by Tim Ayliffe
He was only a few metres away. Five more steps and he’d be standing right beside him.
Bailey had to move.
He took off for the front of the car, bending low so that the guy would need to shoot through metal panels to hit him. He raised his head, peering through the windows. Nothing. The guy must have been bending down, or hunched over. Bailey could hear his feet moving, scraping the pavement, metres away. Only the shell of a bullet-riddled car between them.
Bailey had made it to the rear of the car again, hoping the other guy was at the front. He wasn’t. He appeared out of nowhere, right in front of him, gun pointing at Bailey’s head.
Bailey stared into the little black hole, the world slowing down. He was fucked. He closed his eyes.
Bang!
Bailey felt nothing.
He opened one eye just in time to see the second bullet smack into the guy’s shoulder, knocking him backwards, forcing him to lower the arm holding his pistol. He tried to raise his hand again. He couldn’t. It wasn’t working right.
Bailey started running, circling around the other side of the car, clinging to the metal panels for cover. The gunman was staggering after him, switching his gun into his other hand, firing randomly.
Bang! Bang!
One bullet hit the car and Bailey heard the other one zing past his head and into the wall behind him.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The gunman dropped to the road, his head making a loud cracking sound as his skull crashed into the bitumen.
‘Bailey! Are you hit?’
It was Ben.
Bailey stood up. He could see Ben standing over the dead body of the guy who’d tried to kill him.
‘He’s dead!’ Ben called out to his boss on the roof.
Bailey looked up at the house, where the lone figure of Tony Dorset was standing, his rifle trained on the dead terrorist on the road, like he was ready to kill him all over again.
CHAPTER 55
‘Where is she?’
Before Dorset could answer, Bailey spotted Ronnie climbing through the window at the back of the house with a body slung over his shoulder.
Dexter.
‘We need an ambulance here!’
Ben was already on his radio calling one in as Ronnie ran along the back wall, balancing Dexter’s slight frame like she weighed no more than a child.
‘Front door, every fucking door, is rigged to blow!’ Ronnie yelled. ‘No one goes inside!’
By the time Ronnie had reached the edge of the wall, Dorset was down on the footpath beside Ben, ready to receive her. Bailey was there too. They each grabbed limbs, lowering her to the pavement.
‘Sharon. Sharon. Sharon!’ Bailey was studying her face, trying to see if she was alive.
Nothing.
‘Bullet wound in the shoulder!’ Ronnie called down from the wall.
Dorset placed two fingers on her neck. ‘She’s alive, Bailey. We need to get her to a hospital.’
The flashing blue lights of an ambulance flickered on the wall beside them and seconds later it skidded to a halt.
‘Jesus, Sharon.’ Bailey had one hand on her cheek, pressing the other on the source of the blood flow. ‘Stay with me.’
‘Move! Move!’
Two guys with a stretcher bounced out of the ambulance, pushing Dorset and Bailey to the side. Within seconds, they had Dexter lying flat on the stretcher, lifting her through the back doors of the ambulance.
‘I’m coming.’
‘Sorry, sir.’ One of the paramedics tried to block Bailey from climbing in. ‘You’ll need to meet us there.’
‘No,’ Bailey shot back. ‘I’m coming. I won’t get in the way. She’s my . . . my . . .’
What were they? Bailey didn’t even know how to describe the life they had together. He only knew that he needed her. That he didn’t want to lose her.
The guy took a split second to read the expression on Bailey’s face before deciding that it wasn’t worth the fight. ‘Okay.’
The doors slammed shut and Bailey moved to the corner of the van so that the paramedics could do their thing. With scissors, they cut away her clothes and bra, revealing a small, fleshy hole in her upper chest. The dark-red blood was seeping out of a gunshot wound that was surrounded by black and purple skin.
‘She’s still bleeding heavily.’
One of the paramedics injected Dexter with something and her head rolled to the side so that she was facing Bailey.
He felt useless. Staring at her expressionless face. Mouth open. Strands of hair plastered to her blood-stained cheek.
She opened her eyes.
‘Sharon. Sharon. Sharon.’ Bailey quickly reacted. ‘It’s okay. We’re getting you to a hospital.’
He found her hand on the side of the stretcher and held it tight, squeezing it as he spoke to her. ‘I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here now.’
And he meant it. After all these years, he was there. In this moment. Watching the woman that he loved fighting for her life, battling for every breath. She wasn’t alone.
The corners of her mouth dipped sideways and her eyes narrowed. ‘You . . . you . . .’
She was trying to say something.
‘Don’t, Sharon,’ Bailey said. ‘Just hang on. Don’t try to talk. We’ll get through this.’
She ignored Bailey’s instructions.
‘You’ve done good . . . Bailey.’ She closed her eyes again, her head slumping on the mattress.
‘Sharon! Sharon!’
‘Mate!’ One of the paramedics put his hand on Bailey’s arm. ‘She’s still with us . . . she’s lost a lot of blood. She’ll be on the operating table in ten. You’ve got to let us do our job.’
Bailey didn’t want to let go of her hand but he knew he had to. He needed to get out of the way, let these guys do everything they could to save her.
He just wished that she could still see him. Hear him. Listen to all the things that he needed to say. The things he’d never said. Like ‘I love you’.
CHAPTER 56
It had taken sixteen hours.
Sixteen hours for Mustafa al-Baghdadi’s London terrorist network to be obliterated.
Once the bomb squad had cleared the house in Kensal Town, investigators had discovered a treasure trove of information.
Names. Places. Weapons. Plans.
British police had spent the day raiding properties across the city. At least two dozen terrorists had either been killed or arrested. More attacks had been foiled.
The house in Kensal Town was only the beginning.
The number of officers killed in the suicide bombing on the street had risen to eight. Six men and two women. It was the largest single attack on British police in history.
Bailey felt sick thinking about it. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who wouldn’t be going home tonight. Heroes who’d died fighting against a rotten cause. They would be written about, talked about, their names etched in stone. Nothing would bring them back.
And Mustafa al-Baghdadi was still out there. A ghost.
Sixteen hours.
That was how long Bailey had sat at University College Hospital at Westmoreland Street, his nostrils caked with the sterile smell of antiseptic and cleaning products. His vision distorted by the bright neon lighting of the hospital’s hallways. Watching people wheeled in on stretchers. Motorcycle accidents. Stabbings. Police injured in other London raids.
‘Mr Bailey.’
Bailey was slumped in his chair and he hadn’t noticed the doctor standing in front of him.
He stood up. ‘How’s she doing, doc?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What d’you mean?’
Dexter had been ‘lucky’, they’d told him, because the bullet had missed her heart. The operation was about extracting the bullet, patching her up, transfusing some blood.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Bailey. She’s dead.’
‘No.’ He was shaking his head. ‘No. That can’t be right.’
<
br /> The doctor put his hand on Bailey’s elbow. ‘Is there someone we can call for you?’
Bailey didn’t respond. Not another word. His blank stare telling the doctor all that he needed to know about what Sharon Dexter had meant to John Bailey.
He walked through the hospital doors towards the taxi rank, dizzy with the news that had just been delivered to him by the tired doctor with sad, drooping eyes.
‘Where to, guv?’
‘I don’t know, mate. Away from here.’
Bailey closed the door and rested his head against the window.
The sun had risen and set again by the time the driver was taking him away from the hospital. ‘How about a drive along the river then, hey guv?’
‘Yeah. Good, idea.’
There was something about London cabbies. Something special. Proud people who knew their city, their passengers.
‘Only thing I need to know, guv . . . which way when I hit the Thames? We going east, or west?’
The driver had a thick cockney accent that Bailey could have listened to all night. Reassuring, friendly. Someone Bailey could trust. He didn’t know why, but that’s what he thought.
‘West, mate. Thanks.’
The gentle hum of the engine was vibrating through Bailey’s head like a Buddhist mantra. Calming. Almost hypnotic.
‘You want to talk about it, guv?’
Bailey could see the driver’s eyes in the rear-vision mirror.
‘I lost someone.’
Dexter would want him to talk about it. She’d hated how he’d shut down, keep her out. Hide from his problems until they’d boiled over.
‘Someone special, eh?’
‘Something like that.’
It was after ten o’clock and the streets were empty. Barely a vehicle on the road. The cab driver could be steering the car from side to side across the lanes and he wouldn’t hit a thing. Not only that, but the footpaths were empty too.
‘Where the hell are all the people?’
‘Inside. Off the streets.’ The driver’s eyes were darting between the road and the guy in the back seat. ‘You’re my first ride for hours. It’s a travesty what’s happening to this city. All those terror raids . . . people are too afraid to go out. And then they put out a picture of that fella from Islamic Nation.’
‘What?’
‘Who’d have thought . . . Controlled half of bloody Iraq and Syria, now he’s on the run in old Blighty. Can’t make it up, guv.’
‘No. You can’t.’
They drove on again in silence until Bailey spotted something out the window that was calling for him.
‘I’m going to get out here, mate.’ Bailey rummaged through his jacket for his wallet, poked a tenner through the glass.
‘Take care of yourself.’
Bailey watched the car pull away up the street towards Waterloo Bridge and then turned around and walked in the opposite direction, down a side street and into the little shop with the yellow sign out front.
Bailey looked up at the shelf behind the guy manning the counter until he found what he was looking for.
‘Bottle of single-malt, mate.’ Bailey was pointing at the dusty bottle of Glenfiddich on the top shelf. ‘The big one.’
Bailey walked out of the shop towards Waterloo Bridge, nursing the bottle in his hand in a brown paper bag.
He still hadn’t opened it by the time he hit the river. He hadn’t decided whether or not he would. He was just going to walk along the Thames towards his hotel. Take his time. Suck in the air. Maybe sit on a bench and take a few swigs from the bottle in his hand, when it called for him. Think about Dexter. The woman that he’d let down.
I don’t love anyone else.
What a fucking idiot. A coward. Of course, he loved her.
In her heart, maybe she knew. He’d hang on to that thought. Tell himself that it was true.
Bailey stopped walking, leaning against the wall, looking out over the water, placing the bottle on the ground beside him.
A light drizzle was falling and it was getting cold. Bailey zipped up his jacket, lifting his collar to his ears, resting both elbows on the wall. He watched a water taxi zip along the river, wishing he was on it. Wishing he was being taken somewhere else. Anywhere but here.
After a day like this one, he’d usually be hunched over a keyboard writing a story about what he’d seen. Not this story. Not any story. Not anymore.
Standing in the open air, Bailey didn’t know whether to keep walking, or turn back around and go somewhere else. But where?
He looked at his watch. 10.16 pm. This was London. London. Streets that would usually be bustling were virtually empty. Buses passed by with only a handful of passengers on board. No young revellers racing to the next nightspot. No couples enjoying a post-dinner walk along the river. Terrorism had done strange things to this city. It was keeping people inside. Away from the danger. Away from the fear.
The rain was seeping through his hair, coating his skin. The night breeze caused him to shiver. Everything about the night felt wrong.
His right hand was still numb from what had happened at Kensal Town. Bailey had never fired a gun before and, almost seventeen hours later, his hand was still tingling from the entire magazine that he’d unloaded at the bloke who’d tried to kill him. Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him but the strange buzzing sensation just wouldn’t go away.
Bailey felt another tingle. A vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his phone and saw Ronnie’s name flashing on the screen. By now, Ronnie would have heard about Dexter. Bailey didn’t want to talk about it. Not with Ronnie. Not with anyone. Telling the cab driver was enough to have made it real. Now Bailey just wanted to be alone.
He looked down at the brown paper bag on the stone beside him. If there was ever a night when Bailey had deserved a tipple, this was it.
He grabbed the bottle and kept walking, under Hungerford Bridge, alongside Whitehall Gardens. He stopped again when he spotted the London Eye on the other side of the river. The moonlight was enough to illuminate the white metal beams of the big circle that was suspended in the sky like a giant dream catcher. Too late to catch the nightmare that had befallen Bailey.
A few minutes passed before Bailey realised that there was someone standing beside him. A guy dressed in a black tracksuit, staring out over the river, close enough to start a conversation, but not so close that he needed to.
Bailey started walking again but before he had managed a few paces he heard a scraping sound behind him.
He turned just in time to see the knife shimmering in the light above his head. Bailey stepped back, holding up his hands in defence, deflecting the guy’s hand and the blade that was spearing towards his throat.
‘What the fuck!’
The guy in the tracksuit wrestled Bailey to the ground, straddling him like a jockey, pushing down on the knife.
The tip of the blade pierced the ball of Bailey’s shoulder, delivering a sharp pain as the blade cut deeper, slashing the skin down his arm.
Bailey had both hands locked around the guy’s wrist, pushing the knife away from his shoulder and out of his flesh.
Bailey caught a glimpse of the man’s face in the struggle. His eyes. Mustafa al-Baghdadi. Beardless and with a shaved head.
‘Get the fuck off me!’
Bailey struggled beneath him, trying to drive the knife away from his neck.
‘I’m going to kill you,’ Mustafa said, his voice rising with each word.
‘Help!’ Bailey screamed to no one.
‘You killed my wife! My son!’
‘You’re bloody insane!’ Bailey said. ‘Fucking lunatic. Get off me!’
‘I should have hanged you off a bridge in Mosul.’
Mustafa took one hand off the knife, taking a swing, his fist crashing into Bailey’s cheekbone, splitting his skin. The shock of the blow made Bailey loosen his grip and the knife speared towards his neck. He only just managed to divert it at the last moment and the blade
cut into his shoulder again. Deeper. The warm blood making his shirt stick to his skin.
Mustafa punched him again. This time Bailey was ready and the knife stayed steady, hovering above him, shivering under the pressure of the struggle.
Bailey turned his head to his left, then his right, searching for anything that he could use as a weapon. There was nothing but an old soft drink can and pages from a newspaper, blowing along the path.
With both hands back on the knife, Mustafa was pushing down, the blade edging close to the Adam’s apple jutting from Bailey’s neck.
Bailey noticed the brown paper bag sitting upright next to the wall. Inches from his hand. A weapon. He grabbed the bottle by the neck and crashed it into the side of Mustafa’s head. The glass smashed, spraying the two men with the sweet-smelling liquid and shards of the shattered bottle.
Bailey still had hold of the bottle. All that was left was a row of jagged glass teeth. He rammed it into the side of Mustafa’s neck, driving deep. He withdrew the stem and stabbed him again, this time in the side of his stomach. And again. And again.
The knife fell from Mustafa’s hand, making a clanging sound on the stone. His eyes wide open with the shock of what had just happened. Still sitting on Bailey, he reached for his neck, trying to stop the blood flow with his hand.
Mustafa was looking down on Bailey, trying to speak. All that he could manage was a popping sound, each word muffled by his own blood choking him, filling his lungs.
Bailey pushed him off and Mustafa fell flat on the floor beside him. He was almost limp, barely moving, although there was life still left in his eyes.
Using the arm of his uninjured shoulder, Bailey sat up so that he could look Mustafa in the face. One last time.
After everything that Mustafa al-Baghdadi had done, all that he’d preached, he’d surrendered to a most basic instinct. Revenge. And he’d lost.
‘Bubba!’
Ronnie appeared out of nowhere, dropping to his knees beside Bailey.
‘Are you cut? Injured?’
Bailey could feel his shirt, covered in blood and whisky, clinging to his body. He didn’t know how deep the knife had cut into his shoulder. It felt like a flesh wound. Like most of the blood was coming from Mustafa.