He removed his jeans and tee shirt and put on his overalls. The noise of a car’s engine in the distance was added to the animal noises of the night. He had assumed that Safardi would arrive early and he felt the first pangs of fear grabbing at his insides. He was preparing for a fight and the inevitable conclusion of a fight with Safardi and his men might be his own and Morweena’s deaths. The police might have been the better option but he couldn’t trust them to get Morweena out alive. It was too late for such thoughts. The die was already cast. He was sure that whatever the outcome, the best chance for Morweena would be if he could go it alone. He mixed water with the earth and applied the paste to his hands and face then checked each of the twenty-five-round magazines for the Uzi before slipping three into his pockets and one into the Uzi. The gun felt comfortable in his hand. A copper with an Uzi, one hundred rounds, and a combat knife against whatever Safardi had in store for him. The bookies wouldn’t offer odds on his chances of success.
He left the hut and slipped into the darkness. He must think of the future and Morweena.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Safardi looked in the mirror and saw Morweena sitting slumped away from Pedro in the rear seat. Hackett sat in the passenger seat cradling an automatic weapon. Their convoy consisted of three Range Rovers. He was throwing all his resources into the expedition leaving the normally well-guarded villa denuded of men. He had underestimated Kane once and he was not about to make the same mistake again. They travelled the same route they had taken the previous day only now the coast road was deserted in the evening gloom.
Everything in Safardi’s future depended on the one hundred and fifty kilograms of pure Colombian cocaine currently in Kane’s possession. He wondered why Kane has selected the glade in the Doñana as the exchange location. It didn’t matter. He could have chosen a busy street in Seville and the result would have been the same. There was no way either he or his girlfriend would walk away from this encounter. Pedro and his guards could commence their little party with her after they’d dealt with Kane. There would be a terrible and bloody retribution for the death of Jaime. Pedro was poised and ready to strike. Safardi reached the turn-off for Los Palacios y Villafranca. They would soon be there.
Kane peered through the descending darkness at the pool. Dark silhouetted seabirds dipped their beaks into the water in search of food, breaking the perfect glasslike surface. The face of a deer peered through a gap in the tall grass covering the shore of the lagoon. He waited, all his concentration on the clearing ahead.
Safardi’s man was waiting beside the gate to the Doñana Reserve when the three cars arrived. Pedro slipped out of the rear seat and walked forward to speak to him while he undid the chain which held the gates.
“He’s here,” Pedro said simply when he re-joined the lead car.
“Good.” Safardi glanced again at the woman’s face. Her head was leaning against the side of the vehicle and her eyes were closed. The strain was telling on her. “Let’s get rid of this arrogant policeman.”
“Don’t kill him fast,” Hackett said stroking his Uzi. “He needs to die slow.”
Safardi drove along the rutted track leading to the lagoon and the pine glade beyond. “And when we have the drugs the real fun will begin.” Safardi wondered how Kane would look with his tongue hanging from a gash in his throat.
The sound of the car engines increased. The cacophony of grinding gears told him there were at least two and possibly more vehicles travelling towards him. After a few minutes, the three light-green vehicles appeared, crawling along the rough track which led to the glade. They stopped and the car door of the lead vehicle opened. The interior light illuminated the passengers. Veeral Hackett was sitting in the front seat beside Safardi. The Jamaican was supposed to be in jail in England. What the hell was he doing in the south of Spain? He picked out Pedro sitting in the rear seat. Beside the Colombian, Morweena sat slumped sideways away from him. A pang of fear immediately gripped his stomach. Safardi couldn’t have been stupid enough to have damaged his only trading asset. It was more likely that she had been doped. Kane looked beyond the first car and saw that both the second and third vehicles contained their full complement of passengers. There were eleven men in all. The odds were not exactly auspicious if Safardi decided to make a fight of it.
“Get her outside,” Safardi said harshly as he stopped beside the birdwatcher’s hut and switched off the engine.
Hackett slid out of the passenger seat and peered around the glade.
Pedro shook Morweena awake roughly. “Outside, puta.” He shoved her through the open door. Morweena tumbled out of the car landing awkwardly on the parched brown earth.
“Where are we?” she asked groggily.
“You are at the gates of Hell, puta.” Pedro’s lips retracted in a sneer exposing a top row of brown-stained teeth. “And the devil himself has come to greet you.”
She stayed on her hands and knees with the Colombian standing over her.
“It is about to start, puta,” he said through his bared teeth. “But when we are finished it will be sweet.” He grabbed
