the man’s wriggles against the belts that had held him secure to the chair. His face broke into a smile as he recalled those screams through the gag, the man’s face puce with effort, his cheeks dripping in sweat, his eyes wide open with something between defiance and fear.
Credit to the bastard, it took nine nails before he cracked. My name’s Robbie Bracewell, he’d said but Bardici hadn’t believed him. No matter. The real name would be in the papers shortly. Whoever he was, the runt had admitted to working for those Hogan bastards from Tooting. Dan and Jerry Hogan had started supplying coke and pills to the bars and clubs round Mitcham, Morden and toward Croydon and the message he had received from the Big Man was the Hogans had to be stopped. Killed. ASAP.
But getting both Hogans together so far had been impossible. The feelers were out. But had they bugged him as the little guy had said? It made sense. The ninth finger he had twisted slowly as he pulled the nail until all three bones, the distal, middle and proximal phalanges, were all broken, causing mind-blowing pain. But it had been effective. After careful thought over breakfast, he had selected a pay-as-you-go phone from over a dozen that he owned and constantly discarded. He rang a different cousin, in Chiswick and gave clear instructions on what he had to do.
Such thoughts left his mind as Bardici presented his passport at the British Airways desk at Terminal Five with his ID of Mujo Zevi from the Albanian-speaking coastal resort of Ulcinj in Montenegro. His papers, for a short vacation in Florida, were checked and accepted with no hesitation despite the fact that his burly frame and height of over six feet gave him an air of danger if not actual menace, even when smiling. But the small beard and tinted contacts changed his eye color and helped create a perfect match for his false ID. The premature iron gray in his hair was now luxurious black to complete the look.
As he accepted the offer of champagne and nuts in the Lounge, he thought ahead to his meeting in Freeport with Lance Ruthven. Of course the man would be using the name Hank Kurtner but Bardici had been well briefed by his superior, one of the lieutenants used by the Big Boss. He knew every last detail about the American. The rendezvous he had chosen was the car park of the Pink Flamingo Calypso Bar, a few miles east of Freeport. From an Internet café just round the corner and with help from Google Maps, Bardici had judged the bar to be suitably anonymous and unlikely to be busy early in the evening before the steel band arrived.
Now, as he reclined in his Club World seat, he was looking forward to the fixing the devious shit who ran the shipyard. It wouldn’t be as pleasurable as slicing off the Irishman’s manhood with the long-handled shears. But then … yes, wasn’t it Rod Stewart who had proclaimed that the first cut is the deepest? He smiled wolfishly. Not when I’m involved, Rod. Every cut is deep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Oxfordshire, England
Ratso was a mere twenty meters from the Range Rover when he saw it, or rather, guessed where it was. The afternoon sky was rapidly filling with thick black smoke rising from an unmade track just to his left. He cruised forward, windows down and was hit by the pungent smell of acrid fumes at the same moment he heard the roar of a fire. A second later he saw the Range Rover engulfed in flames. Whether it had gone down with its occupants, it was already too late to tell. Petrol had obviously been thrown generously over the bodywork as well as inside before it had been fired. Roaring flames leapt skyward between the trees in the clearing and the air was already darkening with a spreading black cloud. From his own car, he took a series of photos showing the registration number but with the intensity of the fire he went no closer, taking no chances.
Ratso knew that some smartasses reckoned fuel tanks don’t explode but the whole team had only
Credit to the bastard, it took nine nails before he cracked. My name’s Robbie Bracewell, he’d said but Bardici hadn’t believed him. No matter. The real name would be in the papers shortly. Whoever he was, the runt had admitted to working for those Hogan bastards from Tooting. Dan and Jerry Hogan had started supplying coke and pills to the bars and clubs round Mitcham, Morden and toward Croydon and the message he had received from the Big Man was the Hogans had to be stopped. Killed. ASAP.
But getting both Hogans together so far had been impossible. The feelers were out. But had they bugged him as the little guy had said? It made sense. The ninth finger he had twisted slowly as he pulled the nail until all three bones, the distal, middle and proximal phalanges, were all broken, causing mind-blowing pain. But it had been effective. After careful thought over breakfast, he had selected a pay-as-you-go phone from over a dozen that he owned and constantly discarded. He rang a different cousin, in Chiswick and gave clear instructions on what he had to do.
Such thoughts left his mind as Bardici presented his passport at the British Airways desk at Terminal Five with his ID of Mujo Zevi from the Albanian-speaking coastal resort of Ulcinj in Montenegro. His papers, for a short vacation in Florida, were checked and accepted with no hesitation despite the fact that his burly frame and height of over six feet gave him an air of danger if not actual menace, even when smiling. But the small beard and tinted contacts changed his eye color and helped create a perfect match for his false ID. The premature iron gray in his hair was now luxurious black to complete the look.
As he accepted the offer of champagne and nuts in the Lounge, he thought ahead to his meeting in Freeport with Lance Ruthven. Of course the man would be using the name Hank Kurtner but Bardici had been well briefed by his superior, one of the lieutenants used by the Big Boss. He knew every last detail about the American. The rendezvous he had chosen was the car park of the Pink Flamingo Calypso Bar, a few miles east of Freeport. From an Internet café just round the corner and with help from Google Maps, Bardici had judged the bar to be suitably anonymous and unlikely to be busy early in the evening before the steel band arrived.
Now, as he reclined in his Club World seat, he was looking forward to the fixing the devious shit who ran the shipyard. It wouldn’t be as pleasurable as slicing off the Irishman’s manhood with the long-handled shears. But then … yes, wasn’t it Rod Stewart who had proclaimed that the first cut is the deepest? He smiled wolfishly. Not when I’m involved, Rod. Every cut is deep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Oxfordshire, England
Ratso was a mere twenty meters from the Range Rover when he saw it, or rather, guessed where it was. The afternoon sky was rapidly filling with thick black smoke rising from an unmade track just to his left. He cruised forward, windows down and was hit by the pungent smell of acrid fumes at the same moment he heard the roar of a fire. A second later he saw the Range Rover engulfed in flames. Whether it had gone down with its occupants, it was already too late to tell. Petrol had obviously been thrown generously over the bodywork as well as inside before it had been fired. Roaring flames leapt skyward between the trees in the clearing and the air was already darkening with a spreading black cloud. From his own car, he took a series of photos showing the registration number but with the intensity of the fire he went no closer, taking no chances.
Ratso knew that some smartasses reckoned fuel tanks don’t explode but the whole team had only
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