The Bach Manuscript

Chapter 54

Pressed tight against the western wall of the carport, Ben edged to the corner for a glance towards the red house, a hundred or so metres across the compound on the far end of the row of other buildings. He drew quickly back to rejoin Madison and held up four fingers, signalling to her that four guards were posted in front of the house.

Ben and Madison had managed to come this far from the trees without being spotted, but slipping across the relatively short distance from the fence, using the cover of the carport as a shield between them and the house, was the easy part. Things would get trickier from here. It wasn’t so much the four men he could see that troubled Ben, but the rest of Kožul’s guards scattered about unseen inside the other three buildings. The larger block was a concern. The more he studied it, the more it looked to him like a barracks or hangout for the men. For all he knew, there were thirty guys in there shooting pool and drinking beer, heavy weaponry at the ready for any sign of trouble. Or maybe he was just being paranoid.

Ben crept along the row of parked vehicles to the eastern end of the carport, from where he could get a clear view across to the hangar and smaller building beside it. During the time they’d been making their way through the woods to the fence, some activity had taken place at the hangar. The large steel doors were rolled open, and the helicopter housed inside had been wheeled half out into the sunlight.

The chopper was a Bell 206L LongRanger, sleek and bright red, the seven-seater version with enough room in the back to allow luxury-loving crime bosses to commute back and forth to work in that extra bit of comfort. Ben could see one of Kožul’s men standing beside the helicopter, attending to a flap on the fuselage where the fuel tank was. He had a big electric pump set up beside him and a thick rubber pipe lay like a limp, dead snake across the hangar floor from the aircraft. From the adjoining workshop or generator room another man emerged pushing a handcart on which was loaded a large blue steel drum. It looked heavy. The man wheeled his load to the hangar, and the two of them got busily to work connecting the drum to the pipe and pump. Their boss’s daily travels between here and New Belgrade must take a toll on fuel, and keeping it topped up must be their job, on top of regular sentry duties. The handcart guy had a Glock in a belt holster. The other was armed with an M16 that was lying on a metal table near the mouth of the hangar, where he could get to it quickly.

Now Ben knew what the smaller building was used to store. He waved for Madison to join him, and she trotted over with her head low. He pointed forked fingers at his eyes, then pointed in the direction of the building. Saying, I want to check that out. She nodded.

To make the dash to the fuel store was to cross more than twenty-five metres of open ground, risking being spotted. But the same risk applied no matter which way they tried to go from here, and the only safe alternative was to stay hidden behind the carport all day and let Kožul go about his business undisturbed. Ben counted to three, and they took a deep breath and broke cover and sprinted across the gap as fast as they could, clutching their rifles tight against their bodies and keeping their heads down.

Nobody saw them from the house. The two men working on the helicopter were too occupied with their activities to notice. Ben slipped inside the open doorway of the fuel store with his knife ready in case anyone else was in there, and Madison followed closely behind.

Ben didn’t have to knife anybody. He looked around him. The storeroom was lit by a single dusty bulb on a wire. The craggy walls were cobwebbed and thick with old dirt. On a concrete plinth was an ancient diesel-powered generator connected to a spaghetti of wiring that ran through a hole in the wall to the overhead mast outside. The generator was running loudly, making all kinds of clattering noises and giving off a pungent stink of exhaust fumes. Next to it stood a grime-streaked mechanic’s workbench with a metal tool rack on one side and a bay of industrial shelving units on the other, full of motor spares and maintenance parts for the cars and trucks.

The other end of the storeroom was an arsonist’s dream. Against one wall stood a cluster of at least a dozen tall propane gas bottles that might be for heating or welding purposes, or perhaps to supply the blowtorches Kožul used to torture his enemies. A large collection of black and green jerrycans for diesel and gasoline took up space nearby. Then there was the mother lode: four large wooden pallets stacked with red metal two-hundred-litre drums with JET B lettered across their sides in white. Fuel for the chopper.

The wall above the drums displayed a big ZABRANJENO PUŠENJE No Smoking sign. Even murderers and gangsters cared about health and safety. Or maybe not, judging by the cigarette butts lying about the concrete floor. Nobody had managed to blow the place up yet, clearly. All the job required was a little care and expertise.

They didn’t have much time. Ben said to Madison, ‘Time to start warming things up around here. Get ready to run like hell.’

She moved closer to the doorway and peered cautiously out towards the hangar to check on the two men. ‘Whatever insane thing you’re about to do, do it fast.’

Ben started twisting open the wheel valves on each propane bottle in turn, working his way along the row until they were all hissing in unison and he could smell the rotten-egg smell of gas filling the storeroom. He moved quickly over to the pallets of Jet-B drums. Pressed the tip of his knife against the side of one of them, struck the butt of the handle a sharp blow with his other hand and the tempered carbon steel blade punched through the softer metal. Straw-coloured fuel came sluicing out and pattered on the floor.

He did the same with five more of the drums, until the fuel was beginning to pool rapidly on the concrete and he had to take care not to let his boots get soaked in the stuff. Jet fuel was less highly flammable than gasoline, so Ben stabbed holes in all of the green jerrycans as well. If a job was worth doing, it had to be done right. The air inside the storeroom was getting hard to breathe with all the mixed toxic fumes.

‘Hurry,’ Madison rasped from the door.

Ben grabbed an oily rag from the workbench, wrapped it around a short length of scrap battening timber, and wet it in the fast-spreading pool of gasoline. ‘I’m done. Let’s go.’

He stepped outside and breathed oxygen. The two men at the hangar were still refuelling the chopper, and had their backs to them. One was standing by the pump, the other supervising the hose that fed up the side of the fuselage to the tank. It was pulsing and quivering like a living thing as fuel gushed through it under pressure. If either of the two men turned around, they would see Ben and Madison standing there and instantly raise the alarm. But about two seconds from now, that would no longer be an issue.

Ben played the flame of his Zippo under the petrol-soaked rag on the stick and it burst alight.

‘Party time,’ Madison said. Ben tossed the blazing torch back through the storeroom doorway.

They ran.

There was an angry yell from the hangar.