The Unhappy Medium, page 37
‘What? Why are we stopping?’ asked Bennet. ‘Can’t we just go round?’
‘Not round,’ said Newton, ‘over.’ He leant down to activate the old car’s hydropneumatic suspension. The enlarged hydrospheres charged and the Citroën majestically lifted itself up off the ground. Like a hovercraft, up and up it rose until finally, it perched high above the tarmac like a container dock crane. The Reverend looked down at the ground from his side window.
‘Streuth! That can’t be normal.’
‘This will probably feel a bit weird,’ said Newton as he slammed his foot hard down on the accelerator.
Normally, the hydropneumatic suspension on his car only went to three settings, but whoever had been consistently pimping Newton’s ride had added an extra two. At full elevation, it felt as if they were flying above the ground like one of the cars in Blade Runner .
Fazed as they were by the oncoming novelty, the gunmen unleashed their first volleys from a hundred yards, wildly inaccurate at that range, but intended to unnerve Newton, now hunched down behind the dashboard. It certainly didn’t unnerve the Reverend Bennet. He took careful aim out of the window, his arm outstretched, trading fire.
Gunfire began impacting all around them. Neat holes appeared in the Citroën’s bodywork and one of the wing mirrors cracked off its mount, flapping against the metal with repeated loud clangs. ‘Do unto others what they are intending to do to you!’ yelled the vicar, as one of his bullets slammed into the shoulder of a gunman, spinning him round and down. Newton wobbled the Citroën as fast as he dared up to the makeshift roadblock, deftly swerving over the top of the obstruction as if it wasn’t there. Gobsmacked, the gunmen watched in disbelief as the 70’s classic passed harmlessly through the kill zone like a carnival float. They pressed on.
Newton and Bennet were closing fast with their quarry. For the first time, as they took a switchback at speed, they caught sight of the truck on the road below them, a black Range Rover close behind.
‘There they are!’ yelled Bennet, as he reloaded his Beretta.
‘It’s not all good news,’ said Newton, looking in the cracked rear-view mirror. We’ve got a jeep on our tail. Closing fast.’ The vicar looked back.
‘OK, I’ll deal with them, you just keep going.’ A flailing mass of arms and legs, Bennet flopped over his seat. Using Newton’s battered old road map, he knocked away the shattered glass in the rear window, opening up a clear field to fire. Their pursuers were appearing and disappearing on the tight bends, closer each time. Finally, as they came onto a straight stretch, the occupants began to trade fire with the vicar. Flickering muzzle blasts reached out to the Citroën and there were yet more thunks and clangs as the bodywork took punishment. The Reverend was less profligate in his ammunition usage, however, and he took his time before sending his first round dead centre into the jeep’s radiator. Shifting his aim as the rounds cracked just over their heads, he sent another bullet into its windscreen. Instantly opaque, the driver was forced to smash his thug’s fist through the glass to restore a view of the winding road before replacing his bloodied hands on the wheel. Newton looked up in the mirror to see the jeep getting alarmingly close, the flashes from the automatics clearly visible.
‘The tyres, shoot out their bloody tyres!’ screamed Newton.
‘On this road? There’d probably be an accident!’
‘What ... are you mad? They’re trying to kill us!’
‘Oh but I mustn’t kill anyone, I’m a man of God.’
‘I thought you were a holy warrior? OK, tell you what. How about an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth …’ argued Newton urgently, ‘only pre-emptively?’
‘Mmm ... OK,’ said Bennet, ‘I suppose it is in self-defence.’ Happy with that, he then casually aimed the Beretta, firing twice. The jeep behind them, its front tyres flapping uselessly, swerved off the road and away in a cloud of steam and vegetation as it ploughed savagely into a ravine.
Back in the passenger seat, Bennet closed his eyes and bowed his head, his hands clasped around the pistol in contemplation.
‘Praying?’ asked Newton respectfully.
‘What?’ said Bennet. ‘Oh no, sorry, just trying to remember how many rounds I’ve got left, my maths is terrible.’ Newton shook his head again as they careered on down the road towards the truck.
They could see the massive white vehicle clearly now; it was dropping in and out of the curves no more than half a mile ahead. Blood in his nostrils, Newton put his foot down.
Van Loop was furious .
‘Why do we pay these bloody people!’ he screamed down the phone to his son. The sudden outburst made Ascot McCauley grind his tiny teeth. Nasty as he was, the property developer had nerves as tight as catgut and the increasingly action-filled afternoon was putting him seriously on edge – even more so now that he was being handed an Uzi.
‘What? I don’t know how to use this.’
‘Learn!’ said Van Loop brusquely.
‘Father, I can’t do much from here unless they get close,’ radioed Gunter. ‘You’ll have to fend them off yourself.’
‘Ya son, I’ll give them hell,’ said his father, somewhat unconvincingly, and so Gunter made a snap decision.
‘Oh dammit,’ he shouted suddenly, and without giving himself time to think twice, he opened the door and climbed out of the cab. Alarmed, his driver stared at him. ‘Forget me!’ yelled Gunter at the driver. ‘Keep driving, don’t stop for anything.’ Gunter slammed the door. Holding on to the bucking swerving truck he edged along the meagre handholds towards the rear, his assault rifle swinging dangerously around him.
‘My God ... Gunter!’ yelled Van Loop senior, as he spotted his only son hanging from the side of the truck. Several times, Gunter nearly lost his hold as the truck bounced on the uneven road surface, and then finally reaching the rear, he abruptly lost his footing. Against all the odds, his gun strap caught the door handles and he hung there briefly, swinging back and forth helplessly like a bunch of keys. After a long minute in which he came close to battering himself mad, he managed to gain purchase. Clawing his way back up, he rammed his arm in hard behind one of the uprights, planted his feet firmly upon the lower bars and after a very deep breath, opened fire.
Gunter’s years as a mercenary were instantly telling. A neat series of holes appeared in the roof between Newton and the vicar, and beams of sunlight streamed down into the Citroën’s dusty interior.
‘Woaaahh,’ said Newton with feeling.
‘We’ve got to get in closer,’ yelled Bennet, ignoring the incoming rounds. ‘I can’t possibly hit the tyres from this distance, especially with that bloody Chelsea tractor in the way.’
‘Closer?’ said Newton, adrenalin running through his system like petrol in an engine. ‘OK!’ He pushed down the accelerator until they were close enough to see the outline of people gazing back at them through tinted windows. Three times they tried to break past the big car; three times they were skilfully blocked. Repeatedly, the driver slammed his vehicle into their path.
Unable to fire for fear of hitting his father and his companions, Gunter waved his weapon from side to side frantically looking for the shot. Seeing the gun aimed intermittently at his head, Newton ducked the Citroën back behind the mass of the Land Rover.
Suddenly, the road straightened.
They were back out onto the flat, dry plains; the road was as straight as an arrow. To its side, beyond the tarmac, the dusty banks were flat enough for Newton to risk overtaking. He swerved suddenly to the side and surged ahead. But the guy behind the wheel of the Land Rover was having none of it. With a burst of power, he walloped through a wire fence and once again blocked the Citroën. Countering, Newton threw the wheel hard over and in this millisecond of separation, a low wall appeared between them in blur of old stone. The sudden obstruction left the Land Rover trapped off-road.
Either side of the wall they were neck and neck, the bucking Land Rover charging ahead in a hurricane of small stones and clouds of dust as Newton started to close with the truck. Predictably, the windows came down and the guns popped out.
But Newton was surprised. Instead of yet more thick-necked hired men, he was staring at a frail ninety-year-old man and the unmistakable weasely face of Ascot McCauley. At a loss, the property developer was cradling his weapon like a nervous grandmother. Newton and Ascot’s eyes met. In a tiny but significant instant, they exchanged an expression of mutual loathing. Newton, now more determined than ever, turned back to the truck ahead of them and charged. Despite the enthusiastic urging of the old fascist, Ascot McCauley fired his gun at the Citroën with all the professionalism of a drugged Congolese militiaman. Within ten rounds, he’d lost the tip of his left index finger and dropped the weapon out of the window. Squealing pathetically, he fell back into the car. As he did, he was pushed away again by La Senza and Sister Wendy who, for some reason all of their own, were busy finding the whole thing wildly erotic.
Van Loop did his best to regain the militaristic bearing of his misspent youth in the Waffen SS and he let loose a clip from his machine pistol. But the bucking car and his diminished eyesight sent the stream of bullets wildly above the Citroën and into a passing flock of woodpigeons, scything them down in a cloud of blood and feathers. Gunter frantically waved his gun at his father in an attempt to stop him. But the mad old man’s nostrils were flaring. He was back in Poland, Russia, Biafra, Columbia, the Balkans. Lost in his ghastly past, he let loose again.
This time Gunter caught most of it – amazingly without any actual bodily harm. His father’s woeful marksmanship had drawn a near perfect outline of his body. Looking down, Gunter noticed a telltale wisp of smoke. A round had passed between his legs, close enough to leave a smouldering hole in both his combat trousers and his leopard-print boxer shorts.
‘Jesssuusss Popa, stop!’ he frantically mouthed. His father, finally owning up to his diminished capabilities, sulkily heaved himself back into the car and wound up the window.
There seemed to be nothing that could stop Newton closing with the huge truck. Bennet steadied his aim at the truck’s tyres, while Gunter Van Loop fired at the Citroën’s front wheel. Suddenly the Citroën was spinning, bouncing off the old wall in a shower of sparks. The vicar and the scientist flinched, screamed, swore and prayed. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of impacts, they were at a standstill.
Game over.
Bennet and Newton peered through the receding dust cloud. They could only mutter choice four-letter words as La Senza’s convoy whipped on into the distance.
CHAPTER 31 – Fast car s
The dust from the chase had drifted away by the time Newton and the Reverend Bennet finally eased themselves out of the wreck. Newton could only marvel at how they hadn’t both died. The car was a festival of bullet holes, blast damage, dents and scratches. One whole panel of bodywork above the rear right wheel was missing altogether, exposing the suspension, and only one section of glass did not contain a crack.
Newton left Bennet fighting with the flat tyre and felt for his iPhone, frantic to call Jameson with an update. There was so much to tell him.
Too bad, then, that as Newton pulled the phone from his pocket, it fell cleanly in half. Various parts of its savaged exterior dropped into the dust at his feet. The glass was shattered; the tip of a bullet sat decoratively in the centre. For Newton, the oft-lamented phrase ‘I couldn’t live without my phone’ was in this case literally correct.
‘Looks like we’re offline, Rev,’ he said, showing Bennet what was left of the phone.
‘So it would appear,’ Bennet replied, heaving off the wheel and rolling it away. ‘Looks like we’re on our own.’
‘Yep,’ said Newton, lifting out the spare, which despite everything was still miraculously inflated. ‘At least we know where they’re going.’
‘We do?’
‘Has to be Bilbao. It’s the nearest port.’
‘I concur,’ said the vicar. ‘Do you suppose we can catch them?’
‘Dunno,’ said Newton. ‘After that little altercation with the wall, the car might be a dead duck. Better get the wheel on and see what state she’s in. Poor old Citroën – what a way to treat a motoring classic.’
The Reverend Bennet heaved the spare into place, dropped the car down off the jack, then grunted like a tennis pro as he tightened the bolts.
‘You must let me know what you have for breakfast,’ said Newton. ‘It’s clearly top notch.’
‘There,’ said Bennet, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. ‘Want to see if she starts up OK?’ Newton hopped in and put his key in the ignition. The car hesitated for a second before, cautiously, it seemed to regain its pre-accident mojo. Once again, they were greeted with the fighter-plane roar of the engine. Grinning like a schoolboy, Newton gave Bennet the thumbs up.
‘What do you reckon?’ shouted Newton through the window.
‘I say we take the chance. I believe we could still head them off. At the least, we might hold them up.’
‘Agreed,’ said Newton, taking a deep breath. ‘Hop in.’
After a few clunks and pops, the bruised old Citroën heaved itself up out of the dust and gripped the tarmac. With La Senza so far ahead, they were going to have to flog it to make up the distance.
‘What the hell have they done to this car!’ marvelled Newton, shouting above the roaring engine.
‘Clever, isn’t it!’ the vicar shouted back. ‘You know they offered to do the same to my moped, but I said no. Not sure I’d feel safe on it.’ Laughing, they sped on past Tudela, Logroño and Miranda de Ebro, gradually clawing back La Senza’s head start.
‘If my damn phone was working we could check the ferry times,’ yelled Newton. ‘It would be helpful if you had a phone yourself Reverend.’
‘I’m so dreadfully sorry. Can’t be doing with the troublesome things.’ Unable to talk without shouting, they pressed on until they finally reached the city limits of Bilbao at dusk. Newton swung fast around the ring road and entered the port.
The ship had just left the dock.
The huge blue and white car ferry was edging away from its berth, positioning itself to take the channel out into the Bay of Biscay.
‘Bugger, bugger! Arsepipes!’ yelled Newton, banging the steering wheel.
‘My words exactly,’ said Bennet. They watched the ship for a few seconds in silence. ‘Hold on, give me the binoculars,’ said Bennet. The vicar focused the lenses. ‘Well helloooo ... look who’s having a stroll on the deck!’ He handed the binoculars back to Newton.
‘Sorry?’ said Newton. ‘What am I looking for?’
‘About two thirds along the first set of rails at the front.’
As Newton rolled the focus, a fuzzy figure sharpened into a somewhat erotically dressed nun.
‘Bennet, you old dog you! ’
‘No not her Dr Barlow, really. Look who’s with her.’ Newton panned left.
‘What? Is that him? That’s La Senza?’
‘I’m guessing yes. Quick, get back in the car, I’ve got an idea,’ said Bennet, pointing. ‘There’s a mole out there in the channel; they have to go past it. I think I might be able to take a shot.’
‘Gotcha,’ said Newton. Without hesitation he charged the Citroën away and along the dockside as the ferry, massive in the harbour lights, turned to face the open channel. They were through the gates now and out onto the mole, charging along the narrow access road as fast as Newton dared, the harbour wall dropping sheer away into the black water. Running out of road, Newton slammed on the brakes and the car squealed to a stop, inches from the edge. Together, they clambered up onto the harbour wall as the ferry, a looming mass of lights, began to build up its speed as it pushed for the open sea.
Up on the high wall, the Reverend Bennet pulled out his Beretta and steadied himself. Through the binoculars, Newton could clearly see La Senza, his nun and Ascot McCauley looking out as Spain drifted away from them, a look of smug satisfaction upon their faces.
‘Are you going to kill him?’ asked Newton.
‘Yep,’ said Bennet, cracking his neck and slowing his breathing.
‘Didn’t think you could do that,’ said Newton. ‘Thou shalt not ... and all that?’
‘Not a problem in this case,’ said the vicar without emotion, as he pulled back the hammer.
‘Why?’ said Newton.
‘Because he’s already dead.’ Bennet fired.
The small pistol was hardly the right weapon for a long-range assasination, but even so, Bennet’s shot was impressively close to the mark. La Senza’s small fancy dress hat whisked off the top of his head as if it had been pulled with a wire. Confused, the Cardinal looked up before Gunter, who had heard the crack of the bullet, grabbed La Senza and bustled him back into the hull.
‘Bastard!’ said Bennet, slapping the wall in frustration. ‘If I’d had my hunting rifle I could have put it right between the bastard’s eyes!’
They watched the ferry slip past them and away out to sea. In 24 hours it would be docking in Portsmouth and there was nothing they could do.
‘So, what now?’ asked Bennet. They leant wearily for a long five minutes against the wrecked DS until Newton broke the silence.
‘Fancy a drive?’
‘Where to?’ said Bennet, putting the Beretta back into his jacket.
‘Dieppe,’ said Newton. ‘It’s about ten hours away if you drive sensibly.’
‘And if we don’t drive sensibly?’
‘Seven.’
‘I’m not even going to ask what our average speed will be,’ said Bennet with a glint in his eyes. ‘But I’m up for it if you are.’
‘Get in,’ said Newton.
******
Free from interference, La Senza and his party could enjoy their voyage in relative serenity. Dinner was duly consumed in the cafeteria with La Senza eating an ungodly quantity of burgers and chips, inflicting on Baxter’s lean and sensible body a wave of trans fat and salt it had spent much of its adult life avoiding. Once they were suitably sated, La Senza and Sister Wendy retreated giggling to their cabin, leaving Ascot McCauley and Van Loop senior to sit awkwardly at the table over some cruelly expensive spirits.
