“And you checked the girlfriend’s?”
“Yessir. Place is empty. She’s AWOL.”
“Think they’re together?”
Farrell clicked his tongue. “Hard to say.”
“He’s onto something.” Potzner jammed the receiver under his chin, grabbed his coat and stuffed his cigarettes into a pocket. “And he doesn’t trust us. Stay where you are – I’m on my way.”
An hour and ten later they were outside Dracup’s flat. His car was parked in its allocated space. Potzner checked it out. A couple of CDs lay on the passenger seat; a few books in the back. Nothing unusual. Farrell took the front steps two at a time and waited at the door. He signalled to Potzner, whose sixth sense was already vibrating like a tuning fork. The door was ajar, a minute crack of darkness. Potzner joined Farrell at the top of the steps, listened briefly at the latch then nodded to Farrell’s unspoken question. He began the time-honoured countdown. On the count of two his P-229 was nestled comfortingly in his right hand. Three. Farrell’s foot hit the door hard and they spun into the room, crouching, one on either side of the front door.
Potzner’s first impression was that some basketball player was rifling through Dracup’s possessions. Absurdly his mind replayed a Harlem Globetrotters point – it had been a great match, and some piece of entertainment when the centre dummied then spun the ball into the basket with the wonderful leisurely disdain for the opposition that had made the ’Trotters a global phenomenon. He remembered it well – even down to the burger he’d eaten that night. Must have been ’79 or ’80? Abigail had been with him, and had turned to share the enjoyment of the moment. Her eyes were wide with pleasure; there was a small ketchup stain on her chin and he loved her for it. All this fast-forwarded through Potzner’s mind as he levelled the handgun and his lips framed a warning.
The intruder straightened up. The guy was over two metres, surely – his head would’ve scraped the ceiling in a normal apartment. Maybe it was the bandana that added to the impression of extraordinary height. He was holding something – Dracup’s laptop – unplugging the snaking connection from the wall socket.
Freeze. Farrell’s order came loud and clear. The man hesitated, sizing them up. Potzner was confident. There was nowhere to go; they had the exit covered. “I said get your hands up.” Potzner began to move forward, creeping across the polished floor like a ballet dancer on rice paper. And then the man did something odd. He smiled. Potzner felt rather than heard Farrell just behind and to his right, supporting, watching. Then the warning: “Sir!” But Potzner had seen it too, a smooth, unhurried movement from the large hands in which two small cylinders had appeared. They detached themselves and rolled gently along the parquet towards them, bumping in an irregular pattern as the asymmetrical shapes found their rhythm on the slippery surface.
His immediate thought was No way... not this time. He’d been on the receiving end of this kind of welcome before – on a standard patrol, even before the hell of Chu Pa. A quiet morning, ten buddies together, talking about home, girls, movies. No Charlie around – they were told the area had been cleared. And then the sudden shock, the air filled with rifle fire; three of his friends falling red-shirted to the jungle floor. Then came the lethal canisters of explosive, some airborne, some clanking along the path, the sudden dull thump of ignition, cries of surprise rather than pain on either side. And himself, somehow, unscathed in their midst. Still alive, the only one that by some quirk of physics or geometry had avoided the whirling metal and was doomed to face the accusing stares of the boys back at camp. So you made it? Too bad about Chuck, and Rich, and Al. They had clapped him on the back, left him to his guilt.
Farrell articulated all this in one word: “Grenade!”
Potzner threw himself at the nearest cover – the sofa – and found Farrell just ahead of him. The rolling death passed them by and rebounded off the skirting board by the bathroom. Then the sofa was driven back on a cushion of warm air, pinning Potzner to the ground. His eyes were filled with stinging smoke and a loud, whistling shriek invaded his ears just as the second grenade exploded. He felt the patter of shrapnel on the leather of the sofa’s backrest, and something hit his shoe with a sharp report. It felt like he’d been stamped on by a horse. He yelled and drew his legs in, waiting for another packet of explosive to come rolling along. Potzner clutched his pistol and made himself as small as he could. He had no intention of dying under a sofa. A few moments later when his instincts told him the danger had passed he broke cover and surveyed the scene with practiced thoroughness. They were alone in the apartment.