Page 21 of Savage Warrior

CHAPTER 7

Rome

“The keys are in a key safe at the back of the cabin. The keypad code is three-one-two-seven.”

“Right. Thanks.” I should make an effort to sound more gracious, but Ethan doesn’t seem to mind. I guess he’s used to my surliness by now. I assume Jack phoned him to let him know I’d finally been convinced to make my way north on this ball-ache of an expedition, and he wasted no time in getting in touch. My mobile was trilling before I reached the motorway.

He’s full of useful information. “The generator is in a smaller cabin about thirty metres away, to the south. You do know which way’s south, don’t you?”

“Fuck off,” I offer by way of a response.

“Good. Once you get it going it’ll be fine. Probably. I’ve got some instructions somewhere. I’ll WhatsApp them over to you. The water comes on automatically as soon as the power kicks in.”

“Dandy,” I mutter.

“Any problems, give me a shout. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear from you until you’re fit to be around decent folk again.”

“Do you know any of those?” I wonder aloud.

“I live in hope. Bye.”

He ends the call, leaving me to my own company and whatever entertainment I can get out of the on-board media system. I settle for silence, broken just once by the ping when Ethan’s WhatsApp arrives.

An hour of frantic Glasgow traffic later, I cross the Erskine Bridge, take a left at the end, and I’m heading into the Highlands.

The scenery is nice enough, if you get off on that sort of thing. I don’t, but I can appreciate why the tourists head here in their droves. Rolling hills, the purples and browns of heather, in the distance the white-peaked mountains. My route will take me past Ben Nevis and probably plenty more peaks I really should be able to name. When I was growing up in Stirling, none of that stuff seemed important. My teenage head was full of other more pressing problems, such as getting some decent wheels under me, getting laid as often as possible, and scoring a few drugs when the fancy took me.

I ran with a gang, same as most lads my age, but I was on the edges of it all and mostly stayed out of bother. The drugs were a brief experiment, brought to a sudden end when my mam found a baggie of cannabis under my bed. She clouted me round the head and told me to pack it in or get out. I chose the former—apart from anything else, she was a damn good cook. No amount of weed would compensate for her goulash. And, she loved me. I knew that, and I adored her. It was just the two of us, but that was a lot more than many of my mates could say.

My mam was a formidable woman, a Polish matriarch who arrived in the UK some twenty-five years earlier, unable to speak a word of English. She took up with my father who I gather was pleasant enough but rather inconveniently married to someone else at the time. Their relationship was as short-lived as it was passionate, and I was the result.

My mam raised me alone, and I like to think she did a good job of it. I’ve only been in jail once, and that was for being stupid enough to be driving a stolen car when I was seventeen. I didn’t even nick it, and it was only a Ford Fiesta, but I got six months in a youth detention centre, and that was enough for me. If I ever get banged up again, I expect it will be for a lot more, but I don’t intend to let that happen.

I started working for the Savages when I was twenty. Just small jobs at first—driving, the occasional bit of additional muscle, security backup, and guarding the doors at clubs. I was well-trained during those early years. I took every opportunity offered and I learn fast if it’s something that interests me. Guns, fast cars, earning good money—I find those exceptionally interesting.

I like to think I’ve proved myself, and I generally hit what I shoot at, which saves a lot of mess. The fact that I can speak fluent Polish and Romanian and make a passable attempt at Russian—courtesy of my mother and my Eastern European heritage—made me useful to Ethan, and I found myself drawn into the inner circle of the Brotherhood.

I like it here. I work with men I trust, men who would die for each other, men who have each other’s backs. I suppose that’s why Moses’ death has fucked me up the way it has. I should have saved him. He’d have saved me. Any of them would. It was me who didn’t deliver, me who wasn’t there when he needed me, whether anyone else thinks so or not.

I know what’s expected. What I expect.

I know what failure looks like, and I’m it.

North of Fort William, the road reduces to single track. I find myself dodging into passing places to negotiate the oncoming traffic, not that there’s much of it. The occasional tractor or flatback wagon comes the other way, we pass with a nod, and motor on. Less cooperative are the Highland cattle which seem to wander as they like, their placid, woolly faces peering through my windscreen as I attempt not to run them over. To be honest, I’m not at all sure my Land Rover would come off best in a particularly close encounter.

By the time dusk falls even the single-track road has disappeared. The narrow lanes I’m now reduced to twist and turn, and the incline seems near enough vertical to me. I chug along in first gear.

And Jack was right about the weather forecast. Persistent drizzle becomes rain, then sleet, then snow. What would struggle to pass as a muck track is now covered, treacherous and slippery. My chug becomes a crawl.

The satnav insists I still have the best part of ten miles to cover. I don’t fancy doing it on foot so I grip the steering wheel and pretty much pin my nose to the windscreen to pick my way through the reflected glare of the snow.

Nine miles. Seven. Three.

Two hundred and fifty metres. “Your destination is on the left,” the disembodied voice informs me.

I pull up and check my watch. Three-seventeen in the morning, exactly six hours since I left Glasgow, and in the last two I think I only travelled about twenty miles.

I get out and stretch. I’m exhausted. Every bone and muscle aches. And despite the optimistic assurances from Sally Satnav, I can’t see anything vaguely resembling a log cabin. I’m surrounded by nothing but pine trees as far as I can tell, and beyond those, rocks. Then hills, then mountains. And all over, snow. The sort of snow that spears your eyes like needles and blinds you. That slithers into the fibres of your clothes and freezes you alive.

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