A desperate paradise, p.1
A Desperate Paradise, page 1
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
A DESPERATE PARADISE: AN ADAM PARK THRILLER
First edition. March 13, 2016.
Copyright © 2016 A. D. Davies.
ISBN: 978-1524254414
Written by A. D. Davies.
Also by A. D. Davies
Adam Park
The Dead and the Missing
A Desperate Paradise: an Adam Park Thriller
The Shadows of Empty Men
Night at the George Washington Diner
Master the Flame
Under the Long White Cloud
Adam Park Novels 1-3: The Dead and the Missing; A Desperate Paradise; The Shadows of Empty Men
Alicia Friend
His First His Second
In Black In White
With Courage With Fear
A Friend In Spirit
To Hide To Seek
A Flood of Bones
To Begin the End: an Alicia Friend Investigation
Moses and Rock
Fractured Shadows: a Moses and Rock Novel
A Desperate Paradise
An Adam Park Thriller
A. Davies
Contents
Novels by A. D. Davies
I. UNITED KINGDOM
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
II. EUROPE
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
III. AFRICA
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
IV. EUROPE
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Note from the Author
Novels by A. D. Davies
For the desperate
UNITED KINGDOM
Chapter One
All around the chicken wire cage, the crowd roared for the match to start, but I blocked out the noise as my opponent and I scoped each other out.
Graham Findlay was an expert in judo and outweighed me by around thirty pounds, most of it in height and muscle, making this particular bout rather an unknown quantity. Exactly what I needed. Because judo is not an offensive sport, with my favored fighting art being Krav Maga—the bastard-hard technique used by the Israeli army—the onus fell on me to be the aggressor.
The ref started the match and we circled inside the ring. Then we circled some more until the crowd grew antsy.
I did not want to give away my real plan until I had to, but this wasn’t a street fight; there was a crowd to entertain. So, with that in mind, I launched an attack and made myself look reckless: a Muay-Thai-style kick toward Graham’s knee.
The fifty strong audience cheered, deep and booming.
Graham stepped over my attack but did nothing else. I dropped to the floor and swept at his ankle, a move anyone can learn from any Jackie Chan movie.
Then Graham surprised me.
As my sweep missed, the momentum took me off-balance for a second. It was enough. Graham seized my bare torso and yanked me backwards. His arm snaked under my armpit, locked my neck in place, and he swung himself into a more favorable position. His legs pinned my hips to the mat.
Some among the crowd booed.
Nobody paid to see two men scrabbling around on the floor when they could be kicking ten bells of snot out of each other, unless you have money riding on one of them. Most would have money on me, though; after three wins in two weeks, it made me something of a favorite. But that was against opponents who preferred to punch and kick, and Krav Maga is largely about counter-attacking. I hadn’t yet fought anyone like Graham, a new challenge I had to bribe my way into. Because it wasn’t about the money for me. I was here to gauge how much progress I had made since the summer.
I allowed Graham to swing me this way and that, but I had already locked my joint. He could force no leverage, so ours became a test of brute strength. I strained and pulled against him, my intensified training regimen paying dividends, and because he didn’t have the painful angle on me he needed, I broke free.
We rolled apart and sprang to our feet. I found my coordination a moment ahead of him, so I jabbed twice. His head rocked back both times and the action drew cheers from the men and women surrounding the enclosure. He dropped his guard. I sidestepped into his reach radius, and rammed a firm back-heel into his rib cage. The crowd howled approval.
Well, the ones not betting on Graham approved.
I ducked in close, my fist high. He moved to grab it. I slapped his wrist down with one hand, shoved his elbow up with the other, forcing his head into my knee. As he jerked upward, I slammed a haymaker into his nose, which wasn’t, strictly-speaking, Krav Maga at its purest, yet it crunched home nicely.
My padded hand flared, but I held the advantage.
Blood streaming from his bent nose, Graham staggered, and I thrust a kick just below his knee. He dropped to the mat with a slap.
The ref commenced his countdown.
The crowd rose to their feet, a smattering of applause. They assumed it was all over. And as the ref reached number five, I assumed Graham was done too.
I didn’t like to play to the baying mob as many of the guys do, strutting, pointing, flexing their muscles. This wasn’t a noble sport. It was sweat and it was blood and it was hurting a fellow human being. At any point we can be hospitalized, we can lose the use of a limb, and we can be killed. And since these events were not exactly sanctioned by any official MMA—mixed martial arts—association, I doubted our bodies would be returned to loved ones. The corpse would be weighted and dumped in a canal or river while the organizers moved on to the next town or city.
Graham propped himself on one knee, and the ref checked his eyes before allowing the fight to continue.
Punters retook their seats with annoyed grumbles.
Although Graham knew what he signed up for, I didn’t want to be responsible for another major headshot. I doubt an official contest would’ve resumed with him in that condition, but here we kept going until one of us gave up or couldn’t move. That didn’t mean I would let him win. I guessed I could end it with a few simple moves.
And that was my mistake.
Instead of using my heel, I aimed the ball of my foot at his shin, a move he clearly expected. He grabbed my ankle, yanked me forward, and drove an elbow into my thigh. I cried out, and the crowd gasped a collective, “Oooh.”
Not a judo move, but there were no rules in this arena.
Graham swept my standing leg, and I spun sideways and hit the mat hard on my back. His limbs pawed at me like an angry spider. I did not know which joints to lock. I flailed all of them, bucked to get him off me.
He gripped my legs with his own, and with a twist of his hips he levered my knee into a position it was not meant to bend. The ligament between my kneecap and lower leg stretched and twisted.
I tapped-out within five seconds, and the ref declared Graham the winner, ending the bout.
Around three quarters of the audience made a noise that suggested the world had screwed them over yet again, while Graham’s corner celebrated with fist-bumps and high-fives.
The pair of us, however, could only lie there, breathing in a tangle of limbs. He released me, and I waited for the sharp pain to dissipate. His nose was bloodied and darkened, but he signaled to the three guys and one girl in his corner that he would live. We eased ourselves up onto our elbows. I offered my hand and he shook it.
I said, “I telegraphed that last move, didn’t I?”
Nasally, he said, “Yeah. Kinda. Your hips are slow.”
“Were you really hurt, or were you faking it?”
“No, I thought I was done. You pulled back at the end there.”
We went our separate ways, him into the arms of a leather pants-wearing blond girl, while I skulked off to my empty corner, and into the bankrupt warehouse’s makeshift changing rooms, the stink of defeat hanging over me, and valuable experience in my pocket. Once cleaned up in the former toilets, I changed back into my civilian gear, slung a bag over my shoulder, and made my way out into a very British winter night, trying to hide a slight limp.
I passed a couple of the other fighters milling around—some winners, some inevitably losers—but all clean, all stitched up where necessary, fit to rejoin the civilized world. The industrial park was virtually deserted, mostly truck drivers heading for warehouses in the heart of the district, and what activity did persist did n’t care about us. Frost glistened on the pavement, but at least it wasn’t raining. Or snowing. Yet.
A woman’s voice said, “Well, that was embarrassing.”
“I let him win. It’s my good deed of the day.”
“If you say so. I didn’t realize you enjoyed rolling around with half-naked men quite so much. If I did I might have popped round sooner.”
I turned. “Hi, Jess.”
She stood under a street lamp, the harsh white light casting her shadow in a small, rough circle. Her usually coffee-colored skin looked paler under the glow, and her hair was black and frizzy, unlike the platinum blond color with a purple streak as I’d last seen it. She was dressed like a banker, except for the ski jacket and the chunky-heeled boots.
“Nice beard,” she said.
“Yeah, beards are making a real comeback.”
Which was great for me. With facial hair that grows around three times the rate of most men in their thirties, without shaving I sprouted an impressive bush in record time. I kept it tightly-groomed and neat, avoiding a descent into hobo-chic.
“You not concerned about coming off like a hipster?” she asked.
“It’s that very concern that keeps me at least a hundred yards from any pair of maroon trousers at all times.” I stroked my furry chin. “So, you like it or what?”
“Losing to a judo guy, eh?”
I resumed walking, the ache from my knee more annoying than painful. Jess strode behind, without hurrying.
She said, “Do you have to pretend you’re not happy to see me?”
“What makes you think I’m pretending?”
“You’re always pretending.”
“Not anymore.”
Jess sped up and walked alongside. “Adam, I know it’s probably been tough the past few months, but these fights, they’re no way to deal with it.”
“I’m dealing with it fine.”
“Yeah?”
She handed me a smart phone with a paused movie file lined up on-screen. She thumbed the little triangle and a shaky video played out: me, in the same ring as tonight, again in a bare torso, better for denying grapplers a good hold. Two weeks ago, my first fight. I finished my opponent with an uppercut elbow to the jaw. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.
“They stitched him back together,” I said. “Besides, I did him favor. Taught him a lesson.”
“Oh?” Jess said. “Like that guy tonight taught you a lesson?”
“He taught me not to go easy when I have a win in sight.”
She replaced the phone in her jacket pocket. “Why? Planning on taking on more violent criminals?”
“I didn’t exactly plan on it last time.”
“And what happens if a fight gets raided?”
“It won’t get raided. They’re careful.”
Jess dug the phone back out, waved it in my face. “Right, and I suppose they don’t allow people to film these fights, either.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Well.” She put it away again. “Lucky you know someone who can delete your image from servers.”
“I thought all those sites were secure from people like you.”
She rolled her eyes in a “pu-leeze” expression. “I’ve kept an eye out. Watching for any mention, any image of you that cropped up. Hence, this.”
“You’ve kept an eye out for me? Like you’re my mother?” I didn’t add that she was almost ten years younger than me. That statistic always annoys her.
“Not like your mother, no. And I would hope I’m more than just an ex-employee.” Her lips thinned and tensed. “Whatever I am, it doesn’t mean I can’t watch out for you.”
We walked by a couple of kebab shops and a pizza place that stank of grease. An Indian restaurant was almost full, its tables occupied predominantly by same-sex groups—guys and girls on a night out, a spicy meal serving as the grand finale.
“So where are you living?” Jess asked.
“Now who’s pretending?”
“Okay, you got me. A canal barge, the least-cool accommodation known to man. You travel the canal system, usually mooring close to independent pubs, but according to your finances you spend more money on tea and coffee than on booze. That said, you are partial to the odd guest ale. You’ve now joined the Garrickson Krav Maga club, and the Jane McHendry shooting range, so the real question is … why are you behaving like some middle-class backwoodsman?”
The next road appeared to stretch forward, only to be swallowed by darkness. No more industrial buildings, no houses, no pubs. Jess looked out into the night, then back at me, but as I kept on walking, she didn’t comment.
I said, “It’s not far.”
We followed a gentle bend in the road, to be greeted by a bright floodlit area a few hundred yards to the right: the marina in which I had moored the Miss Piggywiggy, my late mother’s barge—named for her favorite childhood toy—that I had recently restored to a semi-livable condition. Ultra-white bulbs lit the driveway that swung by a farm shop, children’s play area, and a pub, the opposite side of the property occupied by restaurants and a tiny cinema, alongside gift shops and clothes boutiques.
I wasn’t exactly roughing it.
“Looks nice,” Jess said.
I accessed the marina’s residential entrance via my key card and held the iron gate open. Jess thanked me and passed through, and I followed. She started walking along the floating wooden platform, beside which dozens of canal boats were moored.
I closed the gate, and said, “Jess.”
She turned.
I said, “You’re not here to check up on me. You could have deleted that video anytime. What exactly is it you want?”
She smiled. Took two deliberate steps towards me. “I have a case, of course. And you owe me.”
Chapter Two
At the tail-end of summer, sprucing up the Miss Piggywiggy and living on her for a while seemed romantic. Then winter arrived. My wood burner filled the cabin with the smells of a rural cottage, but it projected warmth across a two-meter radius, before petering out to nothing at the other end. I could bake potatoes or keep ice-cream in the same room.
“I’m not taking cases,” I told Jess as I led her down into the cramped living space and flicked on the light.
You might call it a lounge-diner. If you were feeling charitable. A fixed couch, an armchair, a bookcase stacked with horror and thriller fiction, a propane stove in a galley kitchen, and a fridge that was not exactly required at the moment. No TV. No computer. Even my phone couldn’t be called “smart” these days. My one indulgence was a coffee maker that brewed the best java outside France.
Jess blew into her hands. “Did it get colder when we came inside?”
Our breath misted as we moved. I opened the wood-burner, tossed in some firelighters, and enacted the complex ritual of piling kindling on top, and positioning the log stumps so they would collapse on the main fire and burn merrily for a couple of hours.
As I worked, Jess asked, “Does it help?”
“What?”
“The fighting. Does it help you feel safe?”
“I’m not trying to feel safe. I want to be prepared if anything happens.”
“Such as?”
“Such as Vila Fanuco finding out we screwed him over.”
“No chance.” Jess sat herself in my reading chair, arms wrapped together. “And if you think this is living ‘off the grid’ you’re wrong.”
