Luc: A Spy Thriller (31 page)

‘Do what, sir?’

‘You leave for Belize tonight,’ he said. ‘Your job is to find out who murdered Wilson and why.

‘We’re throwing you in at the deep end, lad.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Giuttieri had turned slightly to walk back to his car.

Sending up spurts of dust I sprinted out of the entrance and before the gunman had time to do anything I had grabbed hold of Giuttieri’s fat face and got behind his massive body and thrust the crook of my right arm around his head and neck. Giuttieri smelled of sweat and some terrible cologne. I looked at the gunman. He was alone and about twenty feet away. He was belatedly swinging his gun round to point at me.

‘Drop the gun,’ I told him. ‘Or I snap his neck.’

I was right behind Giuttieri and he was shielding me perfectly. The gunman knew he couldn’t get a shot in.

‘Drop it. I’m not bluffing.’ I tightened my grip on his greasy head.

The gunman looked at Giuttieri. There was a moment when I wondered if Giuttieri would tell the gunman to shoot us both. He was that sort of psycho. But within the tight constraint of my grip he looked at the gunman and I felt him slightly nod.

The gunman lowered the gun.

‘Release the magazine,’ I said. ‘Drop them both on the ground.’

The gunman did so. And the magazine and the gun sent up little clouds of dust as they hit the ground.

‘Now turn around. And start walking.’

Two minutes later we could still see him in the far distance.

I turned Giuttieri around, jabbed my knuckles once into his throat and shoved him back onto the bonnet of his car.

Giuttieri coughed hard and tried to get his breath back. I stepped over to the side, picked up the discarded items, slotted the magazine back into the weapon and strolled over to Giuttieri.

‘That was you in that torture cell, wasn’t it?’ I said. ‘It was you pretending to be Arkan Szolche. You had your little man there for the grisly stuff while you stood and
watched
.’

He was doubled up, coughing his lungs up. When he finally righted himself, he stood up, the backs of his legs using the car for support. His eyes streamed with tears.

‘You lost a button,’ I said.

He massaged his throat and gazed across at me.

‘And,’ he said slowly, defiantly, ‘I would like it back.’

I nodded. ‘You like to observe torture, do you? You like to observe it at close hand?’

He said nothing but looked at me with disdain.

‘I shoot you in the belly,’ I said, ‘throw you into the undergrowth. You take days to die. Plenty of time for you to observe. How does that sound for you?’

I slowly raised the gun and pointed it at his stomach.

For about twenty seconds - a long time - I did nothing but hold that stance and stare into his eyes. I wanted the fear to creep up on him. Accumulate. At first he was defiant. His eyes were cold and emotionless. But as the silence dragged on and his mind took over I began to see fear edge into his eyes.

I held the stance for ten more seconds. He was blinking now. Sweating. Imperceptibly shaking.

I then lowered the gun.

‘But I’m not sick like you,’ I said.

When he realised I was serious, the release of pent up fear was visible. His tight jaw relaxed a little and there was almost a sigh of relief. He wiped his nose. Straightened his back.

I raised the gun. Pointed it at his stomach.

‘Ahh, the hope. The hope’ll get you every time.’ I smiled.

His tiny black eyes widened. Fear surged back into him.

I held the stance for five seconds, tautening the piano wire of his nerves. Then I raised the gun to point at his head.

‘Should’ve kept with your physics, you sick little man.’

I fired one single shot.

A small black hole appeared in the middle of Giuttieri’s forehead and he was thrown backwards. The back of his head smacked onto the bonnet of the car, sending out a dull thud. He slowly slid down and crumpled to the dusty ground.

A cloud of dust was thrown up by the falling body. It took a while to settle.

I glanced down the road to see if the thug had heard the shot. He was still walking.

Then, in the distance, from the right, another man appeared, approaching the thug. He was a large figure with dark brown skin.

I tensed. More of Giuttieri’s men?

The newcomer sent a right hook into the thug’s head and the thug dropped to the ground. The newcomer started to walk up the hill, towards me.

I stood up straight, unsure what this meant. I gripped the gun tighter.

Then another figure appeared. A woman. White untucked shirt, dark trousers and a baseball cap. She briefly glanced down at the sprawled thug and followed the man up the hill.

I now easily recognised them.

Julio Falcao and Warita Aranda. I think they were smiling.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

‘Afternoon, Luc,’ Falcao said.

‘Good to see you, Mr Falcao,’ I said. ‘I’m glad they let you out.’

Julio Falcao smiled and indicated the woman approaching behind him. ‘I have Detective Aranda to thank for that,’ he said. ‘She’s been amazing.’

‘Yes she is.’

Falcao glanced down at the large round corpse, crumpled by the front of the car. ‘I see you have taken care of Mr Giuttieri. We thank you.’ He looked at the other bodies lying around. ‘You’ve been busy.’

I shook my head. ‘I took the big guy out,’ I said. ‘The others took care of themselves.’

‘Sounds like quite a party. You should know that Detective Aranda’s team followed the rest of Giuttieri’s men to the airfield. His men resisted arrest.’

‘What happened?’

Warita reached the top of the hill. ‘There was an exchange of gunfire,’ she said, standing beside Falcao. ‘They lost.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said cheerfully.

‘Our thoughts precisely,’ Warita said smiling. She nodded at the ground and then adjusted her baseball cap.‘You’ve been busy.’

‘Let’s not start that again.’ I grinned. ‘What’s happening about the leadership election?’ I asked.

‘To be honest, I have no idea,’ Falcao said.

‘Now the public know you were telling the truth on that TV show, you could be a shoo-in again.’

Falcao shook his head. ‘I believe Neville Dutton deserves his chance to try and continue,’ he said. ‘He made mistakes. And I’m sure he’ll acknowledge that. But there was a vicious orchestrated campaign against him. He’s young, yes, but he stood his ground throughout. And that, I respect.’

‘We should be going,’ Warita said. ‘My team will clean up here. Can we drop you anywhere?’ she asked, turning to me.

‘I did have a car,’ I said. ‘But, actually, yes, that would be great. Thanks.’

As a cooling breeze whipped up some of the dust on the road, the three of us strolled back down the hill, our shadows preceding us.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

The boat was berthed at the end of the wooden jetty. I ambled along the wooden slats and a figure jumped out ahead of me. It was Lucia. She was dressed in a white blouse, tied at the front, and tiny black shorts. I don’t think she had seen me yet as she was crouching down attending to something on the side of the boat.

‘Obscene,’ I said. ‘I should look away.’

Lucia looked up and smiled on seeing me. ‘And yet you’re not,’ she said.

‘I will. Give me a few hours.’

She noticed the hamper I was holding. ‘When you said you’d bring lunch I sort of expected a couple of sandwiches and a flask.’

‘Underestimate me. People do it all the time.’

I reached her and with my free hand I pulled her close to me and kissed her magnificent full lips. ‘Well, that’s better,’ I said.

‘Jump aboard with your feast,’ she said, hopping back to whatever she was doing before.

I climbed aboard and went down below into the small cabin. I laid the hamper on the tiny sideboard. It had a couple of drawers, and I opened the first one looking for a bottle opener and immediately froze rigid and then leaped back with a far too loud whimper. Some might even say yelp.

The largest spider I have ever seen had scrambled out of the drawer and up onto the sideboard, its eight spindly creepy legs scuttling like some evil menace that -

‘You all right down there?’ Lucia called out.

‘Fine,’ I shouted back. My voice sounded in the upper register.

Footsteps, and a concerned Lucia descended the wooden steps. She looked at me and frowned, smiling. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said smiling back.

She looked around suspiciously.

‘It wasn’t a spider, was it?’

I laughed. ‘A spider,’ I said. ‘This is what she’s saying. Ridiculous.’

‘We do get them quite big.’

‘Do you. Do you. I hadn’t noticed.’

‘I’ll just be five more minutes,’ she said. ‘Will you be all right down here by yourself?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m not waiting five minutes,’ I said. I took her hand and gently pulled her down the steps towards me. ‘Besides, you can’t leave me down here on my own with that.’ I smiled and took hold of her. ‘Its knees were brushing the ceiling.’

‘You big
gyal
.’

‘Yep.’ I bent down and scooped her up. Her face was beaming and I felt the electricity charge between us. I carried her over to the small bed at the far end.

‘I imagine you’re going to leave soon after, aren’t you?’ she said, not unsmilingly.

‘Tomorrow,’ I agreed. ‘I have to be in London.’ Debriefing. I dropped her down on the pearl coloured duvet. ‘But I will be back, Lucia. And you can take that as a promise. For now, we have the rest of today.’

Her golden hair spread out across the pillow. I undid the loose knot and opened up her white blouse and she looked utterly beautiful as she lay there in her pink and mauve satin bra. I leaned down and kissed her soft, warm belly button. I looked up and her eyes twinkled and she bit her lower lip coquettishly.

Definitely take it as a promise.

Afterword

Thank you for reading
Luc
.

I certainly enjoyed writing it.

I hope it’s clear from the novel that I bear no ill towards either Belize or Guatemala (quite the reverse, actually). Neither did I want to stoke up any old rivalries. I simply wanted to write a cracking good thriller with an absorbing backdrop.

Belize impressed me. It’s seemingly packed with a lot of good stuff. The mad and exhilarating Belize City itself. The beauty and tranquility of its islands. The ancient Mayan sites, which are, frankly, magical. The glorious underwater life of its seas; not just the Blue Hole, but, yes, isn’t
that
something? I could go on and on, but you get the gist: if you’re only hearing the negatives about Belize, then you’re missing out on
a lot.

Strictly speaking, the Garifuna people are the Garinagu. And it’s their language and culture which is called Garifuna. I didn’t want to stop the momentum of the plot to try and fit that in, so I hope I’ll be forgiven for sticking with the more commonly used name.

Finally, I’d like to ask if you could do me a favour. Reviews are the life-blood of any indie author. We need them to get our books noticed and also to get good advertising.

So, if you enjoyed the novel, I would be enormously grateful if you could possibly take a couple of minutes to write an honest review on Amazon; however short.

Thank you.

Also by the Author

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