‘Fools,’ he said.
Like a slow-motion car crash, he watched with a smile as the plan to flush the men out was in its final scene. The street dwellers never stood a chance and the plan that his paymaster had devised would fall apart spectacularly. He had warned him that it would fail.
When the last few shots echoed through the streets, and the remaining attackers ran away, he hit the redial on his phone.
‘Yes?’ the voice said.
‘As I predicted, sir,’ he said. ‘Your plan has not worked.’
‘What the hell happened?’
‘The four targets have neutralised the ten attackers and are now questioning one of the men they’ve captured. What do you want me to do?’ he asked.
‘The bloody job I am paying you for. Alex Brun gave me your name and said that this was a job you could handle. Can you handle it?’ the man said.
‘If we’d done it my way, it would all be over by now.’
‘There is nothing wrong with the plan. You can’t be using the right people.’
‘Don’t turn this back onto me. You have underestimated this Gibbs very badly.’
‘He’s just another soldier. I guess he got lucky this time.’
‘He and his men drew their weapons the second they set foot in the carpark. That is battle instinct. Something I know you know nothing about.’
The line was silent for a few seconds. ‘Can you turn the situation around?’
‘My assessment of the situation is that it’s best to leave it for another day.’
‘I need this situation rectified now.’
‘I will try, but I will do it my way. Is that clear?’ the blond man said.
‘Fine then. I don’t want any loose ends coming back to haunt us. Neutralise them all,’ the man said and hung up.
‘Idiot,’ the tall German said, and pocketed his phone.
He looked down at the car lot and saw that the four men had surrounded the fool and were pushing him around. They ushered and pushed the street actor towards the supermarket.
Smart men, he thought and reached down to feel the cold metal of the Heckler-Koch MSG90 laid down on the roof near his feet. He picked up the sniper’s rifle, checked the long silencer on the end of the barrel then pulled out the twenty-round box-magazine of 7.62mm calibre bullets and clicked it back into place.
Resting his left elbow on the concrete edge of the roof, he nestled the hollow stock of the semi-automatic rifle into his right shoulder. Taking a few deep breaths, he flipped up the covers on either end of the Nikon hunting scope and slowly lowered himself into position for the job ahead.
Chapter 23
Clapham Junction, London, England, UK - 2019
‘Did this big German fella give you my name too?’ Gibbs asked, pushing Gareth towards the shop entrance.
The man kept quiet.
‘Start talking, or else I’m going to start cutting your dangly bits off,’ Killey said, holding up a knife to the man’s throat.
Suddenly with an eloquent and sophisticated accent, the man transformed right before their eyes and said, ‘Look, fellas, he’ll kill me if I give you any information.’
Gibbs’s mouth fell open as he saw Gareth’s posture straighten up and his eyes focus.
‘What the hell? Have you been playing us all along?’ Shredder said.
‘One of my better pieces of street theatre, if I do say so myself,’ he replied.
Gibbs raised his Glock and placed it against Gareth’s forehead. ‘Start talking, Mr fancy pants, or I’ll kill you like your friends back there.’
The man looked past Gibbs at the two bodies lying in pools of blood. ‘I was to lead you here, they were supposed to kill you, and we would meet him on Waterloo Bridge to get our payoff.’
‘I can promise you that the men you’re dealing with have no intention of paying you anything. They will kill you all just as they planned to kill us here. Give us the information we want, and I promise you that I will let you go,’ Gibbs said, lowering the Glock.
‘All I know is that his name is Woolf, and he found us at the street art theatre near Embankment, where we all perform. He said he worked for wealthy individuals.’
Gareth Simpson didn’t get another word out as his head jerked to the right in a crimson mist before he collapsed into Gibbs’s arms.
‘Sniper,’ Gibbs shouted and pulled back, dropping the body.
Gibbs and Shredder ran to the left of the car park towards an old green Range Rover and dived behind it for cover. Killey and JP made for the rusty shell of an old VW Golf. Bullets ricocheted off the old tarmac and slapped up into the side of the supermarket.
‘Did you spot where they are shooting from?’ Gibbs asked.
‘Can only be from the tall building across the road. I’ll try and get another visual,’ Shredder said, looking up at the roof of the building through the vacant car door spaces. Two more rounds thudded into the hard chassis of the car, causing Shredder to duck down again.
‘Yip, on the roof,’ he said.
‘JP, Killey, do you boys have a visual on the shooters?’ Gibbs shouted.
‘Seems to be a lone gunman, boss. Sounds like a semi-automatic,’ JP said.
‘Crap,’ Gibbs said. ‘Pinned down like pigeons.’
Shredder checked the clip in his pistol. ‘I have eight rounds left so cannot lay down too much cover fire.’
‘It’s getting dark pretty quickly so we could just try and wait him out. Then, one at a time we could make it to the smashed window of the shop,’ Gibbs said.
‘If he is a pro, he’ll have a night scope?’ Shredder said.
‘Possibly, but I am not sure he is an experienced sniper. I mean, why would you silence the man being questioned and not your target that you came to kill? You know a sniper’s priority is the target.’
‘True, but maybe it’s more important to cover up the identity of the sniper and his paymaster than hit the target,’ Shredder said.
Gibbs thought for a moment. ‘We must be getting close to finding out who set us up. I vote that we stay alive long enough to kill the bastards.’
‘Amen to that. We wait for dark then run like chickens and dive through a smashed hole in a large glass shop front window,’ Shredder said.
‘Sounds about right,’ Gibbs said. ‘Tell the others.’
‘Life is such a joy with you, Gibbs.’
Thirty minutes later Gibbs felt Shredder nudging him awake. He opened his eyes to a clear starry night sky above him. He’d dozed off, dreaming of Sharon, settling down with her and having some kids. Not just yet though.
‘Is he still up there?’
‘It’s been all too quiet,’ Shredder said.
Gibbs inched his head up and could just see the corner of the building where the shots seemed to have been coming from. Shedder moved a nearby discarded box above their heads, trying to create some visible movement. Nothing.
‘Well, looks like he has gone. So, what now, do we make a run for it?’ Shredder said.
‘Let’s not all rush out together. I’ll go first from this side, JP and Killey next, and you run last,’ Gibbs said. ‘We all lay cover fire as the others run. Single shots only.’
• • •
Upon the building roof, a frustrated Woolf Schmidt had his eyes welded to the night scope. His targets had fired a few random shots in his direction, but he kept missing them as the two groups were split across two sites, thirty meters apart.
Darkness made things more difficult than they already were, and he saw one of the targets pushing a box around the side of the big vehicle. A ploy to check if he was still there.
Looking over the top of the scope, he thought that they would either run to the right and back towards the station or left to the safety of the underpass. Most of those distances would be a fairly long enough run for him to track with the rifle and kill at least two of them.
Suddenly gunshots from both groups whizzed over his head and thumped into the brickwork just below his
position. He inched his trigger finger down again and chose to focus on the right-hand Volkswagen. Out of the corner of the crosshairs he saw movement, and swung the rifle to the left to see a body running towards the shop. He tracked as fast as he could and was about to squeeze when the man dived through the hole in the glass.
‘Scheisse!’ he screamed, knowing full well that he would have to cover three target areas now. It was not going well. Three targets meant three groups firing at him. He decided to focus on the broken window instead. Let the next one try to dive through.
More bullets fizzed over his head, and a single one hit the lip of the roof, showering him with concrete and broken roof tile. Bullets hit the concrete section of the roof. They were getting closer. He looked up again just as another pair of legs disappeared through the window.
It was a futile exercise now, so Woolf stayed below the rim. Another opportunity would present itself again in the future. He broke down the rifle and carefully packed it into a brown duffle bag, which he slung over his shoulder as he snuck away to the centre of the roof. A loud screech reverberated across the roof as he swung open the steel trapdoor, the metal ladder leading into the dark belly of the building reminding him of a descent into hell.
A breeze smelling of coal and human waste blew into his face as he reached the top floor and walked across the landing to the main stairs. Hundreds of watching eyes from the hidden hovels and homemade corners followed him as he walked. Laundry hung on stolen telephone wire that spanned across the derelict stairwells, limiting his view. Someone could jump him at any moment. Turning to walk down the top flight of cracked wooden stairs, he saw four men with axes and metal poles waiting at the bottom of the first landing.
‘Step aside and let me through,’ Woolf said. ‘I don’t want to hurt any of you, not in front of all your families.’
The man who had commandeered his watch the day before pushed his way through the group of rag-wearing men, carrying a home fashioned machete. ‘Leave that large bag behind, and we may let you out alive.’
‘Don’t be idiots,’ he said. ‘You already have my expensive watch. That was more than enough to cover my exit.’
‘We will decide what your exit value is, mate,’ the man said, waving the large blade at him.
Woolf sighed and reached into his jacket for the safe feel of his Heckler and Koch P8. He pulled the weapon with its noise suppressor out and floored all four men where they stood.
Keeping the weapon at his side, he walked down the stairs and stepped over the scattered bodies. Reaching towards a body, he ripped his watch from the dead man’s wrist.
Chapter 24
Vauxhall, London, England, UK - 2019
The smell of fresh jasmine and warm water woke Gibbs from a deep sleep. Sleep he’d craved and needed after a long week. He sat up on the mattress that was on the floor in the centre of the room. It’d been a long time since he had slept between freshly cleaned sheets. Behind him stood a cupboard with military uniforms hung and folded with the precision of a well-ordered person. He looked across the neat room at the oak chest of drawers that stood next to a small dressing table with a large mirror placed on top. Next to the mattress, an antique wooden wine box with a few old candles had been used as a bedside table with an empty bottle of whisky and two glasses on top of it.
He frowned and massaged his brow as the dull hangover headache begun to pound incessantly.
‘What would you give to have two aspirin right now?’ Sharon said.
Gibbs started to speak, and then stopped as he stared at the toned naked body of the woman in front of him while she dried her short blonde hair with a bright pink towel. Beads of water surfed their way down her defined feminine form, trying to escape the impending drought.
‘Bring that body over here, and you’ll find out,’ he replied, trying not to leer at her.
‘Sadly, you won’t find any tablets in this flat so may I suggest you have a quick shower so we can go and find breakfast.’
‘It’s so bloody early, come back to bed.’
‘No, Gibbs. Get up and make the bed. You do remember how to, don’t you?’ she said, throwing the wet towel at him. It smelt of jasmine.
Later that morning they held hands as they walked together in silence through a busy park behind Sharon’s flat. Stopping at a few market stalls that sold bits of other people’s junk, they hurried on as the smell of bacon from a food stall drew them away.
‘Did you have a chance to speak to your contact at MI6?’ Gibbs asked. ‘I’m keen to find out who’s being trying to kill us all.’
‘You can say “my ex” you know, you don’t have to keep calling him my contact,’ Sharon said.
‘What did your ex have to say?’
‘I spoke to him yesterday, and he said it was proving difficult to get all the pieces of the puzzle for the Angolan trip because a lot of information had gone missing.’
‘Missing?’
‘Removed, deleted, whatever you want to call it. He did keep seeing the name John Mountford popping up, and he apparently works with a group of wealthy individuals in some club or another,’ she said.
‘That sounds like the group of individuals who hired us. Did he mention a David Kirkwood at all?’
‘He did. And your friend Captain Warren also showed up although I don’t understand what he has to do with it. Isn’t he still be based up in Grangemouth? Why would they send out so many teams to help with a coup, yet have none of the teams meet up?’
‘If you want to appear to be helping a government, you need to create a crisis first, and then you step in to help defuse the crisis by bringing the men who perpetrated that crime to justice,’ he explained. ‘I think we were named as the team working with the rebels during the coup.’
‘So, it was a set-up.’
‘I didn’t think so in the beginning while we did the planning, but once we were in Angola, my suspicions grew. After they attempted to take us out the other day, I’m convinced it was a set-up. Can you do me another favour?’
‘If you buy me breakfast first,’ she said.
‘Deal,’ he said, squeezing her hand. ‘I’ve been struggling to get hold of a man by the name of Mason Waterfield. I think he will be able to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle.’
‘Why?’
‘He was one of the first people I met with and was responsible for hiring me, yet his name doesn’t appear to be on any of the intelligence about the coup, so either he is the mastermind behind the whole thing and covering his tracks really well, or he’s also in mortal danger.’
• • •
John Mountford climbed the stairs of a nondescript house on the quiet Mount Road, off the expanse of Hyde Park in London. He glanced around to make sure that no one had followed him. A tall man wearing a long brown coat, jeans and sporting a black beanie on his head, stopped further up the road and turned towards the wall to light a cigarette. John felt his stomach clench. Had he seen the man somewhere before? He looked across to the row of redbrick houses opposite to him. A curtain fell closed in one of them. Glancing upward to the roof of the building, he looked at the CCTV camera that would already have alerted the occupants of the house that he’d arrived. He lifted his hand to use the large brass knocker. The knot in his stomach tightened even more.
A tall blond man, who John recognised as another of Lord Butler’s right-hand men, opened the door, his huge frame blocking the entrance. He stared at John, looking him up and down.
‘Hello, Markus,’ John said.
The German giant grunted a greeting and stepped aside, his right hand never leaving the Heckler and Koch pistol tucked into the back of his trousers, glancing past the visitor and scanning the street.
‘A usual beacon of happiness, I see,’ John said, brushing past the man.
Taking a deep breath, John entered the stuffy old study on the first floor. The walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with books, old magazines and small trinkets. Lord Butler was seated
behind a large stained oak desk, reading from a red leather-bound book. ‘Come on in, John. Have a seat,’ Lord Butler said. ‘It’s nice to see you again.’
‘Morning, sir. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,’ John said, sinking into one of the big red leather antique chairs. ‘I know that you’re a busy man.’
‘That’s quite alright, John. Have you ever read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War?’
‘No, I cannot say I have.’
‘You really should, John. It could help you with some of the Billionaire Club politics. I particularly love this quote - Appear where they cannot go, head for where they expect you least.’
‘I’ll have to read it, sir.’
’Good, you’ll learn a thing or two. Now, what is this about, John? It’s highly irregular to meet outside the scheduled Club meetings. I can only assume it’s to discuss the disappearance of your hired guns in Africa.’
John Mountford swallowed hard.
‘The same men who were supposed to take the blame for the failed coup attempt,’ Lord Butler said. ‘Am I correct?’
‘You are, sir.’
‘One of my African sources has recently been in touch with me. He informed me that the coup was successfully quelled and that the Angolan government is now extremely grateful for our help. A government now more inclined to agree with us regarding our global resource strategies,’ Lord Butler said.
‘That’s a fortuitous result,’ John said. ‘We still have the other problem, sir.’
‘No, John. You still have a problem. Your team let the scapegoats get away. I warned you not to use that team under Captain Warren. The German ex-Special Forces soldier you just walked past in the corridor a few minutes ago, looked at all the team résumés for me and said that the wrong teams were doing the wrong tasks. That’s been proven right, hasn’t it?’
‘I take your point, Lord Butler, but regardless of who is to blame, it still needs to be sorted,’ John said.
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