Torsten Dahl book 1 - Stand Your Ground (25 page)

“Keys!” he called out.

“Duh,” one of Vega’s men returned. “Already inside.”

Dahl regarded the man, his bullet head and Goofy ears, his skew-whiff tie and uncomfortable-looking suit. “Where do you find ‘em?” he asked Vega.

The Mexican nodded. “On this we can agree,” he muttered. “But they are my blood now. My clan. It is complicated.”

Dahl opened the door and pushed Vega in first, following the man like a patch of glue, sticking to him right across the front of the car. Vega fell into the driver’s seat and Dahl settled alongside.

“Drive.”

Vega turned the key and the engine roared to life.

Dahl struggled with the frustration and buckled up. “Now go.”

The car moved off, tires crunching as it left the concrete and turned onto the gravel drive. Vega juiced the throttle and watched Dahl, who motioned toward the upcoming gates. “Watch the road. Drive safe.”

“Oh, yes, Miss Daisy.” Vega slowed as the gates slid aside and then pulled out onto the badly lit road. Passing traffic was non-existent at this time of night. Dahl swiveled to check the rear view.

“Here they come.”

“What? You think they just let us go? They’re not stupid; they know you won’t shoot me as I drive.”

“Well, you got half of that right.”

Vega blinked. “Which half?”

Dahl ignored him and watched the road ahead, wary of Vega’s driving and those in pursuit. Each vehicle looked identical – black Lincolns with privacy glass all around and dull rims –the two following Dahl being driven more than a little enthusiastically.

Vega took a curve at speed, accelerating through it.

Dahl waved the gun. “Slow down.”

“Don’t you want to escape them?”

“I want to arrive in one piece.”

“Then maybe you should not have stabbed me,
puto.”
Vega gunned the engine, aiming for the side of the road.

Dahl had almost forgotten the letter opener in Vega’s hand. With a long-suffering sigh, he grabbed the steering wheel and held it straight with one hand, countering Vega’s lesser strength, much to the Mexican’s vexation, and holding the gun steady with the other.

“Stop acting like a child,” he said. “And just drive.”

Vega sprang at him, the rage taking hold, the wheel forgotten. His blind anger lent him brute strength. A blow flew past Dahl’s defenses, striking his skull and knocking the other side of his head against the window. The same hand struck again with less force, right above Dahl’s eye, causing a lightning flash of pain. Dahl leaned across and righted the wheel as the car drifted, ignoring his irate captive for the moment. A third punch landed, rendered weak by the lack of space in the front of the car.

Dahl set the car on course and sat back. “Are you finished?”

“Fuck you!
Fuck you!”
In his temper, Vega wrenched the letter-opener free and turned it upon his captor. Dahl caught the descending wrist and twisted until the letter opener fell to the carpet.

Cars zoomed up close in the rear view mirror.

Shit. This is getting out of hand.

Time to rein it all in.

Dahl twisted Vega’s wrist to snapping point, draining all the fight out of the man. “
Drive
. Foot on the pedal,” he said. “Or the letter opener goes in the other hand.”

Vega complied, nursing his wrist like it was a childhood pet, eyes glued to the road. Dahl twisted, aimed one of the pistols, and blew the back window out.

Glass shattered, air roared inside the car. Vega slewed the wheels. Dahl watched the chase vehicles, smiling grimly when the first skidded and then ran off the road, bouncing down a verge and slamming fender-first into the bottom of a ditch. It hit so hard the back-end shuddered and slid, almost toppling over. Dahl fixed his eyes upon the second vehicle. It raced up to them now, lights as bright as exploding planets, engine wailing under pressure. Vega took a tight turn at speed. Dahl estimated they were no more than ten minutes from the beach and quickly gave Vega directions. The pursuit car blasted up alongside, its passenger now eyeballing Vega and trying to aim his weapon at Dahl.

“You know,” Dahl said, “they really should shoot the tires. Or the engine.”

“Not all men were brought up eating Marine dirt,” Vega muttered.

Dahl silenced him by aiming behind Vega’s head and pulling the trigger. The bullet parted hairs before it crashed through the other car, hitting the driver and making it slide and veer into an unstoppable tumble, side over side until it finally stopped, wheels up.

“Actually, I went to an expensive English university. Until they kicked me out.”

Vega nodded as if everything he saw and heard made perfect sense. “Why’d they kick you out?”

Dahl wasn’t surprised when the smile came instantly, but he did try to hide it. “You’ve met her.”

“Seriously, I don’t care. You destroyed years of planning and investment today. Years.”

“No,” Dahl replied. “You did that when you decided to take me and my family on. Turn left up ahead.”

Vega slowed, took the turn, and then headed for the parking area that Dahl indicated. “Never,” he said.

Dahl looked at him. “What?”

“Never.”

“Look, just park there and shut the fu—”

Vega hit the gas pedal, deliberately crashing the car into a parked van. Dahl jerked forward. Vega jumped him again, striking at Dahl with both hands. “You’ll
never . . .
take me . . . alive!”

This time, Dahl had no patience. The clock was ticking and Grant had already been out of sight for too long. Johanna and the children were vulnerable. As Vega pounced, the Mad Swede met him head on, forehead down, teeth bared. Vega’s face impacted hard with the unbreakable wall, nose breaking, lips mashing and tearing, eye-socket cracking. As he yelped, Dahl ended it abruptly with a devastating punch fueled by fury, right between the Mexican’s eyes.

“I should kill you. Stay down.”

Vega did.

Why not kill him now?

It was the particular line he didn’t like to cross. Vega was nicely immobilized, out of it for a while. Situation anesthetized; don’t make it worse.

Dahl pocketed the gun and looked around the car. There was nothing with which to restrain Vega and he wasn’t about to let the man off the leash this time. Again, the extent of his plight hit home – he wore swim-shorts and stolen trainers; not even a belt to tie up the murderous Mexican. Not wanting to waste one more second, Dahl exited the car, grabbed Vega by the hair and pulled him into the street.

“Stay with me,” he said. “You run, I’ll shoot you in the gut.”

“Whatever,
cabrón
. I treat my men better than you treat your captives.”

Dahl didn’t even try to decipher that kind of thinking. It bordered on the entryway to the nuthouse. He pressed through the parking area to the very back and the place where he knew a gap in the fence existed . . . the beach beyond.

No sounds interrupted them. No tell-tale whispers or scrapes in the dark. The night arced above and the stars glittered their magic. This area of Barbados was as quiet as the grave as Torsten Dahl led Gabrio Vega, the boss of one of the world’s most brutal cartels, in search of Nick Grant, the loathsome facilitator of some of the worst crimes ever perpetrated on humanity.

Dahl wanted so badly to be wrong about Grant’s intentions. Almost wished his vile stain had left the country.

But it hadn’t.

FORTY THREE

Dahl moved like a nimble wraith, at home in the shadows, chasing one insanity while dragging another along at his side. Vega didn’t protest, stepping as well as he could. Dahl paused as he entered the tree-line and then studied the beach beyond. Swathed in darkness, he could actually make out very little but dark shapes, darker mounds, and the swell of the ocean in the distance. Waves lapped at the shore. A fetid stench of rotting undergrowth and litter competed with the salty air. He swept the area with an experienced gaze.

“Wait.”

He stayed absolutely still. Even when he knew exactly where Johanna, the kids and Dario were, he could not see them. That set his heart to beating faster. The fatherly panic reared up, but he forced it down.

Not now. Please, not now.

Half a minute passed and a tiny shape moved. That would be Isabella. All was well. Dahl broke cover, urged Vega along and headed in their general direction. Still, he didn’t trust the darkness, the shadows. If Grant truly had taken the GPS receiver tracking Dario from Vega, why would he . . .

Dahl paused.

“Why did you send Grant?” he whispered to Vega. “Why him?”

Vega’s eyes lit up with the knowledge of a well-kept secret. “Because Grant wants you dead. You. Not your family.
You.
And he has the best motivation
.”

Dahl didn’t see it coming until it smashed him on the head. Literally. Grant flew out of the darkness, a weapon raised, and brought it crashing down onto Dahl, sending him to his knees in the sand.

“He was waiting for
you
.” Vega grinned. “Not your family.” Grant threw Vega a weapon, something long and rusty and raggedly sharp.

Dahl bled from the temple. Midnight swirled around his head, blurring all focus. The sand shifted beneath him, but it wasn’t the sand, he realized. It was his equilibrium, stretching from dazed to woozy. Grant hadn’t survived and thrived so long by being stupid, so he came at Dahl again while he was down. The weapon swung from on high, this time striking Dahl’s substantial shoulder, generating pain in spears that branched off and ran the length of his body. Dahl cried out and fell sideways, grabbing his shoulder, blinded by agony. Vega suddenly came to intensely animated life, saying something about taking revenge for his men and their families.

“My wife? Her name was Sarah.” The Facilitator spoke from above him. “Sarah Green. Hell, she was a firecracker at school. Teased all the boys.” He bent over to whisper into Dahl’s ear. “But I won her. She was
mine.”

Another swing of the weapon – Dahl guessed it to be a length of iron pipe – and fire erupted along the top on his back, just below his neck. Still woozy, he wobbled, held up by one hand scrabbling around in the sand.

“My daughter? Michelle. Also
mine.”

Dahl knew it was coming. Grant, despite his own experience, couldn’t resist the revenge speech, now that he was on top. Dahl rolled forward as the pipe came down, missing the brunt of the blow, the movement making him even more light-headed. Blood poured from his head to the thirsty sand.

Grant drew his frame upright, maybe realizing he’d lost some control. Vega jumped in and drove two kicks into Dahl’s back, now brandishing the length of broken railing. Grant upended the iron pipe so that its jagged point aimed downwards.

“Right through,” Vega encouraged him. “Send it right through one side and out the other.”

“
Father?
” A young male voice then spoke out. “You killed the woman I loved, and tried to have me killed. Now I return the favor.”

Dario came out of the pitch-black beach, an avenging dark-angel, gun raised, and swung a rock. The weapon struck Vega on the top of the skull, sent him spinning, and made Grant lunge away. Dario’s second swipe missed its mark, and then he was leaping after his father, bending down to take up the discarded length of broken railing, catching his father and driving it into the back of his neck as both men staggered.

Vega gurgled in the sand, blood leaking from his body, painting the beach only with a deeper darkness at this hour. He reached up a shaking hand.

“Make sure . . . make sure . . .” he rattled. “They give me a good . . . send-off.”

The delusions of power, of leadership, of money. They never ceased and they were never less than ocean deep.

Dahl had used the time to hold still, to grab his spinning head and make the world normal again. Pain still lanced all his nerve endings, but the faintness had passed. He shuffled around in the sand now as he heard the empty clicking of Dario’s gun.

The Facilitator took the opportunity to launch his final, deadly attack.

Dahl rose as Grant descended, grabbed the wrist that held the pipe and helped the man on his way, flinging him over his head. Dahl crabbed around as quickly as he could, moaning at the pain. Grant had landed on his back and rolled, and now he came up swinging. A snarl made a rictus of his features as he used the jagged pipe end as a sword tip, stabbing fast – two, three times. Dahl shifted slightly each time, working from his knees and doing his best to allow the pipe to pass him by, turning at the last moment, using the passing time to regain his strength.

Grant only tried harder, clearly knowing he could only defeat Dahl while the Mad Swede remained weakened by injury.

It almost looked absurd – the suited Englishman fencing with the pipe. But Dahl could not underestimate Grant. This was the man who’d taken out the main contingent of the Russian mob that had slaughtered his wife and child. This was the man who’d held governments for ransom and initiated coups. He wouldn’t go gently.

And he had reason to fight, as good as Dahl’s.

Grant struck again. Dahl used the moment to spring to a standing position. The pipe scraped down his arm, but it didn’t matter. He’d regained his feet, forcing Grant to circle. A few puny stabs elicited no reaction from Dahl, but when he circled around to where he could lay eyes upon his family – his concentration broke.

Grant sprang. The pipe hit again, swinging across Dahl’s neck, leaving a three-inch gash but luckily not breaking a critical blood vessel. Nothing serious, Dahl knew, but again he’d been undone by the nearness of kin.

Hoping Johanna turned the girls’ heads away, Dahl moved into Grant’s next swing, dropped a shoulder and hurled the man into the air. Grant landed hard, but came up quick, kicking out and striking with double jabs.

“Look at you, trying to fight. Thought you were just a back-room pussy.”

“Trained by the best,” Grant said. “Akia Dojo. I’ll sell your girls to them when we’re done.”