'"Hit her? With fist?" For a moment he frowned, looked puzzled. But then, grinning as best he could through split lips, he said, "No, stupid, I not hit. I fuck her!"
'And he did…' Jake's voice was a growl now, a sob, a low moan. 'With that dog Castellano watching, and laughing. And me: I couldn't look away. I had to look.' He ripped her underclothes right off her. The skinny bastard — he didn't pause to get undressed — he just… he just… And Natasha, she didn't even speak, didn't cry out. But she did cry. I heard her sobbing…'
Trask cut in, Til take it from here, Jake, okay?' And before the other could protest:
'You were found in an alley badly beaten. Four broken ribs, and your nose much as we see it now. The rest of your face was a mass of bruises. You'd been kicked, too — someone had really worked on you — so badly that for a day or two the French doctors couldn't be sure they'd be able to save… everything. But you still had your plastic, and paper money in your pockets, so it looked like the motive wasn't theft. In fact they never discovered what the motive had been; even when you could talk you weren't telling anyone, said you didn't know. Now why was that, Jake?'
'I was going to handle it my own way,' Jake answered, dispassionately now. 'And I did, eventually.'
'Yes, you did,' Trask nodded. 'But that came later. Do you want to pick the story up again?'
The other's face was white, drawn, but he nodded…
'I was three weeks in hospital,' Jake eventually continued. 'No word from Natasha; I didn't know what had happened to her, but I prayed it wasn't physical. Or rather, nothing more than she'd already suffered. As for what had suffered… I think it was as much mental as physical, worrying about Natasha, I mean. But at last they turned me loose. By which time there'd been plenty of time to think things out. Now it was up to her. If she still wanted out — if she still daredp>
— I was her man. HuhlThat old motto of mine: "Who Dares Wins." Well, I dared for sure, because I loved her. See, I still hadn't learned my lesson. Then again, do fools in love ever learn?' He managed a wry grin. 'How about that: Jake Cutter, philosopher!
'About Jean Daniel, which was the only name I ever knew him under: my initial intentions towards that bastard had been very bloody. At first… well, I admit that I'd equipped myself. And I had gone looking for them, too — the Mob, I mean — but carefully. And as I healed, so I quit abusing my system with booze and maybe some other stuff. The army had trained us hard: "body maintenance," my Section Commander had used to call it. But now I found it really difficult to get back into the routine. Oh, I was still young, but as you've pointed out, Mr Trask, that Jean Daniel had done a hell of a good job on me. Such a good job, it took me four long months to put the damage right.
'I completed my recuperation in England, went back to Marseille. But time was passing and I still hadn't heard from Natasha, I had given her both my English and French telephone numbers; if she couldn't speak to me, she should certainly be able to speak to friends of mine. Still I hadn't heard from her, and time seemed against me, seemed to be flying. But where Natasha was concerned: it was like some kind of paradox, the months passing like so many years! I couldn't forget her
— I still wanted her — and the debt that the Mob owed us was slowly slipping out of memory and into the past
'Earlier, however, not long after leaving the hospital, I had found Castellano's villa. I did it the easy way, by tailing the tail. I'd grown a designer beard, tinted my sideboards grey and changed my mode of dress, even developed a limp. Or rather, I had deliberately held onto the limp I'd been left with, legacy of Jean Daniel. In all I looked quite a lot older. And I was staying out of bars, places where people might have been warned to look out for me. But one lonely night — I don't know, maybe I was hoping against hope that Natasha would be there — I went back to the bar where I'd first met her.
'I suppose I was lucky I'd developed my disguise, for Jean Daniel was there. He was on his own, didn't notice me. But when he left I was waiting in my car, followed him to the villa. And having found the place, I sat back out of sight and watched it, watched its clientele… hard men, all of them! Then, for some few weeks, I followed them, too. Well and good — now I knew the places to avoid if ever Natasha came back to Marseille; I mean, I knew which routes not to take getting her out of there. And I knew to get her out fast.
'For despite all my earlier intentions, finally I was getting some sense. These people played rough, played for keeps. So maybe I'd be wise to forget the revenge thing, simply take Natasha and run for home. If she ever came back. 'And eventually she did.
'It was less than three years ago, in early November. I got a message from a friend, who gave me a Moscow telephone number. And when I called… I knew it could only be Natasha. She was scared. Castellano had done a job on her, ruined her reputation with the Moscow Mob. For a long time they'd left her alone, let her go to the dogs. She'd been unable to find work, and finally she'd become desperate. Then she'd begged a Mob boss to let her run drugs again. And now she was coming to Marseille. But Castellano knew she was coming and she was more afraid of him than ever.
'I asked her if she remembered our previous plans. She did, and was ready to do whatever I'd worked out for us. But her own idea was a lot more daring: to dump her drug consignment cheaply on a rival French gang, and then to run with the money! Even cheaply it would still be worth a quarter million sterling!
'At first I backed away from it. But the more I thought it over the more I liked it. Wouldn't it be as good, even better, than the somewhat more physical revenge that I'd once planned? And it would hit them all, not just Jean Daniel, who obviously had been my principal target.
'Natasha had already contacted her buyer; she was supposed to come by yacht but instead would fly into Marseille. That way she'd have time to dispose of her load and get out of France — with me, of course — before Castellano and his people even knew she was missing. My part of it would be simple: drive like hell for Lyon, Dijon, and Paris, finally the Tunnel. I'd studied the routes, couldn't find any fault with the plan. We'd be on board a train and passing beneath the English Channel before the Marseille Mob even thought to backtrack Natasha's movements. So we reckoned, anyway.
'Maybe it would have been easier to fly. But that way would have meant leaving my car behind. I had a beauty, an almost new Peugeot. Also, if we'd flown the Mob would find it a lot easier to track us. Idiot that I must have been, I still hadn't fully appreciated just what kind of people I was fooling with…'
Jake paused to look at Trask. 'You compared the modern Mob to terrorist organizations. Well, I thought I had learned something about terrorism in the SAS. Maybe I had, but plainly not enough. And anyway, that was just classroom stuff. Whatever, I thought of the Mob a lot differently from you: as just a bunch of hoods, I suppose. But you were right and I was wrong.
'They were probably watching her all the way down the line. They'd probably always watched her… maybe they have watchers for all their couriers and dupes. Take Jean Daniel, for example. That spindly bastard was just another watchdog. Not so hard to understand when you consider the street value of the merchandise…
'Natasha was wearing dark glasses, a wig and all when I met her off the plane. But I knew her immediately. And so did they. Then… it was like a repetitive nightmare, almost a repeat of last time. Except this time there were five of them at the villa, and the way they went at it…
'… Oh God! Oh God! — I knew they wouldn't be taking prisoners this time.'