The Blue Ring (11 page)

"Stand
up."

Nervously
the Frenchman stood. Creasy moved around behind him, unlocked the cuffs and
slipped them into the left-hand pocket of his coat. The other two pairs were
already in the same pocket.

"Let's
go," he said. "Let's go and meet this sweet partner of yours."

In his
life Jens Jensen had never received a severe beating. It terrified him both
mentally and physically. The worst part was the mindlessness and casualness of
it all. He lay on the floor, curled up while the two men kicked him. It went on
for several minutes. They were not in a frenzy, but taking turns, just placing
their kicks where they wanted. On the other side of the room he could hear
Michael grunting as he got the same treatment from two other men.

They
had arrived in the back of a van, with guns at their heads, and had been taken
through the back door of a large house, through the kitchen and down the steps
to the basement. They had been ordered to lie on the floor with their arms in
front of them and not to look up. A few minutes later they had heard echoing
footsteps.

From a
prone position Jens had seen two pairs of shoes approach and come to a stop.
One pair was brown, highly polished alligator leather; the other was
high-heeled and black: the shoes of Denise Defors. Jens assumed that the man
was Yves Boutin. The man spoke to them in English with a heavy French accent.

"In
exactly ten minutes, I'm going to ask you some questions. Between now and then
my men will give you a very slight example of what will happen to you if you
don't answer them, and answer them truthfully."

Boutin
and the woman had walked away and other shoes started pounding into his body.
He had heard Michael shout, "Curl up! Don't resist."

Irrationally,
through the agony, something came into Jens' mind. He remembered, all those
years ago at school, the physics master trying to explain Einstein's Theory of
Relativity: "If you sit on a scalding hot oven for two seconds, it feels
like two minutes, but if you kiss a beautiful girl for two minutes, it feels
like two seconds."

The ten
minutes of the beating felt like ten hours. Then it stopped, and he lay there,
still curled up, moaning with the pain. The two men above were discussing
whether Marseille would beat Monaco at football the next afternoon. Then one of
them said, "Straighten yourself out. Lie on your stomach with your hands
outstretched. Both of you."

Slowly
Jens began to uncurl, every limb in agony. He was too slow. The man stepped
forward and drove a foot into his kidneys. Jens yelled in pain and rolled over
onto his stomach. The alligator shoes returned to within inches of his
outstretched hands. Beyond them he could see the woman from the waist down,
standing a few feet away.

"What
is your name?" the voice asked.

In an
instant terror changed to anger. "I'm a fucking policeman," Jens
snarled. "And you'll pay for this."

One of
the alligator shoes moved out of sight and then slammed down on Jens' right
hand. The Dane screamed again and then heard Michael shouting, "Answer his
questions! All of them! Truthfully!"

Jens
then heard a dull thud and a grunt from Michael, as a foot slammed into him.
The voice said to Michael, "If you open your mouth again without being
told, you'll get a bullet in the leg."

A silence, then the voice asked Jens again, "What's your name?"

Jens answered through waves of pain. "My name is Jens Jensen."

"What are you doing here?"

"I was forced here at gunpoint."

The voice said, "If you get clever you'll suffer. What are you doing in Marseille?"

"I came to confer with a colleague here."

"About what?"

"Missing persons."

He heard the woman laugh. Boutin said harshly to her, "Shut up!"

To Jens he said, "So why were you asking questions about me? And why did you come to my club?"

"Because you're known to deal in both drugs and women. The two go hand in hand."

At that moment, Creasy was looking at the house from a rise in the road three hundred
metres away. He was sitting in the passenger seat of Corelli's Renault. Corelli sat behind the wheel, speaking.

"There will be one or two guards at the main gate and a third somewhere in the
grounds. The guards at the main gate will let us through. I'm expected."

"But I'm not," Creasy stated.

"I'll introduce you as a colleague," the Frenchman answered. "There will be
no problem at the gate. I have brought colleagues here sometimes in the past."

"For what?"

A long pause, then Corelli said quietly, "For pleasure."

Beside him Creasy grunted. "What a pigsty you all live in! What happens when we
go into the house?"

"There will be one or two guards inside the front door. They will definitely search
you for weapons."

Grimly Creasy said, "They're going to find them...in the very nicest way. Will
they have guns in their hands, or under their jackets?"

"Under
their jackets."

"Let's
go."

It went
as the policeman had predicted. The massive gates were opened and a man stepped
out and shone a torch into the car, first onto Corelli's face and then on
Creasy's.

"He's
a colleague," Corelli explained.

The
guard nodded and waved them on. They drove up a gravel driveway and parked next
to a red Mercedes sports car.

"Is
that Boutin's?"

"No,
his mistress'."

They
climbed out of the car, walked up the steps and Corelli pressed a button. They
heard the chimes inside and a few seconds later the door opened and they went
through.

There
were two of them, both hard-faced; one tall and so thin as to be almost
skeletal; the other was short and stocky. Both wore loose-fitting suits. They
nodded respectfully to Corelli but gave Creasy a suspicious look.

"A
colleague," Corelli explained. "Your boss is expecting me."

"He's
in the basement," the short one said, and then gestured at Creasy.
"Are you taking him with you?"

"Yes."

"Then
I'll have to check him."

"Go
ahead," Creasy said affably and unbuttoned his coat.

The
guard moved forward, raising his hands to pat him down. He was about six inches
shorter than Creasy. Neither the guard nor Corelli saw the uppercut coming. It
was just a blur; a sharp crack as the guard's jaw snapped shut, and the man was
lifted off his feet by the force of the blow. The tall guard was fast but not
fast enough.

His
right hand had vanished under his jacket before the unconscious guard had hit
the floor. But as his pistol came out, he knew he was too late. He saw the
levelled Colt with its fat silencer. A split second later he felt the impact of
the first bullet into his heart. He was punched back onto the wall. The second
bullet went through his forehead an inch above his nose and splattered his
brains against the wall. Unfortunately, he had time to flick off the safety of
his pistol. It hit the flag-stoned floor and fired a bullet which narrowly
missed Corelli's feet. The pistol had no silencer and the shot echoed around
the room.

Instantly
Creasy turned and fired two shots into the heart of the unconscious guard and a
third into his brain. Then, within seconds, he had unscrewed the silencer and
changed the magazine. Corelli stood frozen as Creasy reholstered the pistol and
unclipped the SMG.

"Move!"
the American said. "I follow you to the basement and no tricks. I've got
my thumb on the button."

In the basement they heard the single shot. Boutin's head jerked up in surprise and he
turned to the open door and the long flight of stone steps leading up to the kitchen.

"Get up there," he snapped at one of the guards, and to another he ordered,
"Cover the steps."

The first guard ran up the steps three at a time, his pistol outstretched. The
second guard took up position at the open door, gun raised.

Michael lifted his chin and looked up and around the room. Boutin had grabbed Denise's
arm and had pulled her away from the line of fire into a corner. He was holding
a pistol. She looked frightened. A guard was standing over Jens with his pistol
pointed at his head.

Michael assumed that the remaining guard was doing the same behind him; he decided to
wait before making any move. From above he heard a two-second burst from an SMG
and a scream, and knew that Creasy was in the building. Michael's brain shifted
into high gear. If it was Creasy and he had an SMG he would have other weapons.
He definitely would not come down those stairs unprotected, and he wouldn't
come down firing, in case Michael or Jens were hit by a stray bullet. No, he
would neutralise everybody in the room first. Michael tensed.

Upstairs in the kitchen, Creasy stepped over the body of the guard he had just shot.
Corelli was immobilised, handcuffed by one hand to a steel pipe by the big
oven. He stood and watched, his face ashen.

Creasy moved up to the top of the steps, pulling out the dark goggles and adjusting
them over his eyes. He reclipped the SMG and unclipped a phosphorescent
grenade. He edged to the open door and, in a fraction of a second, took a
glance down the stairs, then took the pin out of the grenade, set the lever
free, counted in his head and with great force hurled it down the steps. It hit
the floor between Jens and Michael, ricocheted off the back wall and then
exploded in a blinding white light. Everyone in the room instinctively covered
their eyes.

Michael
shouted, "Jens, don't move!" Then he shouted again, this time up the
stairs: "Three of them armed! One unarmed."

Boutin
was shouting something which Michael could not understand. Then Michael heard a
thud and two short bursts from an SMG. Then a single shot. The woman was
screaming in terror.

Michael
knew that the thud would have been Creasy, rolling into the room. Two short
bursts would have taken out the two guards. Then Creasy would have changed the
SMG to single shot and disabled Boutin.

Slowly
the glare on the other side of Michael's eyelids diminished and Michael opened
them. The scenario was exact. Creasy was crouched just inside the door. Michael
noted the webbing under the open coat, holding the grenades and spare mags. He
saw the blur of Creasy's right hand as he changed the mag of the SMG. The guard
by the door was lying face down. Michael turned his head. The guard who had
been standing over him was lying crumpled in the corner. Boutin was on his
knees, one arm across his eyes, the other clutching his shoulder. His gun lay
on the floor a few feet away from him. The woman was slumped against the wall,
both hands across her eyes. Creasy's voice snapped out. "Jensen! Stay
still! Michael, move! Get Boutin's gun."

Michael
scrambled to his feet, ran over and picked up Boutin's gun. By now the light in
the room was returning to normal. Creasy rose, pulled off the goggles and
dropped them into his pocket. He said, "Michael, the guards are
kaput." He gestured at Boutin and his mistress. "Cover those two from
the other side of the door. There are other guards in the grounds. They'll be
on their way." He disappeared up the steps.

Boutin's
eyes were open now. He looked up at Michael and then at his two dead
bodyguards. His mistress had sunk to her haunches, trembling in shock. Boutin
took his hand from his shoulder and looked at the blood on his palm. He started
to say something, but Michael's voice cut him off.

"Shut
your mouth or I'll put a bullet through it."

From
upstairs they heard two more bursts from the SMG, and then nothing.

From
the floor, Jens asked in a dazed voice, "Who the hell was that?"

Michael
grinned down at him.

"That
was my old man."

"Jesus
Christ," the Dane muttered. "Can I get up now?"

"No.
He said to lie still. It won't take long."

It took
a minute, then Creasy's voice called down the stairs.

"Michael?"

"Yes.
Everything OK here."

"Good.
Does Jensen know how to use a gun?"

Jens
provided the answer himself in a pained voice. "Yes! Jensen does know how
to use a gun and he's fed up lying here doing nothing."

Jensen
heard a short laugh and then Creasy shouted, "Get one of the guard's guns
and come up here."

The
Dane scrambled to his feet, moved to the guard near the door and rolled him
over onto his back with his foot. The pistol was lying under him, its barrel
covered in blood. Quickly Jens picked it up by the barrel, wiped it against the
guard's jacket, checked the safety was off and that the magazine was full, and
then ran up the stairs.

He
found Creasy in the kitchen with Serge Corelli.

"What
the hell?" Jens asked, astonished.

"Later!"
Creasy snapped. "We don't have much time. The outside guards are dead and
I doubt there are any more upstairs. They'd be here by now, or they might
be hiding. Let's check it out. I'll go first. You watch my back, from about
five metres."

There
were no guards upstairs, only an old woman, cowering at the end of the
corridor. There were also two drugged girls in separate cell-like rooms. Jens
recognised the first one immediately.

"Hanne
Andersen," he said. "I was studying her file only a few days
ago."

She sat
on the bed, looking back at him with glazed eyes. He spoke a few words in
Danish to her, mentioning her name, and her eyes cleared for a moment and she
nodded.

"Later,"
Creasy said. "Let's check the other rooms."

They
found the other girl in the next one. She was sitting in a corner with her arms
around her drawn-up knees. There were bruises on her arms and face. She was
very young, dark and beautiful, and very frightened. She cringed further back
into the corner, mumbling in English, "No...No...Please...No more."