The Purple Contract (19 page)

'Nemesis.'

'What?' Moloney looked mystified.

Crew-cut reached over to where stack of three cardboard boxes stood on the floor. He brought out a short rounded baton. As Gojo had suspected, it was in fact an ex-police truncheon––many of which were unofficially weighted with a lead core: It made it easier to subdue the violent types at chucking-out time. Hollis looked at it with some amusement and reflected that it was the first time he had actually seen one close up.

Moloney was much slower off the mark and had barely begun to move his weight forward when he saw the stranger's right hand slip inside his jacket and heard an odd ripping noise. This was followed almost immediately by a metallic
twang
and Al Hendry started yelling. But there was no time to think about that any more because he was nearly close enough and the blood was singing in his veins with the anticipation of being able to beat the leaving shit out of this son of a bitch––

Hollis watched with detached professional interest to see the effectiveness of his home made spring gun. He wasn't disappointed.

No-one but an idiot would try for a wounding leg or arm shot under these circumstances. That sort of bravado only works in Hollywood. The torso forms the largest target area of the human body, invitingly large and containing many vital areas. This becomes all the more important under duress, when any form of aiming is out of the question.

Given the necessarily primitive weapon, Hollis thought he hadn't done badly. It had been difficult to make full allowance for the jerk of the spring and he had shot high, but that was all right.

The steel meat skewer arrowed into crew cut's throat at an angle just below his Adam's apple, ripping through his larynx. Only the flattened butt end prevented it passing straight through and exiting from the back of his neck. But Hollis was already turning away, swinging round to meet Moloney, his left arm coming up palm outwards in a sweeping block. The now-empty aluminium tube in his other hand cracked Moloney viciously on the temple and sent him reeling into the wall of the tiny office.

Hollis briefly turned to guard his back but there were only muted gurgles coming from the writhing bundle on the floor. Ignore.

Something heavy crashed into his legs and brought him down sprawling, scattering spray cans of paint in all directions. He felt rather than saw Moloney’s fist clubbing for him and twisted to one side, taking the strike on his upper arm and using the impetus from it to roll on one shoulder, coming up in a crouch.

Moloney’s tried a wild kick at Hollis’ face but the American jerked his head aside, feeling the wind of it passing. A long stride took Moloney across to an extensive but much-used toolkit, and by the time Hollis got to his feet he was facing a large screwdriver, held like some obscene bulbous carving knife.

Well now. Hollis felt a strong sense of
deja-vu
. Memories of numerous street-fights when he was a teenager surged to the surface. Not to mention the hours spent trying to stay alive while the Army’s unarmed-combat instructors took the recruits apart and then showed them the
right
way to do it.

Hollis stepped forward one pace, which shook Moloney to the core. You
don’t
walk up to someone who so obviously intends to do you severe physical harm with a lethal weapon. At this point blind fury, generated primarily by fear, completely overwhelmed common sense. He struck out, the full weight of his upper body behind the lunge.

Hollis stepped to his left and rotated his hips and upper torso to the right, brushing the grimy tool past with both hands. Moloney was still staggering when the heel of the American’s left shoe slammed into the outside of his right knee.

The pain was indescribable. Moloney cried out involuntarily, feeling the leg buckle under him, and feeling also the red hot agony of badly torn ligaments and dislocated joint. Hollis completed the turn, pivoting now on his forward foot and mule-kicked Moloney between the shoulder blades even as he fell. There was an almighty crash as the youth impacted heavily into a pile of engine parts.

Hollis stepped over and looked down at the groaning figure. Bending down, he grasped his attacker’s head in both hands, heaving him up and then smashing him down face first into the concrete floor. The sickening
crunch
was followed almost instantly by a spreading pool of blood.

Mike Hollis surveyed what he had done. The gurgling had ceased now and by the look of his ashen face, crew cut was not much longer for this world. He was drowning in his own blood, and tough luck. Moloney would probably survive, but he would need some reconstructive surgery at the very least. That is if anyone could be bothered. He wasn't, after all, a major asset to society. Hollis retrieved the aluminium tube and slipped it into an inside pocket. He would dispose of it far away from here.

The street outside was still quiet and undisturbed: this wasn't the sort of neighbourhood where residents would throw open their doors and windows at an unexpected noise. Not that much of the brief fight would have been audible outside anyway. Hollis closed the lockup door behind him, shrugged into his waxed jacket and walked calmly back the way he had come. The car was where had left it and no-one paid any attention to the familiar sound of a vehicle driving off.

Only a gray cat saw the Range Rover turn at the corner and disappear. She stared, unblinking, for a few seconds before unhurriedly crossing the road and turning down her usual path, keeping to the shadows under the thin elderly privit hedge. She stepped primly out of her way to avoid the pools of orange under each of the large sodium streetlights. It was hard work keeping the kittens fed, they became more active, more independent with each passing day. The rat hadn't lasted long and she had eaten only one mouthful, leaving the rest for her family. However, there were plenty more––food was never going to be a problem. It just needed fetching, but then she had all the time in the world.

And it was such a nice night for hunting.

 
 
 
 
11

 
14 – 20 July, 2013

The white Renault van bumped uncomfortably along the uneven road between the hedgerows, the driver cursing while he avoided the worst of the potholes. The two younger men beside him on the bench seat each held an automatic pistol in his lap, their eyes moving back and forth across the passing countryside. Outside, the drizzle had passed leaving patches of blue sky amid the almost featureless gray. There was no talk, only the occasional muttering of the driver and the snorting of the engine marked their passing. Ahead, the first glimpse of sea appeared between the trees.

By the time the road had petered out into a dirt track the trees had given way to low scrub which itself thinned out and merged with the short beach of coarse sand and shell. It was more than a little breezy here on the south-east corner of Ireland between Wexford and Waterford. This low-lying arable landscape contained little to slow the westerly wind. Today it was coming overland straight in from the Atlantic on the edge of yet another weather front, powered by the swirling area of low pressure tracking almost due north up the Irish coast.

'Where in hell are they?' The driver hastily closed his door again to keep out the over-abundance of fresh air. Instead, he sighted through the windows in the rear doors of the van, carefully reversing the vehicle as far towards the sea as he could safely go. No point in making extra work for themselves.

Twenty minutes later the driver got out to take a leak. When he had finished he stood in the lee of the van, looking out to sea for a time. One of these days he was leaving the tension and danger of Belfast's housing estates and the sectarian pressure everyone still lived under. Politics might change––always
would
change, but not people. Somewhere like this would suit him fine. Not a soul for miles: just the job.

'They'll be here, don't you worry yourself, Brian.' The younger man grinned at him as he climbed back into the van. 'You gave them the directions yourself, did you not?'

'Aye, that's right'.

'Well then. If they keep us waiting much longer we can always give them sore heads to show our displeasure!'

Fucking kids. All they could think of; kicking the shit out of some poor bugger just to show what hard men they were. Both of these pratts had their fingerprints and faces on record for petty larceny and violence. Still in their twenties and they were
known.
Marked men. They weren't going to last a year in the Movement and everybody knew it except themselves. The best either of them could hope for was a prison sentence. More than likely they would catch a bullet. Just cannon fodder really, and it served them right. He pulled a newspaper from the door pocket alongside him, opening it over the steering wheel.

The other two looked at each other, disconcerted. Shouldn't they be mounting a guard or something? This was an active service unit after all, so why was this clown treating it all so casually? They were both hyped up to snapping point, excited to the edge of hyperventilation. They genuinely expected to be jumped by the security services at any moment, seeing SAS men under every rock and bush.

The driver knew better. The new campaign hadn’t kicked off yet, a few petty skirmishes that hadn’t done more that  raise a few ripples in the pond of Whitehall complacency. There was little to fear from the security services at this point.
Later
now …

He had done this sort of thing many times before. Jesus, he had been doing this sort of stuff while these two were still pissing in their diapers! Was it any wonder the Movement had partly fallen apart, losing respect? Mind you, when bygone leaders turned their backs and preferred Stormont to the Struggle, what chance did you have really?

Brian grunted to himself and tried to concentrate on his reading. Beside him the other two got back to their perennial discussion about exaggerated sexual exploits in the nightclubs of Belfast.

The gaping white and blue-painted doors towered above him. The Range Rover banged and rattled across the ridged steel loading ramp out of the brightly lit interior of the car ferry. In front of Hollis was a rusty Vauxhall estate, which seemed to be filled with children and dogs. He followed it cautiously back on to dry land. It took only a few minutes to pass through the ferry terminal on to the streets of Larne in Northern Ireland. The crossing from Stranraer had been uneventful, if a little chilly. Hollis liked to be out on deck. He enjoyed sailing of any sort and was quite happy to watch the empty seascape and feel the wind in his face. But the chill had finally forced him below to drink terrible coffee and watch the passing waves through the scratched double glazing of the lounge.

Leaving Larne on the A36, he turned the car south onto the A8, shortly to pass around the outskirts of the city of Belfast. Emerging again into the beautiful green Irish countryside, he settled down for the run south on the A1 through Lisburne and Newry. Eventually entering the Irish Republic, where the road became the N1.

Staying on this route, Hollis ran down the coast to Dublin, where he had arranged a hotel room for the night. By the time he parked the car and presented himself at the reception desk, dusk was gathering. Through the windows he saw the first bright stars appearing among the scattered clouds. First thing tomorrow he would continue south into the hills and valleys of Kilkenny. But meantime he wanted a juicy steak with all the trimmings …

The short, old fashioned hull was reacting badly to the Atlantic swell. As a result the motion was quite unpredictable and uncomfortable. Klaus Ditmar gripped the wheel with both hands, leaning into the roll and using the rudder to keep the sea slapping on the port bow. Old she might be, but the designer had known a thing nor two about how to deal with confused water like this. The red hull shouldered the waves aside easily, producing in the process an odd, uneven roll. Klaus, who was more accustomed to modern angular glassfibre designs, was reluctantly impressed.

The three of them had arrived in Britain two days previously, via the channel tunnel rail link, and had driven straight across the south of England and into Wales. The elderly Bedford van they had stolen in Germany specially for the trip started giving trouble within the hour. Probably because it was heavily loaded with anonymous packing cases and boxes, all of them bearing innocuous labels attributing them to a well-known manufacturer of roof tiles. The customs documents were forged of course, and had cost more than a few Euros. But they were stamped and passed without comment and the van waved through impatiently. One of the many convenient benefits of open European commercial markets.

By the time the cantankerous Bedford had coughed and spluttered its way into south west Wales, they had decided to dump it and find something better for the remainder of their business in the UK. Stealing cars was Uwe's particular speciality, there would be no trouble. But the old van took them far enough.

In the village of Newgale, on the wide expanse of St Bride's Bay, they had no difficulty in renting a small boat for a few days. The owner even offered them a safe place to park the van while they were out 'fishing'. That was very satisfactory: there was no choice but to leave a piece of kit in it which they would need later.

Ditmar was pleased to see the Saltee Islands pass uneventfully to port. The passage had been slower than expected, partly due to the sea state. Shortly afterwards Forlorn Point loomed to starboard and the cross seas eased considerably in the lee of the land. Much better.

It wasn't long before Uwe's greenish face appeared from the tiny cabin below. Klaus grinned at him and got a scowl in return.

'Fuck you!' Uwe pushed past him and went out onto the deck, leaning back against the bulkhead and taking deep breaths.

Klaus struggled against laughter. Uwe could be seasick in a duck-pond. He pushed the throttle forward, hoping to make up some time. They were at least an hour late for the rendezvous. The engine note increased and the boat ploughed deeper into the water, throwing more spray on board and bringing a muttered curse from Uwe out on the deck. Klaus looked at the sky and tried to judge how much daylight was left. It was going to be a close thing.