The Killer Read online

  For several hours he drilled them, assessing each man’s capabilities and strengths. Captain Antonio Rodriguez de la Vasco proved particularly adept and Darren made use of the respect he clearly had with the rest of the men. Maybe it was that eye patch.

  As the first day drew to a close Darren thanked the captain for his assistance, offering him his hand. It was warmly accepted. ‘Just one thing,’ Darren said. ‘Antonio Rodriguez de la Vasco is a hell of a mouthful for me, do you have a shorter name I can use?’

  ‘Yes of course Mr. Butch. You can call me Vassi,’ he winked. At least Darren assumed he had winked. It was hard to tell with a one eyed man.

  The following days continued in the same vein. Advances were made and backwards steps were taken, but gradually the rabble of bandits began to resemble real fighting men. They’d had the balls and the guts from the start, but it had been without focus or control. He was reminded of himself as he had been just a few short years ago, and he thanked Collins daily for the lessons he had learned and could now pass on. Self-reliance, purpose, concentration, he saw these qualities developing in all the men and he was happy with the progress they were making. The stitches that Rosa had given his face had gone after about a week, but the ugly scar left behind served as a reminder to all of his battle and victory that first day. His orders were accepted without question and the daily training sessions settled into a comfortable routine.

  8

  A Break in the Routine

  Darren entered the kitchen to the smell of coffee that was starting to become so familiar. He doubted it would ever replace tea in his affections but he was developing a taste for the strong, invigorating brew that Rosa always had waiting for him. From old hag, this woman sure had turned into a wonderful hostess and he looked forward to their brief, early morning chats alone before he headed out for the day’s training. They had improved his Spanish no end and he was nearly fluent now. He even liked the way she said his nickname. Somehow her pronunciation of “Meester Bootch” took the edge of the dark associations the title held for him.

  This morning he entered the room to find that Rosa was not alone and the familiar figure of Vassi stood to greet him. ‘Mr. Butch, these are Sixtro and Hector,’ he was informed, as two strangers walked forward. ‘They are trusted one hundred percent. I vouch for both of them.’

  ‘That’s good then,’ said Darren, shaking hands and wondering exactly what they were trusted for.

  Rosa strolled over to the table and opened a large envelope. ‘Mr. Butch,’ she announced, ‘we have been ordered to do a job and, as Juan is no longer with us, we would like you to assist.’ She took several documents and street plans from the envelope and placed them on the table. ‘Our orders are to acquire additional funding for the cause,’ she explained, ‘and here is where the money is to come from.’

  Darren followed the bony finger as it indicated a building marked on a plan of the small village of Zalla and his eyes widened in disbelief. It was a bank. He sincerely doubted that the intention was to go in and ask politely for a loan, so that left only one conclusion. ‘A bank job?’ he spluttered.

  ‘Yes, I think that’s what you could call it,’ Rosa confirmed.

  ‘I’m no bank robber.’

  ‘No, I am aware of that Mr. Butch. But before you came here to us you were not an instructor either, were you?’

  ‘Well, I’m only saying....’

  Rosa cut him short. ‘You have been chosen for this work Mr. Butch. Do you have a problem with it? It used to be Juan’s job, but you removed him remember?’

  ‘Yes, well, no, I mean,’ he began. ‘Yes, I’ll do it all right. It’s just that I’m letting you know that I’ve never done this before, that’s all.’

  ‘Do not worry,’ Rosa explained. ‘Vassi, Sixtro and Hector are well versed in this type of work. The captain asked for you to join and make their four man team complete once more.’

  Darren looked across at Vassi. ‘Thanks mate - I think,’ he grinned.

  The men went over the plan together and, with every remark they made, Darren became more and more aware of the fact that this job had been planned for some time.

  ‘Why this bank?’ asked Darren.

  ‘Because tomorrow this small, seemingly insignificant, bank will hold the entire monthly payroll for the S.G. Iron Foundry - and that’s a very large payroll indeed,’ smiled Vassi.

  By the middle of the day each man had gone over his roll several times. Sixtro was the driver. It seemed that he had a natural talent for driving quickly, and an unnatural ability to get out of trouble fast. Vassi and Hector were to perform the actual robbery. And Darren? Well, he was what they quaintly referred to as “crowd control”.

  ‘Try to avoid any shooting as the bank will have few clients at the hour we hit, so this should go down very quietly,’ Vassi advised Darren. ‘However, if anyone should put up a fight, hit them with a... Well, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what to do. After all, that’s why I asked for you.’

  As the meeting drew to a close Rosa told Darren, ‘You can have a good night’s sleep tonight Mr. Butch, as you do not have to meet until mid-day tomorrow.’ But, in bed that night, Darren had anything but a good sleep. He tossed and turned the entire time. The constant worry of letting down his new crew plagued him. He didn’t really want to rob anyone, but the plan had been made and he was included. The following morning he was up at six thirty. He ate breakfast at seven and, in an effort to calm his nerves, drank several cups of strong dark coffee.

  Mid-day arrived and Darren walked out into the brilliant sunshine to find Sixtro and Hector waiting for him, happily polishing a late model BMW five series. ‘Nice car,’ Darren whistled.

  ‘Thank you Mr. Butch. I “borrowed” it from a lady in Santander earlier this morning,’ Sixtro grinned.

  Vassi arrived. ‘Everyone ready?’ he asked. The others nodded.

  ‘Here.’ Vassi passed each of the men a dark jumper, a black beret and a white facemask.

  Hector quickly donned his kit in order to demonstrate it for Darren. The facemask reminded him of the white hoods the Ku Klux Clan wore but, instead of the pointy bit at the top, these were finished off with the black beret. ‘Jesus, they look fucking eerie,’ Darren shuddered. ‘Do I have to?’ he asked, looking down at his disguise.

  ‘Of course,’ Vassi laughed. ‘This is the E.T.A. uniform. We don’t want anyone to have any doubts whatsoever who, exactly, robbed this bank.’

  ‘Yes, but I was thinking of wearing a stocking mask ins...’

  Vassi cut him off. ‘Mr. Butch, if you want to wear ladies underwear that is entirely your business - but not on this job. Wear it in your room. No one here will think any the less of you.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to...’ Darren stopped short, realising that he was being made fun of. ‘OK, OK, you win.’

  ‘Besides,’ continued Vassi, ‘the very sight of men in white masks and black berets seems to silence any vigilantes very effectively. So much so we rarely have to pull our guns.’

  The four men donned their jumpers and climbed into the Beemer, leaving their masks and berets on their knees. Though still nervous Darren didn’t have much time to fret, as the drive across to Zalla was a short one. Around forty-five minutes later they were cruising down the main street and heading in the direction of the bank. As they passed, Vassi looked across at the building but the other three kept their eyes fixed dead ahead.

  ‘Good, it’s quiet,’ he smiled as they went by.

  Sixtro drove on for around a mile and then made a u-turn, driving back to park the car a hundred yards or so from the bank on the opposite side of the road. Vassi, Hector and Darren each picked up a tool-bag and set off strolling lazily towards the bank. Though they appeared relaxed each of them was following the instruction to ‘keep a sharp look out for anything out of the ordinary.’ Darren took “out of
the ordinary” to mean hundreds of cops with very large guns. They saw no one. The street was deserted.

  As they entered the bank they breathed a sigh of relief. There were only two tellers and five clients standing in line. The men slowly walked to the back of the bank and headed to a long bench covered with old pens, withdrawal slips, deposit slips and scraps of paper. They looked at each other in turn, then nodded and donned the masks and berets.

  When they turned, a female teller stared for a second and then fainted. The other teller froze, his face ashen as he stared into the white masked faces of the three bank robbers.

  ‘Dios mio, E.T.A.,’ a woman screamed at the top of her voice.

  ‘Silence, this is a robbery,’ shouted Darren. ‘Everyone keep quiet and everybody lives.’

  Though he’d never admit it, he was sweating almost as much as the people he was holding up. This was a new and unnerving experience for him.

  The silence in the bank was deafening, as everyone kept their mouths shut and their eyes open, each one staring slack jawed at the menacing black machine gun the hooded E.T.A. robber was pointing at them.

  Enrique was twenty years old and he was new at the bank. This was only his third week working as a teller and it was definitely his first robbery. He pressed a hidden button below the desk but it seemed to do nothing. He had expected to hear alarms, but there were none.

  An older man emerged from a back room and Vassi noted him at once. ‘You,’ he shouted, ‘you’re the manager. Open the safe.’

  ‘I, I don’t have the k, k, keys,’ he stammered.

  Vassi walked towards him, slowly waving his pistol back and forth in the man’s face and then jamming it firmly into the back of his neck. ‘The next thing to come out of your mouth will be either your blood and brains, or the words “here are the keys sir”. Now, what’s it going to be?’ he snarled.

  With trembling fingers the man opened a desk drawer. He fished around for a second, then said, ‘Here are the keys sir,’ as he handed them over.

  Vassi snatched them from the man, forcing him to the floor at gunpoint. ‘Stay there and keep quiet,’ he ordered.

  Darren was still standing with his back to the wall, his gun trained on everyone. No one said a word. He watched Hector and Vassi as they quickly disappeared into the rear of the bank. The silence continued and Darren saw the fear in the faces staring at his gun. The female teller came round and a scream threatened to escape her as she stood unsteadily, but her young colleague shushed her.

  Around five minutes later Vassi and Hector emerged from the vault, each carrying a large black hold all. ‘Stay here at the door, cover them and shoot anyone who moves,’ Vassi shouted loudly enough for all to hear. As he passed by Darren he whispered, ‘Mr Butch we’ll pick you up when we’ve loaded the car.’

  Sixtro had brought the BMW to the front of the bank. ‘Everything going OK?’ he asked.

  ‘No problem. Quiet as the grave in there brother,’ grinned Hector before he and Vassi headed back into the bank and were out again a few minutes later with two more bags which they loaded into the car.

  Then the rear light exploded and Vassi jumped violently. ‘Shit, cops,’ he cursed, as pistol shots echoed around them and a burst of machine gun fire announced the arrival of the Guardia Civil.

  ‘Someone’s set off an alarm,’ yelled Hector as he and Vassi jumped in the car and Sixtro floored the accelerator, setting off at speed and quickly covering a few hundred yards.

  ‘Stop! Mr. Butch is still in there,’ yelled Vassi.

  ‘Too late now,’ Sixtro shouted back.

  ‘Stop!’ Vassi repeated, and the command in his voice brooked no argument. Sixtro hit the brake and the car slid to a halt.

  Vassi was out in an instant, running towards the bank, Butch, and a free flying hail of bullets.

  Darren poked his head out into the street at the sound of the first shots, but immediately retreated as the doorframe exploded in a spray of splinters. ‘Bollocks, that’ll be me fucked then,’ he shouted to no one but himself. The noise of gunfire grew for several seconds, but then it began to lessen. He risked another peek outside and couldn’t believe what he saw. Neither could the armed police, apparently. There was Vassi running towards them, dodging the bullets that bounced around him and, one by one, they stopped their firing, mesmerised by the bravery they were witnessing.

  It took Sixtro a few seconds to comprehend the scene too, but then he rammed the BMW into reverse, screeching to a halt at the door as Vassi was pulling a stunned Darren from the bank. The Guardia Civil regained their senses and the firing started again, just as the two men dived into the car, which shot away leaving burning rubber in its wake.

  The back window shattered and gunfire raked the rear of the fleeing car. Hector lurched sharply to one side as he caught a couple of shots.

  ‘You OK?’ yelled Sixtro as he drove with all the brilliance that Darren had been promised.

  ‘Nothing a shot of Jim Beam won’t fix,’ Hector assured him as he sat up again. He was bleeding heavily from his shoulder and the tip of one ear was dangling from a thread of skin.

  ‘Can I have your sunglasses now?’

  ‘Fuck you. They’ll still fit me, ear or not. Now just drive you fucking pig farmer.’

  Darren knew it would have taken the cops a few seconds to get back in their vehicles and start the chase, giving them a head start, but the speed and control with which Sixtro drove were amazing. Still, they were not out of harm’s way yet. ‘We have to get this car off the road,’ he said, as he noted Hector’s blood dripping from the headlining.

  ‘I know, but where? We don’t have friends here,’ Vassi told him.

  ‘I have family close by,’ grinned Sixtro. ‘My sister, and she lives just off this road.’

  He turned a sharp left and headed down a dusty cart track, coming to a halt a few moments later outside an old farmhouse. He jumped out calling, ‘Chucha, Chucha, are you home?’

  Jesús María, known affectionately to her family as Chucha, came running from the front door towards the BMW. ‘Holy mother of God, what happened my brother?’ she asked.

  ‘No time for that, Chucha. We need help,’ Sixtro told her.

  ‘Yes, yes of course come in. Hector, can you walk?’ she asked in concern as she noticed the injured man in the car.

  ‘Of course I can walk. It’s only a nick - or two,’ he smiled at the woman.

  Once inside the farmhouse Chucha quickly went to work. Her sons had provided her with all the medical skills she needed. Bringing up three rowdy boys in rural Spain required a special knowledge of doctoring, as the closest hospital was miles away. She was used to stitching the cuts and treating the bruises they got fighting and playing. She was also a dab hand at setting broken bones, but thankfully that skill would not be needed today. However, as she cut off Hector’s shirt, she quietly gasped. This was bad. Around two inches of horizontal muscle was missing from his shoulder.

  ‘You really need a hospital Hector,’ she told him, ‘but I’m guessing you can not go to one - no?’

  ‘That’s right. Can you just stitch it for me?’

  ‘I can, but it will leave a really ugly scar.’

  Hector grinned. ‘You think another scar is going to bother me? How about the ear, though? Do you think it is still possible for me to wear my sunglasses?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Then I need to tell your brother to fuck off again. Is that OK with you?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ she assured him.

  Around half an hour later she had finished her ministrations and there had been no sounds of sirens screaming down the dirt track, so Sixtro’s amazing driving had done the trick. ‘Is Pepe at work today?’ he asked his sister. ‘We need to lose this car.’

  ‘Yes, you go and I’ll call him. He’ll be expec
ting you.’ She smiled as she kissed her brother goodbye and the four men set out again in the bullet ridden BMW.

  A five-minute drive down the dirty, bumpy road took them past a high, corrugated steel fence until they arrived at large steel gates guarded by two snarling, snapping German Shepherds. A handmade sign with letters two feet high proclaimed:

  Pepe el Monstruo

  Autos Chatarra Quería

  Comprado por Dinero en Metalico

  Piezas de Automóviles

  Basically a scrap metal dealer, Darren reasoned. ‘Who’s Pepe?’ he asked.

  ‘Chucha’s husband, my brother-in-law,’ Sixtro informed him. ‘He cuts up cars, sells parts, deals in scrap and is basically a very handy guy to know. This is him now,’ he added, as a large, grease covered man with a full beard opened the gates and waved them through. They parked where he indicated and took the bags of money with them as they left the car.

  Pepe embraced Sixtro, kissing him on both cheeks. Then he grasped Hector warmly by his good shoulder. ‘Chucha said you might look a little strange today, my brother,’ he observed.

  Darren watched the greetings and smiled. He was becoming used to the affection men could show to each other in this country, and he liked it. Pepe had called Hector his brother and that might mean they were blood relations, but it could just as easily mean they were two good friends who respected each other. Relationships here were important and it meant a lot to be treated as family.

  Sixtro introduced Pepe to Vassi and Butch and then they got down to business. ‘Domingo,’ Pepe shouted to a slim young man across the yard. ‘This BMW, take it for SG,’ and only minutes later the once pristine car was crushed beyond recognition, ending up as a cube of metal that was swiftly loaded by forklift onto a waiting truck with “S.G. Foundry” painted on the side.

  Darren suddenly laughed. ‘Hey, isn’t that the company who…’ He paused, looking across at Pepe, unsure of how much he could say in front of this man.