Play The Last Card

By Richard Le Normand

Marcel's extrication from the killing business is long overdue. However Lolita, the widow of an arch enemy, Karl Shmidt, threatens to expose details of their past operations. The widow Lolita is unsucessful in blackmailing Marcel, having died tragically before Marcel was able to eliminate her.
Marcel discovers that he has a son, Peter, from a former lover. Travelling in a light aircraft, when Gerda, Peter's mother reveals the truth, Marcel, angry, loses control of the aircraft. Gerda dies when the aircraft hits power lines.
Much later, working with an Israeli woman to eliminate a paedophile ring and the Israeli girl dies. Marcel finally gets married and retires to Australia
Much later, Marcel is asked to go to Portugal to help an old friend find his kidnapped children.
In an abandoned house near the bridge in Porto, an old manstands with explosives strapped to his body. Is he to spread the word of God and gain eternal life?...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Le Normand
• Release date: Nov 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301534968

Richard Le Normand

Richard was born in Jersey in June 1927.Educated at Victoria college Jersey 1936-1944.In July 1940 German forces occupied Jersey until 1945. After the war he trained in England and became a Jersey farmer, glasshouse-grower,flowers,tomatoes etc. Then Richard established a Plastics factory in Jersey.He retired to Australia 1987 then worked in real estate, designed attachments for boats and finally took up writing novels.Richard has published six books.

Book preview

Play The Last Card

By

Richard Le Normand

Smashwords Edition

Copyright, 2012, Richard Le Normand

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Chapter 1

July 1956

The heavy weight on his back was slowly forcing Marçel to the bottom of the pool. He turned his head to see the gleaming knife, caught by a sunray that shone down to the depths of the pool. Marçel expelled every drop of air from his lungs into the face of his attacker; delaying the thrust of the knife for just a fraction of a second. He touched the bottom of the pool and with his free hand, managed to roll himself over onto one side as the knife came down striking his left arm. With both legs, Marçel kicked his assailant away as they struggled to the surface. As he tried to grab the knife, it struck his assailant in the upper leg before sinking to the bottom of the pool.

Breaking the surface together and clinging to the side of the pool, they fought to recover their breath, the water rapidly turned red with their blood. For a brief second their eyes met; Marçel was shocked to see so much hate coming out of such a beautiful face.

Before he had time to speak, the woman had scrambled out of the pool, run across to the gate and up the steps to the parked cars. Seconds later with its engine revving wildly, her car disappeared down the driveway and out onto the highway.

Marçel heaved himself out of the pool. He felt quite sure that the woman, whoever she was, would not be coming back to finish her botched attempt to kill him.

He dived to the bottom of the pool again to retrieve the knife, then climbed out to examine the cut on his arm. The knife had only grazed the skin and the bleeding had stopped. He walked over to the pool cleaner and dragged the suction pipe over to the blood-stained water. Within minutes the pool cleaner had sucked up all traces of blood. He then carefully wiped the tiles where the woman had left a trail of blood on her way to her car.

Stretching out on one of the several deck chairs scattered around the pool, Marçel allowed the sun to dry his muscular sun-tanned body. He had spent these last two weeks relaxing at Stephen’s villa on the outskirts of Dinard in northern Brittany and was quite happy to be thoroughly spoilt by Marie, Stephen’s French housekeeper.

It was Marie’s day off, and until now Marçel had been enjoying a peaceful day by the pool. It was to be an opportunity for him to catch up on some reading, with an occasional dive into the pool to cool off from the powerful midsummer sun.

He reached across to the icebox and pulled out a bottle of beer; knocking off the cap he emptied the bottle before putting it down on the tiled floor. Leaning back in the deck chair, he wondered why such a beautiful woman would want to come and kill him in the middle of the day, and in Stephen’s swimming pool. On reflection he had to admit that when doing his freestyle laps, it was one of the few occasions that a killer could easily creep up on him undetected.

The woman reminded Marçel of an advertisement he had seen for a top brand of shampoo. She had long black flowing hair and was wearing a man’s shirt, pants and a wide weighted leather belt. She was tall and slim, with a superb dark honey-coloured skin. Marçel guessed she must be in her late twenties or early thirties. There was a distinctly Spanish look about her, reminding him of the women he had recently met in Brazil; that was an experience he was not likely to forget with so many beautiful girls trying to teach him the tango!

The woman had driven away in a light-blue Mercedes hatchback; there were not too many of those in the village. Marçel carefully examined the knife; it was an antique dagger with a lethal blade about nine inches long with a silver handle inlaid with pearl. The initials K.S. had been engraved into a silver panel on one side of the handle and the Eagle with a small swastika and the initials A.H. on the other side.

Thinking about the dagger, Marçel allowed his thoughts to drift back to past events. Two names immediately came to mind. Karl Schmidt and Adolph Hitler . . . and they were both very dead.

He decided to go down to the local hotel; maybe someone in the hotel bar might have seen her, so he borrowed Stephen’s moped, and rode down the dirt track that ran from the back of the villa to the village.

The blue hatchback was parked outside of the one and only hotel in the village square; the driver sitting at a table on the terrace in front of the hotel.

Marçel slowly walked up to her.

‘What kept you, Piglet? I’ve been waiting half an hour for you.’

‘I was cleaning up your mess. Do you usually make a habit of spilling your blood in other people’s swimming pools?’ Marçel pulled out a chair and sat down opposite her, noticing her change of clothes—no doubt her wound would have been dressed by now. ‘You seem to know me. Very few people know that name you used; so who the hell are you, and why come and spoil my swim and mess up my pool?’

The woman leant back in her chair and with an innocent smile on her face said, ‘I must admit that was a bad mistake—I nearly killed a super hunk of a man, and you and I would never have met.’ She laughed. ‘My name is Lolita. You killed my man, Marçel, and I had come all the way from Brazil to destroy you.’

‘And a real mess you made of it. Was your husband’s name Karl? If so, I did you a good turn; but in fact he killed himself. He was trying to dive bomb my friends and I with a clapped out old Stuka bomber.’

Lolita looked surprised and smiled sweetly. ‘I’m surprised, Marçel, Karl was a crack pilot and you must have been very lucky that day. I was told later that the Stuka had been previously damaged and was really not airworthy. Karl allowed his anger to override his knowledge of Stuka dive bombers.’

‘From what I was told, I was expecting you to be very young with pimples and pink cheeks.’

Her anger returned. ‘You were the cause of Karl’s death and the loss of much of his wealth! When he died, unfortunately all his wealth went to his successor, the new head of the Nazi party in South America.’ She emptied her glass.

Marçel handed her the silver dagger. ‘This was Karl’s; it looks like a present from Adolph Hitler. Karl knew how to use it, but you certainly don’t. If I were you, I’d sell it; it could be worth a lot of money.’

‘Karl was a very cruel and extremely dangerous man.’ She sighed. ‘But now at last I’m free of him. Unfortunately, I am left without any of his large fortune. I had become so used to spending it and so now I am denied all the luxuries of the past. So you must see, Piglet, that I have a good reason to avenge Karl’s death.’

‘Money isn’t everything, Lolita.’

‘It was to you, you bastard!’ She snapped.

Marçel leant forward speaking quietly. ‘Karl’s money was all blood money, stolen from the Jews he helped to murder; I’ve been able to hand back a lot of that money, which has since been used to help some of the death camps survivors.’

‘Which brings me back to you, Piglet, and all your money.’

‘But why try to kill me, Lolita?’

‘I admit I lost it. I have gradually been building up so much hate towards you that in the end, I just knew I had to come and kill you. However, now I have seen you, I have a much better plan in mind.’

‘I’m afraid you’ve lost the element of surprise, dear girl. But tell me, Lolita, what do have you in mind this time?’

‘I know all about ‘Operation Deserting Rats’, Marçel. Although I was not personally involved with Karl’s work, I know enough to expose you to the International Press.’ Lolita paused for a moment. ‘But for, let’s say . . . one million dollars?’

‘You’re mad.’

‘Or maybe . . . I could make you marry me.’ She smiled.

‘I’m a wife beater.’

‘I’m a man eater.’

‘Would you go to bed with a piglet?’

‘I’m not a Jew.’

‘Then let’s just go to bed.’

‘Sure, Piglet—when I get my million dollars.’

‘That makes you an expensive woman.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll talk to my boss.’

‘I’m a deadly serious woman. You have forty-eight hours to make up your mind.’

Marçel climbed on to his moped and as he started to move off, she yelled, ‘I’ll call you in two days’ time. Your employer better have some good news for me or else we will ‘Meet the Press’!’

Feeling angry and frustrated Marçel put the phone down, after thirty minutes of heated discussion with Stephen his boss, Stephen’s last words were, ‘Marçel, the woman is dangerous and she has to go.You know what you have to do—remember this is exactly what we pay you for.’

He knew Stephen was right, with her knowledge of the department’s past activities in Portugal, Lolita could create a scandal that amongst other things could cause enormous damage to Britain’s trading relations with Europe and would expose all the activities of the Department which was quite unthinkable.

Stephen had been running the Department since 1940. Marçel had joined the Department in 1945 at the tender age of eighteen. By that time he had become a fully trained agent working in Northern France with the British and French Resistance groups.

In occupied Jersey in 1943 having been checking his fishing lines before curfew ended, Marçel was arrested by two guards who happened to be drunk at the time. He was first beaten and then raped by these two men. Whilst this was going on, their officer appeared on the scene and promptly shot the two guards.

To justify his actions the officer arrested the boy and he was sent under guard to Paris in France to be interrogated and probably executed. On the train to Paris, the boy tricked his guard, killed him and escaped from the train. The events had in less than twenty four hours turned an innocent sixteen year old boy into a savage killer.

Realising he could never go back and face his family, Marçel decided to carry on his own war in France; he changed his name and vowed never to return to Jersey. He found that with the use of a bayonet taken from his first victim, he could surprise and kill German guards at key points like bridges and railway junctions, without compunction. Later, he was secretly flown into England for special training, having been recruited into a special branch of the Secret Service controlled by Stephen.

He spent the rest of the war in France collaborating with the Free French underground movement. What Marçel did not know at the time was that, following his escape from the train, his whole family in Jersey had been rounded up and sent to a concentration camp in Germany. None of his family was ever seen again.

Having worked with Stephen for the last eleven years he realised that although Stephen was completely ruthless in running his department, they had become friends. Stephen had always supported him and treated him almost as a son, except when there was a crisis in the Department; then Stephen spared no one.

Lolita phoned Marçel at six am two days later. Marçel, Stephen’s hit man, reluctantly agreed to Lolita’s demands. They arranged to meet at the Dinard airport car park at midday.

Marçel had parked his recently-acquired Auster aeroplane at the airport, which was only twenty minutes’ flying time to Jersey. At their rendezvous in the car park, Marçel offered Lolita three quarters of a million dollars, which she surprisingly accepted. He then persuaded her to fly with him to Jersey. He explained to her that in the morning, they would go to his bank, open an account in her name, and transfer the money into her new bank account as this would give her the added benefit of Jersey’s low taxation system.

He had not decided yet just how he was going to kill her. It had to be done some time before they went to the bank in the morning.

‘Okay, Marçel, I don’t mind going to Jersey with you, I phoned London last night. A letter describing all the details of your disgusting work in Portugal is in the hands of my London solicitor. He has instructions to deliver the letter to the London Times newspaper if he doesn’t hear from me in the next forty-eight hours.’

‘Don’t you trust me, Lolita?’

‘Why should I? I know you are the Hit Man in your department.’ She smiled.

‘As this is a night stop in Jersey, I will have to go back to my hotel and collect an overnight bag. But don’t you get any ideas, Marçel; this is strictly a business trip.’

‘I’ll meet you upstairs in the airport restaurant at two-thirty. Don’t bring too much luggage; it’s only a very small aeroplane.’

At two thirty, with his flight-plan and pre-flight checks completed, Marçel found Lolita propping up the bar, completely engrossed in a serious political discussion with the barman.

‘So you speak fluent French, Lolita? You won’t need that in Jersey as most people speak English, though the local language is Jersey French, which is still used by a lot of the farming community.’

‘Are you an experienced pilot, Marçel?’

‘I should be; I have thirty-five hours in my logbook.’

‘Oh my God—he’s fresh out of flying school.’

‘I’ll let you have a feel of the controls once we are airborne.’

‘I don’t need to feel your controls, or anything else, Marçel! I’ve got five hundred flying hours in my logbook!’

With clearance from tower control, Marçel taxied the Auster out to the end of the runway, ran up the engine, checked the magnetos, and was ready for take-off. Marçel gave the engine full throttle and the Auster gathered speed down the runway, as the tail lifted Marçel pulled gently back on the joystick and they were airborne.

At five hundred feet they passed over the crowded beach at Dinard—a superb day for the start of the French holiday season. At one thousand feet, Marçel levelled off the Auster and was called by Dinard tower who instructed him to change frequency to Jersey approach. Jersey instructed him to call Jersey tower on reaching Corbière lighthouse. Lolita having watched Marçel’s take-off with interest, was leaning back in her seat and appeared to be asleep. With only thirty miles to go Marçel settled back, allowing his mind to wander.

Marçel had very mixed thoughts about Jersey . . .

In 1943 at the age of sixteen, he had first been raped and then arrested by an officer in the German Occupying force. On the train in transit from Jersey to Paris, he had managed to kill his guard and escape. These events in less than twenty-four hours had turned an innocent sixteen year old boy into a savage killer . . .

Realising he could never go back and face his family, Marçel decided to carry on his own war in France; he changed his name and vowed never to return to Jersey. He found that with the use of a bayonet taken from his first victim, he could surprise and kill German guards at key points like bridges and railway junctions, without any compunction. Later, he was secretly flown into England for special training; recruited into a special branch of the British secret service. He spent the rest of the war in France collaborating with the Free French underground movement. What Marçel did not know at that time was that, following his escape from the train, his whole family in Jersey had been rounded up and sent to a concentration camp in Germany. None of his family was ever seen again.

It was some time after the war when he eventually visited Jersey, only to discover what had actually happened to his family. Returning immediately to France it was several weeks later, having recovered from the shock, that he decided to maintain his new identity and wipe out his past life on the Island.

In the end, Marçel returned to the Islands and decided to use Jersey as a tax haven. He opened bank accounts and transferred some of his post-war savings from Switzerland to Jersey. It was whilst visiting the Island that he decided to learn to fly and joined the local flying club, living in a renovated cottage that he’d purchased on the north coast of the Island. Surprisingly no one recognised him—his old school friends had moved on and the events of the last seven years had changed the sixteen year old’s appearance from a pink faced boy into a now hard looking man.

Lolita interrupted his train of thought. ‘What is that lighthouse called, Marçel?’

‘That’s Corbière lighthouse. In olden days before the lighthouse was built, lots of ships were wrecked on that reef. There are strong tides running around Jersey, occasionally a swimmer gets caught in these rips and is swept away and drowned.’

Marçel called Jersey tower and received clearance to land on runway nine zero, with wind at one–four–zero.

Lolita was now wide awake and wondering what sort of touchdown Marçel would make with what appeared to be a strong crosswind on the runway.

Coming in on finals, the aircraft was hit by a sudden up-draft. Instead of a nice steady three point landing, Marçel overcorrected and the Auster sank too fast, landing heavily on the concrete runway.

Lolita was laughing, ‘I think our pilot needs a good woman to show him how to touchdown!’

‘That sounds very interesting, Lolita!’

They parked the plane outside the club and strolled over to the customs office. As there was no one there, they wandered back to the club where Marçel called his bank and made an appointment for ten the next morning. ‘I’ll hire a car and take you to a very nice hotel on the north coast of the Island. It overlooks Bonne Nuit