Thunder

Thunder by Anthony Bellaleigh Page A

Book: Thunder by Anthony Bellaleigh Read Free Book Online
Authors: Anthony Bellaleigh
Tags: Mysteries & Thrillers
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familiar Browning to hand, but there was no way he could have flown with it.
    “Good...,” said Deuce.
    Jack was slightly surprised at what sounded like a tacit endorsement – Deuce more normally preferred to have a go at him.
    “...Kit like that is wasted on you.”
    Jack grimaced – that was more like what he expected. “So what’s the mission?” he responded frostily.
    “You have to meet one of the cell members, called Sergei Ebrahimi, when he finally disembarks the fishing boat he’s been travelling aboard. He’s arriving into Kołobrzeg this evening.”
    “He’s been holed up in Scandinavia?”
    “No. He’s been on the boat for a long time. We suspect he’s hitchhiking and didn’t realise he was going to be on board for a whole fishing trip.”
    “What about Sikand?” Azat Sikand had been his allocated target in Madrid. “What’s happening to him?”
    “He’s gone dark. We need this one to lead us back to him.” Jack could tell Deuce was being careful about how much he was saying. “That’s where you come in. You have to tag him, not get noticed, and then get your sorry arse out of Poland.”
    “Back to Spain?”
    “Wherever you like, as long as you stay in Europe.” Deuce pulled the rental off to one side of the road. “There’s a bin over there. Go and toss your jacket into it.” Jack looked at him incredulously. “Get on with it Tin , we haven’t got all day and, don’t worry your soft and tiny mind, there’re a couple of heavy jumpers and a greatcoat in the back for you. Here, in Poland, that pathetic jacket’s about as useless as you are...”
    ~~~~~
     
    Barfold
     
    I think the training went well today. All except for the part where I decked our instructor with a back kick.
    That part hadn’t quite been to plan...
    Fortunately, I didn’t hurt him too much, and it didn’t stop him repaying me with a couple of return whacks, later on in the sparring sessions.
    I’d forgotten how much I enjoy Taekwondo as a sport. It helps that, thanks to the steroids which are seriously amping me up, I’ve nearly doubled my body weight and muscle mass, and it also helps when your nerves continue to refuse to transmit much information to your brain. Those little pops from my instructor should have left me reeling, but today, they felt like gentle pats on my midriff.
    I also suspect that, if I’d really been trying, I could’ve blocked them, but discretion was being applied and, for the sake of the rest of the group, I’d decided that it was best not to rile him too much. Our instructor is a bit of a madman, and his usually perpetual bad temper is a mirror of my own more recent temperament.
    Steve’s driving me home and I’m sitting, watching the outskirts of town go by through his almost-closed side window.
    “Have you seen? The gypsies are back,” he says as we approach my estate – a complex geometric exercise in new-build land-parcel minimisation which perches on the edge of the, more ancient and casually distributed, medieval market town of Barfold.
    I look around and can see a gaggle of eclectic vans clustered along the verge; it always makes me wonder where they find the money for the land-cruisers and SUVs that sprawl at the end of muddy churned tracks around their hovel.
    “Um,” I acknowledge eloquently. Diction isn’t coming easily, the doctors say it’s unlikely I’ll ever become much of an orator. My voice has stayed very deep and my damaged vocal cords tend to spit the words out in rumbling fragments. “Long as they keep t’ themselves,” I grunt, though I doubt that the residents of sleepy Barfold’s half-timber mansions will share my feelings of benevolence.
    ~~~~~
     
    Kołobrzeg, Poland
     
    The short afternoon was fading to darkness as they drove down the multicoloured main street. Kołobrzeg wasn’t a particularly large town and Jack watched the short lines of five-storey, gable fronted, shops passing his window.
    “I’m going to drop you over by the

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