Recoil (42 page)

The Antonov faced the command tents again and Lex hit the gas. The aircraft rattled down the strip a very short distance before climbing. I looked down to see Sam, Crucial and all eight of the little fuckers lining the strip, waving and grinning, and then they, the camp, the strip, the whole poxy place were lost in a sea of broccoli.

PART THIRTEEN

1

Lugano, Switzerland

Sunday, 18 June

It was ten days since I’d last sat here, but it was like I hadn’t been away. The money still drove its way along Riva Albertolli, or rested its rather large arse beside the lake. The rest sat in cafés and watched the guys in their electric mini-tankers water the immaculate flower-beds.

I’d flown into Milan this morning on an overnight from Cape Town, and got off at the railway station a couple of hours later with my holdall and a rolled-up copy of the
Sunday Times
. The moped had gone. I wandered the town, did a little shopping and, with nothing else on just yet, decided to do what I always did around midday: have a brew at Raffaelli’s.

The sun was out, the lake was a mirror. Families took their Sunday strolls along the palm-lined boulevards; airbrakes hissed as a coach prepared to kick out its payload. All was well in the land of Toblerone and tax dodgers. I sat back and enjoyed. I felt calm and relaxed. For the first time in ten days, things were under control. And there had to be worse places on earth to pass the time while you waited to exact a little vengeance.

I’d ordered a cappuccino. The waiter appeared and I moved my mobile to the edge of the small round table to make room for the tray.

‘
Grazie mille
.’ It was nice to be nice.

He smiled back at me. ‘
Prego
.’

He sort of recognized me, but couldn’t quite place me. For starters, I supposed, I wasn’t with a beautiful blonde. And then I looked much smarter than I usually did, in new jeans, shirt, a blue jacket and shoes so shiny I had to wear sun-gigs to look at them.

But there was also the grime I hadn’t been able to get out from under my nails, and the scratches, cuts and bites on my face and hands to confuse him even more. Also, he probably didn’t remember me scratching like I had fleas the last time he saw me. The rash on my back was drying up, but even more itchy.

I took the baby
biscotti
sitting in the saucer and dunked it in the froth as I unfolded the paper. There was all the normal stuff, but deep inside the news pages my attention was grabbed by an article telling me that the DRC was going to hold its first multi-party elections for forty years at the end of July.

I put the paper down. I wasn’t enjoying myself so much any more.

The elections would help no one. Just as with Middle Eastern oil, the multinationals and scum-bags like Stefan would be making sure they had whoever won tucked well inside their pockets.

Another coach offloaded its well-fed cargo of Dortmunders and they stood in the shade of the palm trees. All of them were on their mobiles, or had a camcorder stuck to their faces and pointing at the lake. I thought back to Sunday, the Chuckle Brothers, the bodies we had left at the mine, even the miners who had dragged the rock out of the ground with their bare hands.

And what about me? I looked down at the mobile. Tucked inside it was a small rock’s worth of the stuff that brought such grief and hardship to so many, and so much cash to so few.

It made me think of what Crucial had said as we faced the river before I ran the firing cable back to the knoll.

I can’t change the world, but I can do something for this bit of it
 . . .

And I was.

2

The mobile rang. I picked it up and listened.

‘The Chinamen have left.’

‘Cheers, mate. See you in a bit.’ I closed down the phone and threw a ten-franc note on the table for a five-franc coffee. Maybe the waiter would remember me next time.

I went and looked for a cab.

Standish had disappeared off the face of the earth. Part of me hoped he was lying decomposing in the leaf litter; another part hoped he was alive and kicking. Australia was still on the cards, but only after I’d done all I could to keep my promise to Bateman.

I felt good as the cab drove up the hill to where the really stinking money hung out. I didn’t know whether it was the change of scenery, the change of clothes or just that I was seeing a promise through, but I felt I was going to get a good result here.

I’d called Giuseppe as soon as I’d got back to Erinvale. Lex let me sort myself out at his place while he made his way back to the strip to pick up the crates of weapons. He’d made good use of his sat phone on the way to Cape, and already had a buyer in Chad.

I explained where I was to Giuseppe, and what had happened to Silky. He didn’t take it too well, especially the bit about working conditions in Mr Stefan’s mines and the lack of a staff canteen. I was taking a chance, but what was the option? I needed a man on the inside, and they weren’t exactly best mates, were they?

I needn’t have worried. He was well into it; he told me I had some mail waiting and he even had a present for me. Then he carried on waffling about how he was going home to Lazio to live with his widowed sister, and how they planned to grow olives and raise chickens.

I asked the driver to drop me about two minutes from the house. I got back on the mobile as I walked the rest. ‘Nearly there, mate – you got the padlocks off the back gate?’

‘Of course.’

‘See you in a bit.’ I closed down. This should-n’t take long. Security wasn’t a problem. Stefan didn’t have any. He didn’t need it. Low profile, not a party-goer, and never out of the shadows, he was the ultimate grey man. His greatest protection was concealment, and he knew it. The kick for him was making piles of money without anyone having a clue how. But he was going to pay for his arrogance today.

The big wrought-iron gate opened into manicured grounds. Palm trees shaded the path to the staff entrance.

Giuseppe’s eyes darted from side to side. He wasn’t behaving like the pasta papa I knew. Maybe he was caught up in the intrigue and thought he was James Bond.

‘Where is he?’

‘The large sitting room – where else?’

I followed him along the corridor to the kitchen.

‘Mr Nick, please come back down when you’ve finished. Remember, I have mail and a gift for you.’

‘You sure there’s no one else in the house?’

He looked a bit startled, then glanced around him as if I’d asked the most stupid question on the planet. He was right. It was Sunday: the staff had the day off. We’d normally have bumped into at least a couple of cleaners, maids and a few chefs by now.

I dumped my holdall on the table, and pulled out the pair of red-handled pliers I’d bought on my little shopping trip. Seconds later, I was walking up the wide staircase to the long marble corridor with the ten-foot Greek gods and the Louis XIV repro that so many people had been slaughtered to pay for.

3

Stefan was pouring whisky from his decanter into a heavy cut-glass tumbler. His back was turned; he raised his glass and gazed through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the lake shimmering in the distance. The room smelled of cigarettes and alcohol. Empty glasses lay next to an overflowing ashtray on the coffee-table. Spread all across it were maps of DRC.

I carried on towards him with my left hand extended. The right stayed by my side.

‘What do you want here?’

I brought the pliers up, locked them on to his right earlobe and twisted. His glass of thirty-year-old malt fell to the ground and smashed.

I pulled him towards the sofas. He didn’t fight it, just squealed like a pig. Everyone does.

‘Two things.’ I spun him round to the front of the sofa and pulled him down on to the sumptuous red and gold cushions. Still keeping a firm grip, I moved behind him and pulled so he pressed himself firmly against the backrest. I had his undivided attention. ‘First – where’s

Standish?’

‘I’m here.’

The dividing doors burst open. Standish faced me square on. In his hands, aimed at my head, was a baby Glock 9mm.

I got the message and released the pliers.

Stefan backed away to the windows. ‘I don’t want any mess! I don’t want any of this piece of shit left in this house. Besides . . .’ He grabbed one of the golden ropes that held back the big red velvet curtains and headed towards me. ‘I’m going to kill him myself.’

He got to within a couple of paces, pulled back his arm and hit me hard across the face with a big open hand.

Stars burst in my head as I crashed on to the coffee-table. I crumpled on to the floor and crawled towards the dividing doors to get away from him.

The two of them started shouting. Standish wanted it done here and now. I glanced up. He was breathing hard. His face was full of scratches, lumps and bumps.

My head was clearing. I focused on the baby Glock. What the fuck was I going to do next?

Standish was fuming. ‘I told you to be careful, didn’t I? I told you there could be trouble. Why haven’t you got a weapon? And some security?’

Stefan made a couple of turns in the rope and looked down at me with a smile that suggested he’d done this sort of thing before and enjoyed it.

Fuck this. If I was going to die, I was going down fighting.

I kept focused on the baby Glock, everything else burned out.

I swung a foot to catch Standish in the leg. It was the only thing I could hit.

He took a step to one side, which threw him a little bit off-balance.

I jumped up and grabbed the weapon in both hands, forcing it upwards, trying to twist it out of his hands.

It didn’t happen.

I pushed harder and he fell backwards. I ended up on my knees.

The rope went round my neck from behind and tightened.

I had to keep my hands on the Glock. I clenched my neck muscles, still trying to twist the weapon out of his hands and into his face.

I couldn’t move forward into Standish any more. The rope was pulling me back.

Stefan heaved some more. I kept a grip on the weapon, brought my elbows in, held it as tight as I could, trying to keep the fucking thing pointing upwards.

My head started to swell, my vision to narrow.

I was still gripping the weapon as Standish fell forwards and head-butted me. It landed on my cheek. He did it again, and got me just above the nose. I saw more starbursts.

And then the rope pulled deeper into my neck and I knew it was all over. I got pulled away from the Glock. My hands slipped off it.

I was only vaguely aware of the echo of footsteps on marble and the two bodies that screamed into the room from the corridor.

4

The first one banged something hard on

Standish’s head.

He crumpled.

A big black guy rushed past me and I heard a dull thud followed by two double-taps. The rope released suddenly and I fell forward. My face bounced off Standish’s. Blood and grey stuff oozed from the side of his head.

‘It’s OK, Nick.’ The way he growled it in that fucking Glaswegian accent of his, it still sounded like a death threat.

I pushed him away. ‘No! No!’ I spat the words into Standish’s face as I pulled the cord from my neck and got it round his.

I started pulling.

Standish’s eyes were open and vacant. His face was swollen.

I thought of Bateman, and I thought of all the kids lined up on the airstrip with a smile on their faces, and all the kids we’d killed back at the mine, and what had been left of the kid’s face I blew off at the river.

Sam’s hands pulled at my shoulders. ‘It’s all right, it’s over. He can’t be any more dead than he is.’

He started to lift me off.

5

I leaned against one of the sofas, coughing and spluttering, trying to gulp in oxygen, trying to recover. My pulse was doing push-ups in my neck and my windpipe felt like it was getting crushed.

I could see Crucial by the drinks cabinet, the baby Glock almost smothered in his hand. Stefan lay by his feet. There were two new holes in his face.

‘Turned out nice again, eh?’ I could hardly speak.

It got a smile out of Crucial. I could see that the cement round the diamond I’d given him was a lot thicker than it was on the conflict one.

Sam was on his knees, rifling Standish’s pockets.

‘How the fuck did you two get here?’

He pulled out a key fob with the Audi sign, key attached. ‘Lex has eyes and ears in the police HQ in Pretoria. They kept an eye on the flight manifests.’ He pushed Standish’s head with the heel of his shoe. ‘We knew that if he was alive he’d make his way to Switzerland eventually. Just like he said, he was going to sort things out. Soon as we knew he’d booked on to the flight to Zürich, we caught the one the night before, picked him up at the airport and followed him here.’