“So. Deeson.” He leaned forward over the desk, and fixed me with a stare. “Well, you’ve got some nerve, I’ll say that for you. I didn’t think you’d actually show.”
I held up the package. “This is what you asked for.” I didn’t want to engage in conversation.
“It had better be. If you’re messing me around, Deeson…” He left that hanging, I suppose to let my imagination fill in the unpleasant details.
Jack came round the desk, and approached me, hand outstretched for the package but eyes very firmly on me, and a face like granite.
“I saw you up there with Jimmy Wayland,” he said softly. “I’m holding you responsible for what happened to him. Jimmy was a friend of mine.”
Another attempt to intimidate. I was starting to lose patience. And also I didn’t want them to think I was a complete pushover.
“Jimmy Wayland was a bottom-of-the-rung actor who looked a bit like Adi Varney.” I used the same tone as he had. “So you hired him to give your scam a bit of credibility. He fell off that roof because he was too scared of you to talk to me. And by the way, where did you put your friend, Jack? In a hole in the back garden?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed and I wondered if I’d pushed him too far. But then Pockface gave a little cough. “Perhaps Mr Lonza should take a look at that package?”
I wondered who he was. Not just another bit of muscle – his suggestion had sounded almost like an order.
Jack looked at Pockface and nodded. He snatched the envelope out of my hand, then turned away and dumped it on the desk in front of Lonza. Who picked it up in one hand, and had a knife in the other. Not a paper knife. Something with a thick ugly-looking blade, serrated down one edge.
He pointed it at me, and laughed. “You know, I see a lot of guys like you, Deeson. Little guys, who think they’ve got what it takes for the big time. Your pal Adi, he was another one like that.”
This, I decided, was more than just another attempt to intimidate me. This sounded more like Lonza building himself up.
“Well, you know what? Punks like you and Varney, they come and go. And me, I hardly notice them. Few weeks’ time, I’ll be back in the States, doing serious deals with real players, and this – this was just a vacation, just a little time out, and I’ll be struggling to remember your name or your face.”
He paused, but I couldn’t think of anything worth saying, so after a moment he carried on.
“You think you’re pulling off some big deal here? Saving your precious sports centre, your Adi Varney memorial thing? Well, whatever you think you’ve got here, it’s barely worth my time. Might cover my travel expenses, that’s all. And Varney was just another little man with big ideas. He got what was coming to him and, sports centre or not, he’s not even history now. Not worth remembering.” He jabbed the knife in my direction again. “And neither are you, Deeson. Neither are you.”
I shrugged. “Look, Lonza, I don’t care about being remembered. Certainly not by you. And as for Adi, he’ll be better remembered and better thought about in this town than you will be anywhere.”
Lonza’s lips curled back in a snarl. “You little –”
Then Pockface coughed again, and Lonza shot a look in his direction. His expression didn’t change – if anything he looked even angrier – but he turned his attention to the envelope.
“OK, then,” he said. “Let’s just see what you’ve got. If it’s anything.”
It occurred to me, too late, that I had no idea what I’d got. I’d taken Adi’s word for it. Perhaps I should have checked it before I got myself into a confrontation with a Mafia boss and his two henchmen.
Lonza slipped the knife under the flap. It was very sharp. The thick paper fell apart easily under the blade. And then there was a brilliant light, and a blast of heat and pressure that flung me backwards, and a noise so loud that I could barely hear it.
CHAPTER 12
“Don’t think about it. Thinking is overrated. Just do it.”
Adi Varney, speech at a local school sports day
I was on the floor. I didn’t know how I’d got there. I couldn’t remember falling over. Something had hit my head, I thought. My ears were still ringing, there was an acrid smell, and the room looked hazy. I wondered if I was losing my eyesight. Perhaps I was finally having that big heart attack.
But the stents were supposed to have stopped that happening, weren’t they? I got to my feet. I was shaking. Perhaps I should lie down again?
There was no sign of Lonza. His desk had been cleared – the monitors were lying on the floor in front of it, glass smashed, but he’d disappeared. Behind the desk, the curtains were flapping in a gentle breeze that was blowing in where the windowpanes had been, dispersing the haziness like smoke. Which, of course, it was, I realized.
Handy Jack was on the floor at the side of the desk. He wasn’t moving, and the side of his face that I could see was bloody.
On the other side of the room, Pockface had got to his knees. He was looking at me, and fumbling under his jacket with one hand. The muddled thought came to me that he was looking for a wallet. I couldn’t understand why.
“What…” I tried to say, but I still couldn’t hear very well, so I wasn’t sure if anything was coming out. All I could hear was a sort of shrieking noise, like very bad tinnitus. Some sort of alarm, I realized. “What?” I said louder.
Behind me, the door burst open. I turned to look and saw a man standing there. He had a gun – it looked like a sub-machine gun or an assault rifle. He was looking round the room with an expression of shock, the gun muzzle following his gaze. Until both gaze and muzzle settled on me, and he stepped forward, his expression hardening.
“I don’t know what happened,” I started to say. Tried to say.
Then a cricket bat swung up behind him and connected neatly with his skull just above his right ear. Even partially deafened, I could hear the solid “thunk!” it made. The gunman collapsed sideways, and Sam was standing behind him, following through with the swing as if he’d just put one over the slips and away for six.
“Dad!” I heard him calling faintly. “This way!”
I staggered towards him. “We need to get help!” I still wasn’t sure if I was actually saying anything.
I probably was, because he answered. “No, we’re getting out!” he shouted in my ear. Then he looked past me. “Down!”
He jumped forward, pushing me aside, and hurled the bat across the room. Following its trajectory, I saw it slam into Pockface. He’d managed to get to his feet, and had found what he’d been looking for under his jacket. Not a wallet, a pistol. The bat impacted his hand, knocking the gun out of it and sending him staggering back against the wall.
“Run!” Sam shouted, grabbing me by the shoulder and half dragging me out of the door.
I did my best to run. Difficult, because my legs didn’t seem to be working properly, but with Sam’s help I staggered along the corridor and, clinging to the banister, half slid down the stairs.
There was a man lying on the floor, halfway through a side doorway. There was a pistol lying next to him.
“Did you…” I began.
“Not now, Dad!” Sam pushed me towards the front door. “Open it and get to the car. I’m right behind you.” He scooped up the gun in passing and, as I tottered towards the exit, ran past me and into a room on the left. Inside it I could see a bank of CCTV monitors. I recognized the drive and our car.
“Where are you going?” I shouted.
“Opening the gate!” I’d lost sight of him – he was behind the door. Ignoring his instructions I started to follow, but then he burst back out. “Got it. Come on!” On one of the screens I could see the outside gates starting to open, and behind me, on the stairs, there was a loud bang, and chips flew out of the tiled floor near my feet.
Pockface was on the landing, gun in hand, and aiming it at me. Sam stepped between us, pointing his pistol and shooting a rapid volley. Pockface ducked or fell behind the banister
, and Sam dragged me to the front door.
“Get it open!” he shouted, holding his aim on the stairs.
I fumbled with the lock. Just a standard Yale, fortunately, and the door opened easily as soon as I turned the knob. I ran out.
The car was still where we’d left it. Sam, after backing out of the door with his gun still pointing inside, turned and ran past me, opening the doors, sliding in and starting the engine, all apparently in one movement. I followed, less gracefully but almost as quickly, and we were moving before I could get the door shut. Sam accelerated in a spray of gravel, not bothering to check the road before he shot through the gates, turning and flooring the pedal as he did.
We hurtled down the road leaving rubber smoking on the road. A van coming the other way blared its horn. I saw the driver’s mouth open as he shouted at us. Probably something rude but I didn’t hear, didn’t much care, and in any case Sam had us on the right side of the road – just – by the time we passed it. Then we were racing clear of the village and out into open country.
He slowed down a bit after a mile or two, and gave me a look. To my surprise he was smiling.
“More fun than the average day, eh Dad?”
“Fun…” I shook my head. “Fun used to be a day at the park with a ride on the miniature railway! What – what happened?”
“You tell me. You were inside.” He gave me a concerned glance. “Are you OK? Only you’ve got blood on your face.”
I put a hand to my forehead, which felt sticky. When I pulled my hands away, my fingers were red. “Oh. I think that might have happened when the letter exploded.” I was noticing the pain now as well. “I don’t think it’s deep.” I pulled a packet of wet wipes out of the glovebox. I kept them for wiping marks off the dashboard, but they worked pretty well on my face.
“But the bullet missed you, didn’t it?”
“What bullet?” I remembered chips flying out of the floor tiles. “Wait a minute – he was shooting at me!”
“Yes. Well, us. Good thing I picked that gun up. I don’t think he was expecting me to shoot back.”
“You shot him?”
“No, I just shot at him. I’m fairly sure I missed.”
“Sam – where did you learn to do that?”
“Shoot a gun? Anyone can shoot a gun, Dad. You just point it and pull the trigger.”
“Yes, but you looked like you’d done it before.”
“Oh, somebody I met somewhere gave me a few lessons… but you still haven’t told me what happened.”
I rubbed my head, trying to think. “Well, I’m not sure. I met Lonza… and the other bloke, Handy Jack, was there as well. And the one who was shooting at us. We were talking, then Lonza opened the envelope and – I suppose there was an explosion or something.”
“There was definitely an explosion,” Sam confirmed. “I heard it outside in the car. Sounds like it must have been a letter bomb.”
“A letter bomb? You mean – in that envelope Adi gave me?”
He looked across at me. “Yes. Of course – what did you think?”
“I don’t know. A gas leak, perhaps.”
“That was no gas leak, Dad. A detonation like that, from a package that size – we’re talking military-grade high explosive. No amateur weedkiller and sugar sort of device – that was some sort of plastic, I’d guess. C4 or similar.”
I shook my head. “Are you saying that Adi gave me a – a bomb?”
“That’s right.”
“But – but this is Adi, Sam. I mean – what does Adi know about bombs?”
“Not much, perhaps, but I think Casey probably knows quite a lot. And he managed to bring a gun into the country, or got it when he was over here, neither of which is as easy as people imagine – so I suppose he’d have known how to get the makings for a little bomb.”
He slowed down and pulled over into a lay-by. It was one of those that had a small kiosk parked up more or less permanently. A faded sign announced that this was “Mama’s Snack Bar”.
“Cup of tea, Dad?” Sam asked. “I’m told that it’s ideal for all situations.”
I nodded. “I taught you well. At least about tea.”
My only son was showing a lot of knowledge about all sorts of things that I had definitely not taught him. But that was a discussion for another time. While he went over to Mama’s Snack Bar, I sat back, closed my eyes, and tried to get my brain working.
Ten minutes later we were sipping at a weak grey liquid in plastic cups. I missed Sharkey’s Naval Brew, but it was a beggars and choosers situation. And the water might perhaps have caught sight of a teabag at some point in the past, so better than nothing. It may even have helped – my head was starting to clear.
“How did you manage to get in?” I asked after a few minutes of silent imbibing. “The front door was locked.”
“Yes. But the windows were no match for a cricket bat. And after I heard that explosion, I wasn’t going to hang around outside, was I?”
“So you smashed your way in – and him on the hallway floor presumably tried to stop you?”
“He must have been in the security office opposite. I’m assuming there were two of them. One went upstairs to find out what had happened, the other either saw me on CCTV or heard the glass going in. Anyhow, he was coming into the room through the door just as I was coming in through the window. What was left of it.”
“Sam, he had a gun!”
“Ah, but I had a cricket bat! Also the advantage of surprise, in that he wasn’t expecting me to throw it at him. He caught it very nicely on the forehead. I was in a hurry, though, because I didn’t know what had happened to you, so I didn’t stop to collect his gun, which I should have. But I just grabbed my bat…”
“My bat.”
“I recovered the bat, and came up the stairs. There was still some smoke drifting out into the corridor, so I knew which way to go, and I turned up just in time.”
“Yes. Full marks for timing. I think – that one in the doorway, he was going to shoot me.”
“I think he was, Dad. Well, I changed his mind for him.”
“Hmm. You did that. I just hope you didn’t kill him, that’s all.”
“No, I used the flat, not the edge. He should be OK. Well, apart from a bit of concussion.” He looked directly at me. “And I wasn’t going to let him hurt my old man, was I?”
I met his gaze. “I do appreciate it. I just hope that I haven’t got you into trouble.” I thought about what I’d just said, and laughed bitterly. “Trouble! Bombs, gunfights, breaking and entering – we’re already up to our necks in it. We’ve got to go to the police now, Sam. Before they come to us.”
“Ah. That reminds me. I need to send a message.” Sam dug into his pocket and brought out a mobile. Not his normal one. This looked like a pretty basic model. He took the back off and slipped a battery into it.
“Sam – what phone is that?”
“It’s my burner, Dad.” He gave me a grin. “All the rage now, you know. I thought, if Lonza’s got one, I’ll have one as well.” He started tapping on the keypad.
“Why do you need a burner, Sam?”
“You remember that conversation we had? Where you agreed we should let someone know about Lonza?”
“Did I?”
“Yes. So I did. I got a number from a contact of mine…”
“Just a minute – what number? What contact?”
“Just someone I ran into while I was travelling.”
I held his gaze.
“Do you really want to know, Dad?”
I nodded. “Yes, Sam, I really want to know. Because when my son left home he was a bright, cheerful, slightly cocky but basically pretty normal sort of lad. And when he comes back he looks much the same, but he knows far too much about guns and explosives, and has contact numbers for mysterious people that normal people don’t even know exist. So yes, I want to know about these people you ran into while you were travelling.”
He shrugged. “OK, then
. Short version. While I was in Africa, I got recruited to drive a truck. Just a simple job: pick it up, drop it off, don’t ask any questions. Obviously a bit dodgy, but I was too naive to worry about it and too short of money to care. Except that I found out I was transporting a load of poached ivory. I wasn’t keen on that sort of work, so I turned the whole lot over to the police.
“They passed it on to a specialist unit who dealt with that sort of thing. And then it got passed back to me, and they told me to carry on as before – though this time, of course, they were tracking the ivory.
“I ended up working for them for nearly a year, tracking the smuggling routes all the way to China. And along the way, I learned a few skills.
“My contact was a senior officer in that unit. He was the one who recruited me. Somebody who’s been around a bit, and he knows other people who do similar things in other countries. So he was able to put me in touch with someone over here who likes to keep track of people like Lonza. I used a burner, though, because I didn’t necessarily want to get too involved. But it seems like we’ve moved beyond that stage.”
He finished the text, hesitated, then put the burner back in his pocket with the battery still in place.
“When she hears this,” I said slowly, “your mum…”
“… is going to freak,” he finished for me. Not the words I would have used, but accurate enough. “Why do you think I wasn’t talking about it? She was bad enough when she thought I was just wandering around.”
“Humm. Well, I’ll find a way to mention it. When the time’s right. But – getting back to here and now – what did you tell this friend of a friend?”
“Just the bare bones of it. Lonza’s location, bomb, shots fired. Enough to point them in the right direction.”
“Did you mention the cricket bat?”
“Didn’t seem important.”
“Only, you left it behind.”
Sam gave me an irritated look. “Yes, well, sorry and all, but I was busy at the time. Do you want to go back for it?”
“No. But I did mention that it’s a collector’s item?”
“I know, OK? I didn’t think you cared that much about collecting memorabilia, anyway.”
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