I was seething, I was steaming and yet I felt icy cold as my mind screamed out that they had taken Tracey and he was now inside the building. My mind was telling me to get up and run and start hammering at the door, but even without a memory, some basic instinct told me to stay put and carry on as before.
One part of my mind was telling me to hurry up and move faster, while another was saying keep going slow and not be observed. I think training and instinct won out over love, for I kept up my slow movement towards the villa and then I heard a hissing noise. It was off to my left and it wasn't a natural sound of the night, but that of a human trying to attract attention.
Sssssh,' it went. Sssssh.' I kept moving now towards the noise and then made the same noise myself. `Sssssh.'
Michael?' came a whisper that could barely be heard. Is that you Michael?'
`Yes,' I whispered back.
`Over here,' and I realised that it was Ferdie for only he knew me to use that name. I began to move faster and was soon in the darkness of the villa's walls. I then saw a door that was almost flat to the ground was partially opened and I could see his eyes shine out of his black face.
`Ferdie?'
`Yes Michael. Here. Quick. It's the cellar.' I didn't need any urging knowing that Tracey was now inside the villa, and that I wanted to get in there as soon as possible. The cellar trap door opened wider as I got close and literally fell inside for about four feet, bouncing down some small steps. I heard the trap close and then Ferdie was helping me up from the floor.
Oh Michael,' he cried as he took me into a bear hug. I prayed that you would come to save us. But I've bad news. They've got your wife!'
I know,' I said, finally getting out of his clasping arms. I saw. Where have they taken her?'
`To the study.'
`How come you're down here?'
`I hid when the men came. The pushed all the others upstairs but didn't know I was down here at the time.'
`How many men?'
`Ten. Four white and six black.' I liked his crisp answers.
`Where have they taken my wife?'
`To the study. Two of them. The boss men I think.'
`Where are the others?'
`I think that there are one each in the ground floor rooms. Two out on the balconies, and I'm not sure where the others are on the second floor.'
`Okay, now listen to me carefully. First show me where the study is, and then get all the house staff together in one room if you can. Then tie something white, a handkerchief or something, to the outside door handle. This will tell me what room not to thrown a grenade into. Do you understand what I have just said?'
`Upstairs, all in one room. White thing on handle.'
`Right, because as soon as I get into that study, shooting will start. First from me and then all hell will break loose from the outside. Now lead on McDuff.'
`Eh?'
`Forget it. Get me to the study quick.' I then held onto his shirt tail as he led me through the cellar to the stairs and we went up as quietly as we could. He paused at the top and slowly pushed open the door and we slipped through and were in a kind of lobby. It wasn't very clear where we were for the lights were out.
There,' he whispered, and felt his hand point me towards a faint glimmer of light coming from under a closed door. That's the study.'
`Right. Off you go and keep your head down and get the others into a safe room.' I didn't hear or see him move off but caught a glimpse of a shadow silently move up the staircase off to my left. But my eyes were drawn to that thin sliver of light and I moved closer and could hear voices coming from the inside.
`Where is he?'
I don't know I tell you,' came Tracey's voice. I...no...no, please no. Aaaagh,' which came out as almost a scream. I opened the door and I was transfixed to the floor for a moment.
Tracey was stretched out over a desk, face down and her wrists were being held by one of the Boyle brothers, his face twisted in some sort of grin. Tracey's dress was up over his hips and the other Boyle had his trousers down round his ankles and I could see quite clearly that he was in the process of fucking my Tracey. He was holding his hips and his body was so close that he had to be up inside him.
`No, no,' Tracey was screaming as he tried to twist his body from side to side, and the brother who was holding his hips was laughing.
`Wait till I tell old man Spencer that we've fucked his pretty little boy,' he said as I saw his hips bucking as he fucked the backside that belonged to me.
Then the brother holding Tracey's wrists said, `When he's finished with you, I'll be the next one to fuck you.'
`No! That'll be me,' I said as I moved into the light. The one who'd spoken last looked up in surprise. The one whose cock was up inside Tracey turned to look at me.
I blew his head off with one shot, his body twisting as he was torn out of Tracey who screamed, the man's prick still erect. The other brother, I never did know which one was which, began to move to go beneath the desk but my second shot went straight into the top of his head. Now if the bullet didn't stay in his body, it should have come out through his arsehole at the angle he was at. I knew they were both dead before they'd even hit the floor.
Tracey, crying tears the like I'd never seen before, came up off the desk and flew into my arms, crying like mad.
`He raped me Marcus, he raped me,' he sobbed as he clung to me. My left arm had gone round him for I still held my right arm out with the gun in case there were any more people in the gloom of the room and also to cover the two bodies now sprawled out on the carpet.
As I held him tight, his dress now down and covering that bum that I'd seen a Boyle fucking, I heard a crescendo and fusillade of shots begin outside.
Stay here,' and pushed him into a corner and sat him down. Back in a minute.' As much as I wanted to stay and comfort him, instinct told me that I must go on to protect the others. I went and crashed through a door and shot the man that was firing a sub machine gun out of the broken window. As he fell I shouted, Clear!' and then went and crashed through another door and saw that the man had already been killed. Clear!' I shouted again and heard the crashing of glass from the room I'd just vacated, knowing that one of mine had come through the window.
Squad to the stairs,' I screamed out and began to go upstairs. The call was to let them know that I was going up and not to take me out by mistake. I heard somebody come up after me. I'm going right!' and that was the way I went knowing that whoever it was would go left. `Leave the room with white on the handle,' I shouted, not knowing which side Ferdie would have shepherded the staff to a safe room.
There were still some shots being fired from the outside and I could hear some still coming from one or two of these upstairs rooms. The first door I reached didn't have white on the handle, so I pulled a pin from a grenade and quickly opened the door and tossed it inside. I waited for the explosion before going in and firing at the reeling figure.
I heard one more grenade go off and then some shots and then it was silent.
`White flag!' I heard called out from the other wing.
Hold and defend,' I shouted back as other feet pounded up the stairs. Friendly,' I called as I moved back towards the stairs. I couldn't see exactly who it was. There were two of them.
`Take out the rest of the rooms on this side,' I ordered them and as they went off the way I had come, I went towards the flagged door. It was Mark who was waiting for me.
Well done,' I said. Go grenade the other rooms.' He grinned, his teeth shining so white in his blacked up face. I then turned to the flagged door knob and kicked the door open and stood back off to one side.
`How many in the room,' I called out.
`Six Michael. Only six,' I heard Ferdie call out, panic in his voice. If he had called out that it had been seven or eight, a stun grenade would have gone in.
`Anybody hurt?' I asked as I went in and saw the people there all cowering into the corners furthest from the door.
`No. We're all right, frightened, but all right,' Ferdie got out.
`Fine. Stay here till I give you the all clear.'
That's my friend,' I heard him say to the others as I moved away. I said that he would save us.' I gave a grin at his faith in me that I had doubted. Another two had come upstairs and I heard three grenades go off before first one called out.
Left side clear!' Then came, Right side clear!' `Downstairs clear! Plus one shaken Tracey.' I grinned again and then went back downstairs.
`Sergeant!' I called out.
`Yes sir,' came Charlie's voice from behind me.
`Check the mopping up please.'
`Yes sir. Knowles and Flanagan, upstairs left. Welsh and Tyler, upstairs right. Fraser take over the outside detail with Foster and Stiles. Jones, come with me on this ground floor.'
`Don't forget the cellar,' I called out to him as I went into the study and lifted a still shaking Tracey up from the floor and held him in my arms.
`There, there darling. It's all over now.'
`Oh Marcus. It was horrible,' he sobbed.
`You'll get over it. It's not as if it's the first time you've had a man take you roughly, is it?'
It's not that,' he wailed. It was to see that man's head just explode before my eyes. See his brains fly everywhere. It was horrible. Why do you seem to get into this kind of thing nearly every week? God, I'm going to have nightmares for weeks!' and off he went again into a crying jag.
Why hadn't it affected me in a like kind of way I asked myself? Was I used to killing people? Shooting them at point blank range? Come to that, why did I seem to keep putting myself into a position where it was a kill or be killed kind of situation? Questions, always questions without any probable answers. Though I had the thought in the back of my mind that the answer lay back there in London. In the Foreign Office. In Spencer's office to be more precise. That was where I was most likely to be able to find the answers to many of the questions that I wanted to ask.
I was calming Tracey down, not by saying anything, but just by holding him, letting him know that there was somebody there for him to cling too in this time of his stress. As I held him, I saw a drinks cabinet and gently steered him over that way and then sat him down in a chair and quickly got out a bottle of gin and poured him a strong belt of the stuff.
He took a big mouthful and nearly choked on the raw spirit, but managed to keep it down and then took a smaller mouthful and seemed to calm down quite quickly.
`Now come old girl and buck up. Don't let the lads see you in this state.' He looked up at me and gave me a small smile and a hiccup.
`Okay Marcus. I'll behave myself from now on. I'm feeling a bit better now that I know that you are all right.'
`Good girl. Now I've got to see to the others. Just sit here and finish your drink.' I went out of the study and called out for the squad to report as soon as they'd finished. They came up to me in pairs and when all were there, we went into the study for a debriefing. We now had all the house lights on and I let them help themselves to some drinks, Charlie passing me over a gin and tonic before pouring himself one.
Knowles!' I cried out, seeing blood running down from his sleeve. You've been wounded!'
`Flesh wound on the upper arm sir. Hurts a bit but I'm fine otherwise. Does that rate a bonus sir?'
Cheeky blighter,' cut in Charlie. Here have a drink,' and handed him a glass. The bloody fool put out his wounded arm to take it. `Fuck off and get your own. You ain't wounded,' he grinned and got one back as Knowles went off to pour his own.
`Well I think you should start first sir, seeing as you began the shooting match,' Sergeant Feathers, who we know as Charlie, said to start the ball rolling. All the men now had drinks and were either sitting or standing round in the study of the villa we had just taken.
As I said earlier,' I started after a small coughing fit. I had an inside contact. It was him that let me into the cellar after Tracey had been taken out by the cars and brought into the building. I told him to see that the staff were put in a safe room and I came into this room where the Boyle brothers were just about to take advantage of my Tracey. I shot them both. I then took out the man in the left hand front room but the man in the right hand room had already been shot.' I carried on to tell the rest of it and then heard each in turn say what they did or didn't do. The taking out of the two on the balconies. The shooting up of the front rooms. The storming of the other rooms both downstairs and upstairs.
`Body count?' I asked, knowing we only had one wounded.
Four whites and four blacks dead,' Charlie said. We also found some discarded weapons from those who couldn't face it.'
That would be two, I think according to Ferdie, my man inside,' I said. So now down to what we really came here for apart from the Boyle brothers. The safe in this room. Find the safe and here,' I called our Irish explosives man Mick over, take this,' and I gave him my piece of plastique and the detonator, and get it open for me.'
`Lovely stuff this is,' he said as he rolled it around in his fingers. The others, meantime, had got up and began pulling pictures off the wall and tapping the wall panelling. It only took a few minutes to find it and Mick went to work. I was surprised at the small amount that he moulded round the combination lock. It looked about the size of a grape and just as ridiculous with this bloody big pencil type of detonator by comparison. That he put the surplus explosive into his pocket didn't escape my notice, but I didn't say anything.
`What is the time of this bloody great thing,' he asked of me, holding up the detonator.
`Er, thirty minutes,' I said.
`Christ, we'll be here all night with this as it is.' He then surprised me by smashing the slim end before even inserting it into the explosive and then sucking on the end of it a couple of times. Taking it out of his mouth and looking at it and then giving it another couple of sucks, checking it each time before he actually stuck it into the small bomb.
You have to be careful when you do it that way,' he grinned. It could go off in your mouth.'
`How long will it take now?' I asked, and then felt foolish for I somehow knew he was going to get a rise out of this.
Oh I would say about ten to fifteen seconds.' He grinned at the sudden scattering of men as they raced to the furthest corners of the room, myself included as he, with a broad smile on his face, sauntered over to join us. He knew exactly what he had been doing for when he reached us, he turned round and said, Voila,' and the bloody thing went off as if on cue.
The explosion was still quite loud but not at all dangerous to those of us cowering in the corner. He blown it just right, for the safe door was only left being held on by a thin strip of metal and hanging down for me to see inside. He hadn't even charred a piece of paper and he went up in my estimation at his expertise and forgave him for keeping some for himself.
Okay. This is my department,' I said to the others, taking a bag from one of the men. Would a couple of you go and bring down the staff from their room.' I then emptied quite a lot out of that safe that must have been four foot square. They was a lot of money there too which would help with my expenses. I closed up the bag after I had taken one wad of American dollars out that I was about to use.
I now went to the telephone and was pleased that it was still working and rang the number that Samson had given me. He answered it after a couple of rings.
`Trouble?' he asked straight away.
`Of a sort. I have eight bodies here that I need disposing of. Four black and four white.'
`Are they the four whites who arrived today?'
`Yes.'
`Get their passports if you can and I will see that they leave the country. The blacks?'
`Don't know them.'
`No matter. Get the lot down to the jetty there at the villa and leave them. Somebody will come along later and deep six them all.' And that was it! How to dispose of eight bodies. Leave them on a jetty and they will disappear.
By the time I'd finished the phone call, all the staff were assembled in the hall. I told Charlie to get the squad to get the bodies down to the jetty while I spoke to the waiting staff. I kept Tracey with me and let the others handle the dead men, especially the Boyle brothers that I didn't want him to see.
Now,' I began to those in the hall, who was the titular head of you all.' I looked at their blank faces. `Okay, who was boss man among you?'
`Er, I was,' said an elderly man stepping forward.
`Well you're not now. For as of yesterday, you are all out of a job. Your employer that you knew as Sir Bingham is in prison in England, and he won't be coming back. If he owed you any wages, forget it.
This house and all its contents all belong to me as of now, by force of arms if you like, and there will not be any comeback on that, I can assure you. Now I am going to appoint Ferdie to run this house as he sees fit and if you do not wish to stay under his management, you may leave now.' I saw the look of astonishment on Ferdie's face but ignored it for I was looking at the others.
`Take orders from the fancy boy?' a young man scoffed.
I was quickly over to him and slapped him very hard about the face.
`You can leave now! No pay and no future work here, now fuck off before you join the other bodies being carried out right now. Your name will be noted and if I hear you speak one word of what went on here tonight, you'll regret it as you will also regret the loss of what little balls you've still got at the moment.'
It was a scared youth that scuttled out and I turned back to the rest of them.
`Now I will leave it up to Ferdie to who stays and who goes, but it also applies to the rest of you. Not one word must be said of what happened here tonight. I will see that you receive your back pay and if you are kept on, to get this place back into order again. Right, dismissed. Ferdie! Into the study if you please.'
I motioned Tracey to stay outside as I went into the study alone with Ferdie.
`Oh boss, I don't know what to say,' he began as I closed the door.
Don't say anything at the moment Ferdie. I'm putting you in charge and I know there will be no comeback on it. Here,' and I gave him a pack of American dollars, about ten thousand at my reckoning. Pay the staff that stay, if you want to keep them. Use what I have given you to get the place repaired and look after it for me. Now, if I don't step over this threshold inside two years, consider the place your own and do what you like with it, for Bingham will never come back here.'
`I...I don't know what to say Michael.'
`The name's not Michael but Marcus. Marcus Kane. That name I only used to get close to your late boss. The only problem I've got at the moment is one that you could help me out with,' I said with a smile as I rubbed my crotch. He understood instantly and went down onto his knees and pulled the zipper of my trousers down and got out the erection that had been hurting me ever since the fight finished. It was hot and throbbing and he took it straight into his mouth, his hands holding my bum as he sucked and tongued the fire that was there in that cock head of mine. He was good and I was soon getting close and put my hands on either side of his head as I got closer and one of his hands came to hold my root as I began to face fuck him. Boy did I push hard into his mouth, the head of my cock swelling before it exploded in my coming. He took it all and still smiled up at me as I came to a slow stop and he let me see the mouthful he had before swallowing it. He licked me clean and then folded me back inside my trousers and stood up and let me kiss him.
`Thank you Ferdie.'
`No. It should be me thanking you for giving me this chance to become a bigger man.' We hugged again with a couple more kisses before I left him and returned to Tracey still out in the hall. The other members of the squad were slowly coming back bringing in the weapons that they had found and when the body detail returned, it was time for us to leave.