Tidal Rage by David Evans (best big ereader .TXT) 📗

Owl’, was a world-class rifleman. The medals he had won were a testament to his skills. He was also an excellent street fighter; he had honed his skills providing security outside dubious establishments in Hamburg, and at twenty-six years old was in peak physical condition.

Hoagie had two inches in height over the Owl. This was important, as it was two inches less to cover the ground to get to him. More importantly, Hoagie was an ex-Navy Seal, who had trained for six years with the elite unit until his sexual orientation forced him out of the job he loved. He was six years older than the Owl but maintained a fitness level of a pre-thirty-year-old. The drawback was, he was injured. Although the pain was masked by adrenaline, the mobility of his right arm was down to approximately sixty percent of normal use.

The Owl spun onto his back, the camouflage sheet now beneath him. Hoagie did not hear the second shot as the silencer had done its work, but the spit of fire was evident.

Pouncing, Hoagie landed on top of the Owl, trapping the rifle between their bodies, ensuring the Owl could not aim and put pressure on the trigger. It would be a lottery as to which one of them would be hit, had the gun fired. The Owl tried to use brawn rather than brain by an attempt to headbutt Hoagie. Hoagie rode with the force of the headbutt, dropping his brow down slightly to take blunt the energy and protect the bridge of his nose.

Stunned, Hoagie grabbed the gun from Owl and threw it sidewards away from the Owl. A mighty hand grasped around Hoagie’s throat and twisted him, so Hoagie was now under his assailant. The grip was firm, and the Owl was trying to pull Hoagie’s windpipe out. It was a grip Hoagie was sure he could not break clear from. Time to end this, Hoagie thought. Rapidly he swung his knife hand around the Owl’s back. With a quick incision and scrabbling round of the flick knife into the base of the Owl’s skull at the top of his spine, Hoagie disabled his assailant, and this quickly led to the Owl’s death, as the base of his brain was little more than shredded offal.

With a little effort, Hoagie rolled off the corpse and observed his handiwork. He pulled the camouflage sheeting from under the Owl and covered the body. He crawled underneath the ample camouflage and took out his phone. The light of the screen shielded by the camouflage; he began to text Cutler.

Fifteen minutes later, Cutler turned up at the Sage parking lot amidst the throng of guests leaving the concert. He knew from the text that Hoagie was to the far side of the building and out of sight. Once the main crowd departed, he made his way to Hoagie’s position unobserved.

Cutler took in and evaluated the situation without either of them saying a word. He quickly removed the dead sniper’s leather jacket, wiped it down, and gave it to Hoagie to put on to cover his wounds. While it was ample in width, it was a little short in the arms but far less prominent than a man with blood-stained clothes entering the hotel.

In silence, Cutler strapped the rifle to the corpse with the dead man’s belt. He signalled to Hoagie that he was going to scout the area to find a means of disposing of the body.

Cutler carefully made his way down in the darkness to the edge of the Quay. There was a single-storey building that looked official, as it had a security fence around it, it seemed deserted. Cutler veered off to the left and circumnavigated the building’s perimeter.

The building was HMS Calliope, a naval reserve centre. The British treated such premises as an extension of their Navy, hence the Her Majesty’s Ship Calliope name.

The security fence gave Cutler the cover from the isolated late-night revellers who crossed the Millennium Bridge in small numbers. He retraced his steps back up to Hoagie.

Silently they sat there for an additional hour until they were sure the last remnants of guests and entertainers had left the Sage building. Cutler did not want the casual observer seeing them carrying a body-sized object down the hill down to the side of Her Majesty’s Ship Calliope.

The Tyne was at high tide and flowing fast. It took both Hoagie and Cutler to lift the body over the quay wall and drop it into the rapid flow of ice-cold water. The Owl was not the only body to enter the Tyne that night; several hours later, an unconscious Imran followed him in with the aid of three of Bruno’s accomplices. Not entirely what Cutler had meant by ‘Clear up your mess.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tuck received the call at 11 pm local time. He grabbed the phone from the bedside table and listened to Cutler explain some of what had occurred that evening.

“Sounds like you’re having fun, is this a job I don’t know about?” Tuck inquired.

“It’s a clean-up job from my days in the secret service, Tuck,” Cutler said.

“What's your next move?”

“We’re flying from Liverpool to Shannon Airport in Ireland and are catching a flight to Miami via Chicago within the next hour. We had to avoid the major airports in case of another incident. I need to update you on some other stuff that’s cropped up. How’s the stakeout going? Cutler replied.

“I’ve got Stahmer sitting on Mick Hilton; we’re taking twelve-hour shifts. It’s been two days, and if I read this right, Hilton will be getting a visit soon from Rothhelm’s people,” Tuck reported.

“I need Stahmer for another job I’m afraid, Tuck. We’ve had a cruise line owner on the phone. They spoke to Fabienne. It seems they had a mysterious fire on a lifeboat last month, which killed quite a few employees.

“The families