The Rebel’s Revenge

True to Ben’s prediction, the foxy guy moved first. His lean right hand, marked by a faded blue star tattoo on the web between forefinger and thumb, let go of the bunch of mixed-denomination dollar bills he’d yanked from the cash register. The money fell like confetti as his hand dived down to close on the butt of the cocked revolver protruding from the front of his jeans.

By then, the whisky bottle was already in the air. It completed a full 360-degree spin from leaving Ben’s hand to flying past the storekeeper’s nose, over the counter and impacting the foxy guy smack in the middle of the forehead with its heavy glass bottom.

Being no kind of a physicist, Ben was dimly aware that the force of a thrown object was based on some complex formula involving vectors of mass and velocity, acceleration and momentum. Newton’s Second Law, if he remembered rightly. But however it measured up in scientific terms, it was plenty forceful enough to have a significant effect on its target.

And yet, it wasn’t so much the high-speed collision between a full bottle of whisky and his cranial frontal bone that would forever change the foxy guy’s life. It was the reflex nerve contraction that ran through his whole body at the moment of impact and caused his index finger to jerk against the trigger of his .357 Magnum while still tucked pointing vertically downwards inside the front of his jeans.

With the hammer cocked, the average Smith & Wesson revolver carries a very light trigger pull. A mere three or four pounds, requiring just a flick of a finger to release the hammer and drop the firing pin against the primer of a waiting cartridge. Which was exactly what happened within the confines of the foxy guy’s trousers at the exact moment the bottle whacked him in the forehead and knocked him sprawling backwards off his feet.

The blast of the gunshot, even somewhat dampened by a layer of denim, was grenade-loud inside the store. Almost as ear-piercing was the shriek of agony that followed as the foxy guy realised that he’d inflicted some terrible damage to himself down there.

To the sound of his buddy’s ululating wail, the big guy finally moved. He shoved the old storekeeper away hard and swivelled the shotgun one-handed towards Ben. The calm smile on his big moon face had creased up into a bared-teeth sneer of fury and hate. The twin muzzles of the shotgun pointed Ben’s way.

But just as suddenly, they were pointing straight up towards the ceiling as Ben closed in on him and diverted the weapon with a flying high kick to the big guy’s right forearm that dislocated his wrist tendon and sent the gun tumbling out of his grip. It fell to the linoleum floor with a thud, unfired. By the time it had landed, Ben had got the big guy’s dislocated wrist trapped in a merciless Aikido joint lock. One that was so painful and debilitating, it didn’t matter how big or strong you were; you were going down.

The big guy was on his knees in moments, helpless, head bowed, gasping. Keeping hold of the arm and wrist, Ben kicked him in the throat. Hard enough to knock the rest of the wind out of him without doing any permanent damage. The big guy toppled to the floor with a crash that made the cans and bottles on the store shelves wobble and clink.

The other moron was lying on his back a few feet away behind the counter, squealing like a pig and clutching his injured groin, far too preoccupied to think about reaching for the revolver that had spilled out of the waistband of his blood-soaked trousers. The barrel and cylinder of the gun were spattered bright red, and there was a lot more of it pooling on the floor. There was a perfectly circular weal the size of a bottle base imprinted on his forehead.

Ben let go of the big fellow and stepped around the counter to slide the fallen revolver away with his foot. Looking down at all the mess and blood, he saw the shattered remains of the Laphroaig Quarter Cask and shook his head in sorrow. What a waste. Why couldn’t he have lobbed a six-pack of Dixie beer at the guy instead?

But there was no use crying over it. It was the idiot on the floor who had much more to cry about. Ben eyed the gory spectacle of his crotch and said, ‘Looks like you emasculated yourself, pal. You’ll be singing mezzo soprano in the parish choir from now on. Maybe that’ll teach you. Then again, I doubt it.’

He turned to look at the storekeeper. The old guy was cowering against the counter, boggling from under a protectively raised arm as though he thought Ben was going to hit him next. So much for gratitude.

There was a phone with a curly plastic cord attached to the wall behind the counter. Ben pointed at it. ‘I’m guessing the Sheriff’s Office is only open nine till five, but there must be a number for the local dispatch centre. Call it. You’d best get them to send a couple of ambulances, too.’

The old man relaxed a little as he realised he wasn’t about to become Ben’s next victim after all. He lowered his arm and gaped down at the prostrated form of the big guy on the floor, then peered over the counter at the other one still yowling and thrashing in a slick of his own blood.

‘Holy shit, mister. I never seen nuthin’ like it. You went through those two boys like a goddamn hurricane.’ Motioning at the big guy, he added, ‘That there’s Billy Bob Lafleur. He’s one evil sumbitch, not right in the head if you get what I’m sayin’. Knowed his mother, way back. She was crazy too. This other fella, he must be from outta town. Jumpin’ Jesus, look what he done. Plain shot off his own balls.’

You could hardly hear yourself think in the place for all the racket. Ben stepped back over to the castrated would-be robber and knocked him out with a quick kick to the temple. Silence at last. He pointed again at the phone. ‘Make the call and let’s get it over and done with. Then I’d like a replacement bottle of whisky to take back to my hotel.’

‘I ain’t got no more of those, sonny. You just broke the last one.’

‘Then I suppose I’ll have to settle for a Glenmorangie instead,’ Ben replied.

‘It’s on the house,’ the old man said. ‘Least I can do for a feller who just saved my life.’ He stuck out a wizened hand. ‘Name’s Elmo. Elmo Gillis. Owned this store since ’seventy-two and never had no trouble until these two dipshits showed up.’

Ben took his hand with a smile. ‘I’m Ben. I appreciate the kindness, Elmo. But I’m happy to pay for it, and the broken one too.’

Elmo made the phone call. Ben rested against the counter and lit up a Gauloise, savouring the peace while it lasted, and not much relishing the prospect of having to deal with the cops. For some reason, he and law enforcement officials seldom seemed to gel.

It wasn’t very long before they heard the whoop of sirens, and the street outside became painted with whirling blue light as a pair of identical Crown Victoria police patrol cruisers with CLOVIS PARISH SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT emblazoned on their doors came screeching up at the kerbside.

‘That’s Sheriff Roque,’ Elmo said, pointing through the store window at the car in front. ‘Meaner’n a wet panther, that one.’

‘Bad cop?’ Ben asked him.

‘Hell, no. Ol’ Waylon is the best sheriff we ever had.’

From the lead car emerged a large, raw-boned officer in a tan uniform and a broad campaign hat jammed at an angle onto his greying head. His face looked about as soft and good-humoured as a mountain crag in winter. Joined by a pair of deputies from the cruiser behind, he pushed inside the liquor store and halted near the doorway, surveying the scene with gnarled fists balled on his hips.

And now Ben’s evening was about to get started in earnest.

Chapter 5

The sheriff glanced around him. His eyes were pale and hooded, and threw out a flat cop stare that landed first on the prone shape of Billy Bob Lafleur, then on his unconscious partner in crime, and finally on Ben, scrutinising him carefully.

Ben noticed that in place of his regular service gunbelt and sidearm, Roque wore a fancy buscadero cowboy rig with an old-style Colt revolver nestling snugly in its holster. The floral pattern tooled leather went well with his boots, which were definitely non-issue as well. Deviations from the standard uniform evidently didn’t matter too much down here.

Without taking the stare off Ben the sheriff asked, ‘What the hell happened here, Elmo?’ He spoke loud and slow, as if measuring every word. Which might have been partly to make himself heard by Elmo, knowing the old guy was hard of hearing. Ben guessed that in a small community like this one, everyone knew everyone else, their secrets, their problems, their history.

Elmo answered, ‘These boys tried to hold up the store. And this fella here, he stopped it. Took ’em down in one second flat. You shoulda seen it, Waylon. Ol’ Billy Bob had a gun right in his face. I never saw anyone move so fast.’

‘They dead?’

‘They’re alive,’ Ben said. ‘Just sleeping. But they’re going to need those ambulances PDQ. That one has a badly dislocated wrist. The other’s got probable concussion, and he’s losing a lot of blood from a gunshot wound.’

‘Meatwagons are on their way,’ the sheriff replied. Still in the same loud, slow drawl, strong and authoritative. He aimed a thick, gnarly finger towards Ben. ‘Who shot’m, you?’

Elmo answered for Ben. ‘He shot himself, Waylon. Damn fool blew off his own pecker.’

Apparently quite unmoved, the sheriff gestured to his deputies. One drew a pistol and kept it trained on the two robbers, as though they were in any state to resist arrest, while the other slapped on cuffs. A few late-night passersby had gathered in the street, drawn by the police sirens and rubbernecking through the store window at what was going on.

Keeping his back to the window the sheriff said, ‘Elijah, would you move those folks on?’ The deputy called Elijah hastened outside to carry out the command. The sheriff said to the other, ‘Mason, get on the radio and find out where those meatwagons are at, before this asshole goes and bleeds to death right here in front of us.’

Mason was the deputy with the drawn pistol. He was hatless, with brown hair spiky on top and shaved up the sides like a Marine. His face was fleshy and pasty and burned by the sun and his eyes were somewhat dull. He glanced nervously at Roque. ‘What about these boys?’

The sheriff replied calmly, ‘They’re unconscious, Mason. I think I can handle it. Now scoot and get on that darn radio.’

Mason holstered his weapon and ran out to the car. The sheriff watched him go, and shook his head with a sigh. ‘’Bout as sharp as a bowlin’ ball, that one.’ Then he turned his flinty eyes back on Ben. ‘I’m Waylon Roque, Sheriff of Clovis Parish. I don’t believe I know you, Mister—?’

‘Hope. Ben Hope.’

‘You ain’t from around heah.’

‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ Ben said. ‘I’m just a tourist, that’s all. Arrived here in Villeneuve this afternoon and I’m staying at the Bayou Inn. I’m only in town for the Woody McCoy gig the night after next, then I’ll be heading back home.’ He slipped his passport from his pocket and held it out.

The sheriff took the passport and gave it a quick once-over, then seemed satisfied and tossed it back. ‘A Brit.’

‘Half Irish, for what it’s worth. But I live in France.’

Roque pulled a face, as if he thought even less of the Irish than the Brits. ‘Jazz fan too, huh? I’m more of a Jimmie Davis man, myself.’

Ben smiled. ‘You are my sunshine.’

But Roque wasn’t one for chitchat. ‘What’s your occupation, Mister Hope from France?’

‘I work in education,’ Ben replied. Technically correct although economical with the truth. He didn’t think it necessary to reveal to Roque what kind of education the training facility at Le Val offered, or to whom. Information like that tended to invite too many questions.

‘Teacher, huh?’ If Ben had said he was a smack dealer, Roque wouldn’t have looked any less impressed.

‘Near enough,’ Ben said.

Roque reflected for a moment, eyeing him suspiciously. ‘Well, Teach, seems to me you must either be the luckiest sumbitch alive, or you’re some kinda trained ninja assassin in your spare time.’ He jerked his chin in the direction of Billy Bob Lafleur. ‘Sleepin’ beauty here is a local white-trash scumbag well known to Clovis Parish PD for his violent and intemperate ways. Put many a man in the hospital, and keeps all manner of unsavoury company out there on Garrett Island. His buddy looks kinda rough, too. I’m just wonderin’ how in hell an ordinary tourist, a schoolteacher, could manage to take these bad boys both down in one second flat like Elmo said, bust ’em up real good and walk away without taking so much as a scratch hisself.’

‘I never said I was a schoolteacher,’ Ben replied. ‘And actually it was more like two seconds. Maybe even longer. I must be getting slow in my old age. And they’re not as good as they think they are.’

The sheriff eyed him for the longest moment. ‘Just who exactly are you, boah?’

Ben didn’t like being called ‘boy’. In fact there was little he was liking much about Sheriff Waylon Roque in general. Which came as no great surprise to him. ‘Would you care to rephrase that question, Officer?’

A knowing kind of look crinkled the sheriff’s pale eyes. He nodded to himself, as though savouring an idea. ‘I have a pretty good notion who you are. Tell me. What’s your unit?’

Ben said nothing.

The corners of Roque’s lips stretched into a humourless smile. ‘I knew right off you weren’t no teacher. You got the soldier look, for sure. Maybe you think you can hide it, but I can see it as sure as if you was still wearin’ the uniform. I can see it in your eyes, and from the way you’re standin’ there lookin’ back at me. I saw it before I even walked in here.’

Roque paused. Enjoying the moment. ‘Am I right, Mister Hope? You a military man?’

‘I’m not a soldier,’ Ben said. Which was another technically truthful answer, as he had quit that life a long time ago. ‘But even if I were, Sheriff, I can’t see how it would be any business of yours.’

The deputy called Mason had got off the radio and now returned from the car to say the ambulances were en route and would be with them ‘momentarily’. Ben always wondered at the way Americans used that particular word. In the Queen’s English it meant the ambulances would appear one instant, and then vanish again the next like a disappearing mirage.

In the event, when they did turn up a couple of minutes later and parked behind the police cars, the paramedic units hung around long enough to strap the wounded robbers onto a pair of gurneys and prepare to ship them to hospital, from where they’d be going straight to jail.

Billy Bob Lafleur had woken up by then and had to be sedated to prevent him from trying to escape. He had his Miranda rights read to him before he fell back unconscious. The sheriff directed the police deputy called Elijah to ride with him in the back of the ambulance. Meanwhile, Billy Bob’s friend was still passed out and looking very pale. The medics wheeled him hurriedly aboard and took off with the lights and siren going full pelt.

‘Now what?’ Ben said to Sheriff Roque.

‘Say you’re gonna be in town until the night after tomorrow?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Or the morning after that. I’m not in a rush.’

‘Good. I’ll need you to come down to the station to make a formal statement and fill in a few blanks for me.’

‘What kind of blanks?’ Ben asked.

‘Call it satisfyin’ my curiosity. I like to keep tabs on what’s happenin’ in my parish, just like I like to know who comes and goes. See you around, Mister Hope. Don’t you leave without payin’ me a visit, now, you heah?’

‘Something for me to look forward to,’ Ben said.

The sheriff pulled another half-smile. He tipped his hat to Elmo. ‘Y’all have a peaceful rest of the night.’

After the police were gone, the liquor store and the street fell back into tranquil silence. Only the mess and the blood remained to bear witness to what had happened there that night. Ben felt bad about leaving the old man to clear it all up himself, and spent an hour helping him. When Elmo asked ‘Say, you really a soldier?’ Ben replied, ‘Your sheriff has a heck of an imagination.’

Finally, well after 1.30 a.m., Ben returned to the Bayou Inn with an intact bottle of twelve-year-old Glenmorangie tucked under his arm. He encountered no more armed robbers on the way back. The night was fresh and fragrant, and all seemed well with the world.

And that was the end of all the trouble.

Or, it should have been.

Because trouble would waste little time in finding him again. Sooner than he might have thought.

Chapter 6

By the time Ben got back to his room at the Bayou Inn, the urge to spend a couple of the wee small hours enjoying the Glenmorangie had left him and all he wanted to do was go to bed. He rose early the next morning, as the dawn was breaking over the town and painting the white houses vermilion and gold.

Feeling that last night’s meal had been a little overindulgent, he spent longer than usual on his morning exercise routine, clicking off set after set of press-ups and sit-ups on the floor. He showered and dressed, then used his new burner phone to fire off that text message to Jeff asking how things were going at Le Val, and one to Sandrine to say nothing much in particular except that he’d arrived safe and sound in Louisiana.

Nobody needed to know about last night’s spot of bother. It was already a fading memory, soon to be forgotten altogether.

Standing on his balcony afterwards he smoked a Gauloise and watched the sun climb and the streets come to life, as much as they seemed to do in Villeneuve. Most people around here appeared to drive pickup trucks. A skinny African-American kid on a bicycle with a bulging mailbag swinging from his shoulder worked his way down the street lobbing rolled-up morning newspapers into front yards. Clovis Parish was obviously the last place on Earth where folks hadn’t yet gone all digital. Ben liked that.

Ben was a coffee addict and could pick up its scent from any distance the way a German shepherd smells raw steak. His nose began to twitch just after seven, by which time he was dying for his first caffeine fix of the day, and he followed the enticing aroma downstairs to the kitchen where Mary-Lou Mouton was preparing breakfast.

The morning meal at Le Val tended to be a rushed, hectic, on-the-hoof affair that involved slurping down four or five coffees in between cigarettes while organising trainees, feeding guard dogs and prepping a variety of weaponry for the day’s busy class schedule. That wasn’t how things were done here at the Bayou Inn. Mary-Lou directed him to a white pine table covered with an embroidered cloth and set for one, since he was the only guest, and he sat quietly sipping a cup of excellent black coffee as she bustled about the kitchen.

Mary-Lou was a devout believer in the old saying that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The plate she shoved under Ben’s nose was piled high with eggs, bacon and sausage patties, home fries, grits and toast, and she stood over him like a prison guard to make sure he finished every bite. He’d have to triple his exercise regime to work it off. Maybe go for a twenty-mile run, too.

Mary-Lou finally left him alone to wash down his breakfast with a second cup of coffee. The copy of the Clovis Parish Times that the bicycle kid had delivered lay unread on the kitchen table. Out of curiosity he picked it up and unfolded it in front of him. Then nearly sprayed a mouthful of coffee all down his shirt as he saw the front-page headline.

BRITISH ARMY VETERAN FOILS LIQUOR STORE HOLDUP

‘What the—?’

He had to blink several times before he could bring himself to believe it. Reading on, he almost choked all over again at the reference to the ‘intrepid stranger’, believed to be an English military veteran, who had ‘heroically intervened’ during an armed robbery at Elmo’s Liquor Locker on West Rue Evangeline Street late Thursday night.

Clovis Parish Sheriff’s Dept. sources had released the names of the two men taken into custody: Billy Bob Lafleur, 34, and Kyle Fillios, 32. Lafleur and Fillios had entered the store ‘brandishing’ (that favourite word of the media) lethal firearms (was there any other kind, Ben wondered) and demanded its proprietor, Mr E. Gillis, hand over the contents of the cash register, threatening his life. Whereupon the two thugs had been tackled and disarmed and the police called to the scene.

Fillios had been rushed to the nearby Clovis Parish Medical Center requiring surgery for ‘a self-inflicted injury’ while Lafleur was now locked up in the Clovis Parish jail awaiting a trial date. A quote from Mr Gillis proclaimed, ‘I thought I was dead, for sure’ and praised the unnamed hero for his actions. The Sheriff’s Department was unavailable for further comment.

Ben re-scanned the article three times, more perplexed with every reading. The Times had moved pretty damn fast to get the story out for the next morning’s edition. Some intrepid reporter must have dragged poor old Elmo Gillis out of bed before daybreak to get the quote.

Ben couldn’t blame the local press for being eager to jump on such a sensational story, considering how news-starved their sleepy little town likely was the rest of the time. He also had to be thankful that his name wasn’t mentioned. But the ‘British army veteran’ reference bothered him a lot. He doubted the reporter had got that from Elmo, as the old guy had no reason for spreading such rumours. No. Ben was certain that information had leaked from the mouth of Sheriff Waylon Roque himself. Ben had the impression that once Roque got an idea into his head, he’d let go of it as easily as a starving dog gives up a meaty bone.

Not to mention the fact that Roque’s instinct about Ben was perfectly accurate. An ordinary tourist, a teacher no less, wouldn’t have stood a chance against two desperate trigger-happy imbeciles like Lafleur and Fillios.

If Sheriff Roque had divulged that much to the Times reporter, what else had he told them? That the hero of the liquor store holdup was in town for the Woody McCoy gig tomorrow night? Or that he was staying at the Bayou Inn?

Ben valued privacy above most things, and he disliked being talked about or, worse, written about. It was his nature to be that way, a character trait that had fitted very well with his covert, secretive life in Special Forces. Anonymity was an obsession with SF operatives. While his own SAS background and Jeff Dekker’s history with its sister outfit the Special Boat Service were part of the attraction that drew hundreds of delegates from all over the world to train at Le Val, outside of his work Ben never voluntarily shared that side of his past with anyone. Sandrine knew virtually nothing of it. Even Brooke Marcel, to whom Ben had been engaged for a while before it all went south, had been kept in the dark about a lot of things.

And now he’d allowed himself to become the subject of gossip in a small town where nothing ever happened. Bad move. The word would spread faster than pneumonic plague. He was irritated with himself; and yet what else could he have done but intervene in the robbery? What was he supposed to do, stand by and let an innocent old man get killed just to satisfy his sense of discretion? How could he have predicted that some hick sheriff would turn out to be so wily and perceptive?

As these worrisome thoughts swirled around in Ben’s mind, Mary-Lou reappeared, looking somewhat bemused, to say there were two men at the door looking for a Mr Bob Hope. ‘I think it’s you they want. Said they were reporters for the Villeneuve Courier.’

Bob Hope.

Ben heaved a weary sigh. Someone had been gabbing, all right. Now the press had found him, he couldn’t hide behind the sofa and wait for them to go away. He followed Mary-Lou along the sweet-smelling passage to the door, where a reedy individual wearing a cheap suit hovered on the front step accompanied by an acne-spangled photographer in ripped jeans and an LSU Tigers T-shirt, who aimed his long lens at Ben like a gun.