothing to suggest that the guy with the watch knew that Trent was following him.

Trent stayed eight car lengths behind. Three vehicles between them. He squeezed closer whenever an exit approached. Dropped back once they passed a turn-off. He was visualising that straining length of elastic again. Imagining it stretching and relaxing. Pulling tight and slackening off. It was the same piece of elastic that had tied him to Jérôme. It bound them still.

‘Do you think he’s alone?’ Viktor asked.

It was the first time he’d spoken in several minutes. He’d been acting like he’d fallen into a daze. But his sulky tone suggested something else. Maybe he was having second thoughts about teaming up with Trent.

Maybe he was right to be thinking that way.

‘I’ve been asking myself the same thing,’ Trent said.

‘And?’

‘And it’s possible there’s another guy up front. Maybe even two.’

‘You really think so?’

Trent rolled out his bottom lip. ‘It’s unlikely. The watch guy was delivering something to the flower seller. Probably some kind of payment. A fee for placing the package in my apartment. Why would he need back-up?’

‘Maybe the gang don’t trust Arnaud?’

‘Goes with the territory. But the watch guy wouldn’t need back-up to pay him in public. And if they thought that showing up carried any kind of risk of being caught, they wouldn’t want a second guy there.’

‘So he’s on his own?’

‘Maybe.’

Viktor glanced across at Trent. ‘We could check. We could overtake and look inside the cab.’

‘Too risky. If we get alongside, he might spot you. He guarded you for close to a year. And he’s seen me before. He could recognise either one of us.’

‘Then drive fast. Keep a couple of lanes over.’

Trent shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t be conclusive. The cab could be empty but there might still be a team of guys in the back of the van. It’s better for us to wait and see where he’s heading.’

Trent leaned to one side and scanned the instrumentation on the dash. The Golf was running smoothly. It was a well-maintained car with no obvious mechanical tics. It had a powerful engine. But it was low on fuel. The indicator was down below the quarter mark. It was one notch off red. They’d been driving for twenty-five minutes already and there was no telling how far the van might go.

Trent reached out a finger and tapped the fuel dial. ‘Do you keep a jerrycan in the boot?’

‘Oh,’ Viktor said. ‘No, I don’t have one.’

Trent was silent.

‘We can stop for fuel,’ Viktor suggested. ‘There’s a service station coming up.’

‘No. We don’t stop until he does.’

Trent gritted his teeth. He tucked his chin into his chest and stared hard at the back of the blue van. The elastic was beginning to stretch. He eased down on the accelerator. Burned some more fuel. There was no way this guy was getting away. He wouldn’t allow it.

Fifteen minutes later the van indicated and peeled off the autoroute at Cavaillon. It picked up a road that skirted the town centre, then continued northwards.

Trent checked the fuel needle. It had dropped into the red. The Golf was a GTI. Built for speed, not economy. Viktor had told him there was a trip computer that could estimate how many kilometres were left in the tank. But Trent didn’t want to know. It was likely to be bad news, and why burden himself with that?

The guy driving the van never paused at a junction or hesitated at a roundabout. It was clear that he knew exactly where he was going. And he didn’t vary his speed. Didn’t turn back on himself or pull over abruptly. Trent was as certain as he could be that they hadn’t been spotted. He needed to keep things that way.

It was hot inside the Golf. The late afternoon sun was beating through the windscreen and Trent had turned off the air conditioning to conserve fuel. He’d also closed all the windows to minimise any wind drag. The difference it might make was likely to be fractional but Trent was prepared to do anything he could to protect his opportunity to find out where the guy was going. Even if it meant sitting in an airless glass box, smelling the sweaty funk of two men. Even if it meant putting up with Viktor’s complaints about how he was thirsty and feeling nauseous.

Up ahead, the van was indicating again. It slowed and turned into the small village of Le Thor. Trent hit the brakes early and ambled through the junction, allowing the elastic to stretch to its very limit. The village streets were narrow and cobbled. The centre was eerily quiet. The only noise Trent could hear was the judder of the Golf’s tyres over the coarse road surface. There were no vehicles coming the other way. None behind them. If the guy in the van was suspicious, this was the perfect place to test Trent.

The road continued on. Plane trees lined the streets. They passed a café that appeared to be closed and approached an independent petrol station with a pair of oil-streaked pumps on a makeshift forecourt. Trent consulted the fuel gauge. He was tempted to pull over and splash in some petrol. But the shop attached to the garage looked shabby and uncared for. There was no telling how quickly he might be able to pay.

The van braked hard up ahead. Trent did likewise. A woman pushing a kid in a buggy crossed the road. The Golf’s engine idled. The van trembled and shook. Trent swallowed drily. He loosened another button on his shirt. If the guy jumped out of the van and came at them now, Trent didn’t want anything getting in the way of his Beretta.

The woman levered the front of the pushchair up onto the pavement. She smiled and waved her thanks to the van driver and started to walk away.

The van didn’t move.

Trent waited.

Carefully now, he eased the Golf into neutral but kept his foot on the clutch. He checked his mirror. The road behind was empty. He could slam the gearbox into reverse if he needed to.

Viktor was looking across at him. He was pale. Seemed to be holding his breath.

Trent didn’t speak. He offered no reassurance. Several long seconds tripped by.

Then the van rolled forwards and gathered speed. Trent blew a gust of air towards his damp forehead and pursued the van once more. He followed it to a roundabout and then onto a minor country road.

The road was a problem. It was long and flat and straight, raised up on an embankment running between a series of farm fields. There were cereal crops on their left. Sunflowers on their right. Visibility would be excellent from the van. The Golf would be highly noticeable.

Trent eased off the accelerator. He let the van get ahead of him. He pictured the elastic beginning to shear. He didn’t care. It was time to rely on his instincts. They were telling him to back off. He allowed the van to speed away, snapping the elastic cleanly. He fell fifteen car lengths behind. Then twenty. Thirty.

‘What are you doing?’ Viktor asked.

‘Taking a chance.’

‘What if he turns?’

‘We’ll see it.’

The van was growing smaller ahead of them. Sunlight flared off its rear doors. Trent accelerated a little more. He did his best to match the van’s speed and maintain the distance between them. Forty car lengths. Maybe a little more. It felt like a reasonable distance. If the road began to curve or the terrain changed, he could adapt and close the gap very quickly. The GTI was designed to be faster than a panel van. It wouldn’t be hard to drive it that way.

They passed fields of green agricultural crops. Fields of acid-yellow rapeseed. Fields of hard, ploughed earth. Fields of fruit bushes growing under opaque plastic polytunnels.

They passed isolated houses, looping telephone wires and ranks of cypress trees.

There was a low rocky ridge off to their left. The road was spearing towards it on an acute angle. A few kilometres more and the ridge was much closer.

Then, all of a sudden, the van braked hard without indicating and swept off the road to the left. The tyres spewed dirt and dust. The van bounced and rocked and shook.

Trent shifted forwards in his seat. He increased his speed, eyes fixed on the point where the van had turned. He took his foot off the accelerator as he got close, ready to stamp on the brake and turn sharply if he needed to.

But he continued on. The van had pulled over onto a scruffy gravel yard outside a complex of four or five nondescript concrete buildings with corrugated roofs. They looked like old, disused farm structures.

The guy with the watch and the tattoos was leaping down out of the van’s cab, slamming his door behind him.

Trent drove by a neighbouring house with a generous but unruly plot of land. There was a discoloured caravan stationed out front, a mangy Alsatian tethered to a clothesline. Trent kept driving until he found a crossroads half a kilometre further on, then swung the Golf around and headed back.

He slowed again as he passed the yard the van had pulled into. He scanned the sagging chicken-wire boundary fence that separated the complex from the tatty property next door. He saw old wooden picnic tables that were sun-warped and buckled. Saw rusted iron waste bins. Saw the scramble of austere concrete buildings.

He saw two things that chilled the blood in his veins.

The first was a dark green Toyota Land Cruiser that had been beached beneath some distant fir trees. It was parked nose in, rear out.

The second was an old wooden sign toppled over against the corner of the windowless outbuilding at the front of the lot. The sign was split and the lettering faded. It was obviously no longer in use, but it was still legible. The word
Grottes
was visible in faint white paint, accompanied by an aged drawing of a closed hand with a single finger that pointed towards the rear of the yard.

Trent drove on and sped away down the road.

‘See the sign?’ he asked.

Viktor nodded without saying a word. His skin was waxy and colourless. His pulse jumped in his throat.

‘You thought they held you in a cave,’ Trent told him. ‘Now we know where.’

Trent drove fast towards the little petrol station in the village. He pumped fuel into the Golf, then purchased some bottles of water from the old man inside. He returned to the roundabout on the outskirts of the settlement and pulled over by the side of the road, on a dirt slope that bordered a sunflower field.

He handed Viktor a bottle of water, then turned in his seat and delved inside the duffel bag, removing his shotgun, his Maglite and a roll of duct tape. He balanced the shotgun across his thighs and set about securing the torch to the blued barrel with the tape.

‘What are you doing?’ Viktor asked.

Trent didn’t suppose he was really that naïve. But maybe he felt the need to act that way.

‘Part of their hideout is a cave,’ Trent said. ‘It must extend inside the limestone ridge that runs behind the outbuildings we saw. If I’m going in there, I have to be able to see what I’m doing.’

‘You’re going in?’

Trent kept winding the tape round the shaft of the torch and the shotgun barrel. He’d fastened the torch to the right-hand side of the barrel. He supposed the added weight might throw his aim off a degree or two but not enough to be a problem. A shotgun was a very forgiving weapon. Unless you happened to be on the wrong end of it.

‘But that’s a big risk,’ Viktor said.

‘What did you think?’ Trent asked. ‘They were just going to surrender?’

‘But we can call the police. They can surround the place. Force the gang to come out. Arrest them.’

Yes, Trent thought, and wreck any chance he had of questioning Jérôme. Maybe bungle the situation altogether. Perhaps mishandle it in a way that would lead to Jérôme being killed before Trent could get to him.

‘Like they did at the ransom drop for your release?’ Trent shook his head. ‘That didn’t work out so well. They got away. And one of Girard’s officers was shot dead. Besides, if the police surround the place it won’t end well. It’ll be a siege. There’s no predicting how the gang’ll react, but the odds won’t be in our favour. It’s better I go in alone.’

And not only that, it was something he wanted. Something he needed. All the long weeks of waiting, of reacting to the moves and decisions other people had made. He’d had his fill of it. Couldn’t take any more. He was going to end things today, his way, on his terms. He was going to punish Xavier’s gang for the anguish they’d caused him, for the way they’d disrupted his plans, for what they’d done to Girard, for what they’d caused him to do to Alain, for how they’d delayed him finding his way to Aimée.

He remembered the taunt that had been scrawled on the map of the Calanques:
WE KNOW WHY YOU WANT HIM ALIVE
. Yes, Trent thought, and it’s the same reason why I’m going to leave you all dead. No witnesses. No comeback. Everything had to end with just him and Jérôme. Just the truth, finally, with nothing left to obstruct it.

‘But there’s four of them,’ Viktor said.

‘At least.’

‘And you don’t know what’s in there. You don’t know the layout.’

‘So tell me some more of what you remember. Let me know everything that occurs to you.’

Viktor remembered plenty, but not much that was useful. He told Trent that the chamber he’d been kept in had been just tall enough for him to stand. It had been twelve paces in length. Ten in width. He remembered the dimensions exactly because he’d paced it many times.

He’d had a camp bed set up in there, and a couple of electric arc lights and a portable heater. They’d given him a CD player, but no radio. They’d provided him with a bucket as a toilet and every few days one of the men would bring in a bowl of cold water for him to wash with.

‘How deep inside the cave were you?’ Trent asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you must have got some idea when they took you outside?’

‘I told you before – I was blindfolded. And they led me on different routes. Some nights it seemed to take longer than others.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe they walked me in circles.’

Trent had finished securing the torch to the shotgun. He checked the beam was working OK. Then he switched it off and verified that the shotgun was loaded. Tubular magazine, seven rounds.

‘This chamber you were in,’ he said. ‘Think about it some more. What was it like inside? Was it a display cave? Did it have stalactites and stalagmites, maybe?’

‘No. It was just rock. It was like I told you. I used to think it could be an old cellar or a bunker.’

That was interesting. If the caves had been open to visitors at some point, then it was likely that they featured mineral formations. Something, anyway, that people would pay to see.

Trent removed his Beretta from his shoulder holster. Inserted a fresh magazine. Fifteen rounds. He stared at Alain’s Ruger. Decided against it. It would weigh him down. The shotgun and the Beretta would be enough.

He asked, ‘And when they were taking you outside, were you on your hands and knees, or could you walk normally?’

Viktor scrunched his face up in thought. ‘They pushed my head down sometimes.’

‘How far?’

‘Like this.’

Viktor demonstrated by reaching up with his good hand and cupping the back of his neck. He didn’t bend at the waist. He just tucked his chin down a short way and hunched his shoulders.

That was interesting, too. If Trent could get as far as the caves, it didn’t sound as though he’d need to go scrambling through on his hands and knees. And that fitted with the idea of the caves being open to the public at some point. Sure, some enthusiasts liked to put on hard hats and miners’ lamps and go potholing, but the general public would expect to be able to stroll inside generous caverns.

So access shouldn’t be a problem. But exposure might be. It could be tough to penetrate the cave system without Xavier’s men seeing him coming.

‘Get out of the car,’ Trent said.

Viktor didn’t move. ‘You can’t leave me here.’

‘I don’t plan to.’ Trent propped the modified shotgun against the gearstick, then grappled with his door lever and stepped out onto the side of the road. ‘We’re switching places,’ he said. ‘You’re driving.’

Trent necked some water while Viktor trundled along the road through the middle of the fields of crops. Their speed was only modest but Viktor was crouching forwards over the dash, clenching the steering wheel, as if the Golf were in danger of careering out of control.

Trent cracked his knuckles, then lifted the shotgun.

‘How long will you be?’ Viktor asked.

‘No way of telling.’

‘How will I know if you’re OK? How will I know if you’re coming back?’

‘You’ll see me walk out of there and signal you. Once you drop me, drive on ahead and turn where I turned earlier. Then come back and pull over before you get to the yard. Sound the horn if anyone comes at you or tries to escape. Drive away if you feel threatened.’

Viktor stared ahead through the windscreen at the tangle of bland grey outbuildings that were growing in size and menace, speeding towards them. He wet his lip.

‘Won’t the gunfire be loud?’ he asked. ‘What if the neighbours call the police?’

‘It’s all farmland around here. Maybe they’ll think it’s a bird scarer.’

Viktor glanced across. He hadn’t bought it. Trent wasn’t surprised.

‘Listen,’ Trent told him, ‘I don’t plan to be away any longer than I have to be. This is a lonely spot. It’s isolated. It’d take a while for a police unit to get here.’ He scanned the terrain by his side. Just crops. Just trees. It was flat and uninhabited. There wasn’t a single person to be seen anywhere close. ‘These are the bad guys, remember?’ he said. ‘They deserve what’s coming their way.’

Viktor lifted his hand from the steering wheel. He stared at the ugly scar tissue where his thumb and finger had been. There was no light in his eyes. No expression on his face. He just stared at his hand, at the gnarled disfigurement.

‘We’re close,’ Trent said. ‘Get ready.’

There was no reaction from Viktor. Mentally, he was in another place entirely.

Trent slapped his hand on the dash. He pointed ahead of them at the complex of concrete buildings. ‘Slow down.’

Viktor jerked his foot away from the accelerator. He lowered his hand back to the wheel and steered a course over the crest in the middle of the road, veering towards the left-hand shoulder. He blipped the brakes just as they approached the end wall of the outermost building, slowing the car to a crawl. Trent popped his door and swung sideways in his seat, then stepped out onto the road like he was disembarking from the still-moving carriage of a commuter train. He closed the door behind him with his trailing arm and jumped into the verge. He watched Viktor pull back over to the right-hand side of the road and accelerate on his way.

There were no windows in the wall, so Trent was able to stand upright without any fear of being seen. He waited a beat for the engine noise of the Golf to begin to fade, listening keenly for any disturbance from the yard, then crept through the knee-high grass and thorns. He was holding the shotgun in his right hand, muzzle pointed down at the ground. He took a measured breath but it failed to calm his racing heart. He craned his neck around the corner.

The yard looked exactly as it had done before. The blue van was parked off to the right and the Land Cruiser was tucked away beneath the line of fir trees in the distance. A trio of bare metal craters peppered the Land Cruiser’s tailgate. Bullet holes.

The exterior wall alongside Trent continued for fifty feet or more before a second, two-storey building kicked out from it on a horizontal angle. There was a door set into the front elevation of the building. It was old and weathered with a dirty pane of glass at head height. Trent couldn’t see anyone through it but that didn’t mean they couldn’t see him if he stepped out and approached.

Plus there was the Alsatian to think about. It was over in the unkempt garden of the neighbouring property. At the moment it was down on all fours in a patch of long grass, chewing what looked to be the remains of an old vehicle tyre. But if Trent tried circling round and following the line of the fence, under cover of the trees at the edge of the lot, the dog would spot him and it would probably bark.

He snatched his head back and rested his skull and shoulders against the pitted exterior wall. The concrete was hot, warmed by the low evening sun. The air was humid and close. He was sweating copiously. There was birdsong in the trees. Insects circled his face and hands. The road was empty but another vehicle might pass at any moment. And sure, he could drop the shotgun to the ground, but he’d still look suspicious, loitering there.

He moved back the other way. Inched his head around the opposite corner. There was an open field to his side, filled with dry cornhusks grown as high as his chest. There was a gap of a couple of feet between the crops and the side wall of the outbuilding. He could spy three sash windows but the frames were old and paint-flaked and the glass was smeared with dirt. At the end of the wall, the horizontal two-storey building extended out into the field. No door this time. Trent was beginning to think of the structure he was faced with as being shaped like a T. He was at the base of the T. He needed to move around to the top. He gripped his shotgun crossways in front of him, bent at the hip and sprinted into the corn.