Tidal Rage by David Evans (bill gates books to read txt) 📕

the bathroom to help her; and even angrier that he didn’t know who did it, as he wanted to rip him limb from limb. Stahmer had lost both his parents the previous decade and thought he knew about grief; he did not. The pain and constant ache, and the emotional rollercoaster he suffered; he had never known before. The nightmare kept him awake, until sleep overtook him. When he awoke, he thought it was indeed a nightmare, and his beloved wife would come striding through with his morning coffee in hand, just like she had done for all their years of marriage.

Stahmer returned home to bury his wife. The funeral was not an end to his ordeal; it gave him no finality, only despair. A few days after the funeral, Stahmer returned to Dominica, determined to get the person who had cruelly taken his wife away. He was not sure what he was going to do; only that he would not and could not rest until he had him.

On his return, Stahmer ensured he was on one television or radio news station or another for several weeks, complaining about the lack of information from the public, and how this could affect tourism. In the end, it was money, bribery, and persistence that finally unearthed the information. It had taken seven weeks of stubborn adherence to the gruesome task.

Stahmer was not oblivious to the danger he was in. The island’s publicity and façade are one of Caribbean beauty, white sandy beaches, and rum-infused nights. Go several hundred yards away from the tourist routes and you were in a third-world, poverty-stricken, violent country. Stahmer had hired a local who was an enormous mountain of a man, all muscle, but one Stahmer was assured he could trust. Joe Frazier had been named after the world boxing champion and probably, Stahmer thought, would have given a good account of himself with his namesake in the ring, even in his heyday. Stahmer began calling him The Champ after he knocked two drug dealers out cold who took offense to the questions Stahmer kept on asking their clients.

Finally, after a month, it was the shop owner who came forward with a name. He feigned terror of reprisal if he came forward but had now suddenly found his backbone. Stahmer disbelieved him. After physical intervention from Joe Frazier, and the threat of much worse to come, the jeweller admitted he had been approached by the killer with a false name of a rival, and they were going to split the reward. It did not take Joe very long to get the correct name from the jeweller. Stahmer would honour the reward to the jeweller, as he would need it to reconstruct his jaw and replace the teeth he had lost, not at the hands of Joe, but Stahmer.

More money passed hands, and Stahmer was permitted to go with the six police officers to observe the arrest. They broke down the door of the wooden hut and pulled out Nero, as he was nicknamed. Stahmer recognized him, not from the jeweller’s, but as someone who had been paying them attention several hours before his wife’s attack.

“You want him dead, boss? Five thousand US dollars,” the senior officer inquired.

“No, I don’t want him dead; that’s too easy. After seeing the state of your police station, I gather your prisons are inhumane. I am going to pay you a thousand dollars a year for as long as it takes to keep him locked up. I want guarantees that no one will pay to get him out, or I will pay the same amount to someone else to settle the breach of contract with you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, boss, I send you proof every year. We keep him alive barely.”

“Good, I want a copy of his fingerprints and his footprints, and each year for the next decade on the anniversary of my wife’s killings you will cut off one of his digits, so I may verify them when I come back. I also want access to him in the prison to see him,” Stahmer said coldly.

Nero began to beg, and the officer slammed his gun into his gut, knocking all the wind out of him.

“We don’t feed them in prison. They rely on relatives. This guy will have no one once word gets around, he is not getting out ever. I’m afraid that will cost you another five hundred dollars a year to make sure we can sustain him and pay for some antibiotics, as his stumps will get infected,” the officer pressed.

Stahmer handed over the fifteen hundred dollars to the officer as the first installment and kicked the recovering Nero as hard as he could between the legs.

Cutler had asked Kale Fray how he had come across this information, as he had found Stahmer quiet, proficient, and professional, and not someone that would give up private information easily.

“That’s simple; Joe Frazier is ours. He’s been our informant for many years. We owed Stahmer after the Parliament affair. He would have hit a brick wall in Dominica without Joe. We ensured, without Stahmer’s knowledge, that Joe had his back,” Fray replied.

“Nice to see chivalry is not dead,” Cutler concluded.

Cutler knew that as well as brains and investigators, he would need muscle. The investigators would need someone to accompany them; muscle, and brains, to have their backs; specialists willing to go the extra mile.

Stahmer requested Joe Frazier as his minder. Cutler at first, was reticent. After getting the clearance from Fray, Cutler interviewed Joe and made it quite clear that if he worked for him, his days of reporting back to MI5 were over. He also asked him if he were up to the odd task that walked the line of legality.

“That’s my specialty. One other thing; if I’m to give up my security with the British, I want US citizenship,”