An abrupt flare of light in the darkness indicated the first shot before the muffled explosion of gases could be heard. The first was instantly followed by a second. Before the figures below had a chance to focus their own weapons, I double-tapped my own target. Virtually at the same time, the man in the middle went down beneath two more shots from Terry’s weapon. The bursts of light were not significant enough to disturb vision, so within less than three seconds I could clearly see that all visible targets were down. From upstairs I heard Melissa cry out. I hoped she had the good sense to stay locked up in the bathroom as instructed.
Predictably, the fourth target had held back rather than rush forward and engage in the firefight. In my view this marked them down as a wily foe rather than a cowardly one. They had weighed up their assault options quickly and rightly decided to err in favour of discretion.
I assumed Terry had come to the same conclusion, as my friend descended the stairs inch by inch, his head jerking from side to side as he attempted to peer around the corner of the wall close to the stairs. He had indicated nothing, but I followed him anyway.
I had my friend’s back.
Once again I heard a muted scream from above, and guessed that Mel was now starting to panic. I could hear Charlie muttering, asking what was going on. I had no choice but to dismiss it; there was a job right here to complete. Ahead I saw Terry remove the goggles, so I did the same. It was possible, likely even, that the final target would by now have removed his own and would hit the lights, causing momentary blindness for anyone still using night-vision. It was a calculated risk, but I assumed Terry was reacting to what he would do in his opponent’s shoes.
Less than five seconds later both the hallway and kitchen lights came on. This was a mistake, because there was probably only one place where both switches could be reached simultaneously, and Terry would know exactly where that was. Barely a heartbeat passed before another two suppressed shots were delivered, followed by a soft thud as our final target hit the floor.
There was no screaming or shouting. The awful sound a wounded human makes was one I had heard more often than I cared to think about, a sound that would never leave me. Inside the house there was now only silence. There were no wounded.
Terry glanced back over his shoulder and jabbed a finger at two of the men lying on the hallway carpet leaking blood from two rounds each, parts of their faces now missing. As before, I knew what was required of me without him having to say. While he checked the third victim’s pulse, so I did the same to number one and number two. Terry stepped away, inspected the slumped form wedged into a nook between the kitchen and hall, turned and gave a thumbs-up.
‘Good job, Mike,’ he said. Terry wasn’t even sweating.
I nodded. Exhaled for the first time in a while. ‘You, too, mate. That was intense.’
‘I’m going outside. I want to have a look around, see if I can find their vehicle. There may be more of them out there waiting.’
‘You think that’s likely?’
He shook his head. ‘They will have been on comms and overheard everything that just happened. If that were the case they would be in here by now. No, I don’t think I’m going to find anyone else out there, but I want to know rather than guess. Can’t have anyone calling up the cavalry.’
With Terry gone, I spent several minutes dragging the fallen bodies into the kitchen. I was used to being up close and personal with death. It may have been a long time ago, but some things you never forgot. There was no reason why either Mel or Charlie had to see them, so removing them from view was the best thing all round. When I was done, I hurried back upstairs. Knocked on the bathroom door.
‘It’s me, Mel,’ I said. ‘It’s safe to come out now.’
This time she did not scream. This time she sobbed, and fell into my arms. And Charlie joined in with her.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Terry drove hard across the flat terrain of the Fenlands. The sky ahead was gradually illuminating the farther reaches of the land as the ascending sun tipped the horizon. We headed into it, the road shimmering before us. Five miles north of Thetford, Terry hung a right off the main road, slowed and headed along a dirt track. The route was dusty after a dry summer, deeply rutted by tyre indentations left behind from the muddy winter. The Range Rover bounced and juddered along for just shy of a mile before turning left onto a long gravel driveway that led to a single-storey farmhouse with a large dormer roof. A yawning ditch encircled the property, and we had to cross a low wooden bridge to reach the wide, rectangular parking area. I noticed a large wooden barn set back and to the left of the house, and over to the right stood stables built from crumbling grey stone, and a small crop of outbuildings.
There had been little conversation during the drive. Melissa sat in complete silence, alternately hugging herself or twisting strands of her hair and coiling them around her finger. Perhaps for the first time in her life she was starting to understand that nightmares can come true. After initial petulance, Charlie had settled back to sleep. The kid was wasted without even knowing why. Terry appeared lost in thought throughout the entire journey. I could still feel occasional tremors rip through my own body. They were coming every few minutes. At one point, shortly after we fled Peterborough, Terry had noticed.
‘You okay, Mike?’ he asked.
‘As right as I’ll ever be.’
‘Taking a life up close like that is never easy. You’ll feel the jolt for days.’
Earlier, when Terry returned to the house, he revealed that he had found an empty SUV, but after a rapid search it had come up clean. No documentation, nothing that might tell us who the armed men were or where they had come from. Whilst Melissa calmed a bewildered and sobbing Charlie, myself and Terry searched the bodies of the four dead men. As with the car, they gave up no clues.
Probing their pockets felt obscene to me. I had done it many times before, but only in the aftermath to acts of open warfare. These particular dead bodies were different. They didn’t even feel human to me.
‘This isn’t making sense,’ Terry said as he shoved one of the men aside.
‘In what way?’
‘The hit on Dawson I can just about buy. NCA Investigator goes all vigilante. The murder of your friend, however, doesn’t feel right at all. That escalates matters, possibly to some kind of conspiracy. But this? Four well-armed, well-trained men, all wearing the same special ops combat gear. No way anyone is getting a bunch of mercenaries together at such short notice and have them make a strike as if they’ve been a unit for a long time.’ He shook his head and chewed on his lip. ‘No, this is something else altogether. Something much bigger.’
I had felt it as well. A wrench deep in the gut. Terry was spot on. What had happened here was not due to one lone cop pulling the strings of a well-oiled killing machine or snatch squad.
‘What are we going to do with them?’ I asked.
‘Someone out there will be waiting for a situation report. When one fails to come they’ll send another team. There’s too much mess and blood here to clean up before that happens. We need to go, leave these men where they are. Wipe down everything you touched.’
Less than ten minutes later we were out of there, taking with us four extra weapons and spare clips of ammunition.
Now, in silence still, we disembarked and filed into the house. This was an older property than the previous one, and it immediately felt lived in. Terry led the way, I brought up the rear. In the cluttered, stone-floored kitchen, Terry filled a kettle and got it going. Five minutes later we were sipping our drinks at a scarred oak table in the centre of the room. Charlie perched quietly on Melissa’s lap, a small glass of orange juice clasped in both hands, headphones wrapped tightly around her ears. Not for the first time I was grateful for the invention of the various Apple devices.
I glanced around the table. Terry’s face was pinched, eyes dull. Melissa looked both wired and exhausted at the same time. Only Charlie appeared rested and at ease. Having initi
ally succumbed to tears, tantrums and sullenness when snatched from her sleep, carried unceremoniously from the safe house and stuck inside a vehicle once more, her mood had improved considerably within mere minutes. I had been astonished – but so grateful – for the rapid and unexplained change in her disposition.
Before we were halfway finished with our drinks, Terry turned to Melissa and said, ‘There’s a TV in the room at the far end of the passage. I suggest you get Charlie settled in front of it and then join us again. We have much to discuss.’
It was the first thing any of us had said since pulling off the main road.
To my surprise, Mel complied without comment. ‘Nice place,’ I told my friend once we were alone. ‘You live here, or is this another safe house?’
Terry sipped from his mug before responding. ‘A bit of both. I use it more than I should.’
‘I don’t envy your life, mate. Always on the move, always looking over your shoulder.’
‘And yet which of us is currently on the run from the police, a bunch of gangsters, and a heavily armed hit squad?’
I grinned. ‘You may have a point.’
Melissa came back into the kitchen. ‘I managed to find some cartoons,’ she said. ‘Charlie will be fine on her own for a bit.’
‘Shut the door behind you,’ Terry told her. His voice had hardened.
‘I thought I’d keep an ear out for – ‘
‘I said shut the door. Let’s not debate it.’
I glanced across at Terry. He had eyes only for Melissa, whose cheeks were now flushed. She did as she was told without any further argument before taking her place at the table once more. She folded her arms beneath her chest and stared straight ahead.
‘Good. Now, empty your pockets,’ Terry insisted. He raised a hand. ‘Don’t ask why. Don’t argue with me. Just do as I say.’
For a long moment Melissa made no reply. Then she swallowed and said, ‘And what if I won’t?’
‘Then I will do it for you. And I don’t do gentle.’
‘Terry, what’s going on?’ I asked, noting the tremor in Mel’s body. ‘What’s this all about?’
‘You’ll see in a moment, Mike. As soon as Mel has done as she’s told.’
Melissa got to her feet, saying nothing. Her mouth formed a pout. From the single pocket of her dress she took out an unopened packet of gum. From her left jacket pocket she took out a set of keys. From her right jacket pocket she took out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and a disposable lighter. Each of these she deposited on the table before her. Mel then turned to Terry, chin set proud.
He raised his eyebrows.
The silence of our surroundings was all too evident in that kitchen as the two continued to stare at each other.
It was Melissa who broke.
As I knew she would.
But I was not prepared for what she then removed from an inside jacket pocket and placed on the table alongside the other items.
The mobile phone should not have been there. Yet there it was. If Mel had seen the look I flashed her it might have terrified her all the more, but she was staring down at the table, arms re-crossed.
‘Had to be,’ Terry said. He looked first to Mel, then at me. ‘It was the only way they could possibly have tracked us down.’
It dawned on me then what my friend was saying. The crew lying dead back at the first safe house. Undoubtedly led there by the GPS on Melissa’s mobile.
‘When did you figure it out?’ I asked him.
‘The moment I saw them on the monitors.’
I made a ball of my hand and slammed it down on the table. The mugs jumped, some of their contents spilling out across the hard wooden surface. ‘Damnit!’ I glared at Melissa. I jabbed a finger in her direction. ‘You were in on it. You knew your boss was going to be shot and killed.’
Melissa’s eyes widened, her mouth hung open. Then she shook her head, eyes narrowing again. ‘No! No, that’s not true. You have to believe me.’
‘Well then why have you been letting them track us down?’
‘I haven’t.’ She glanced back down at the table. Her voice was quieter when she spoke again. ‘At least… I didn’t mean to.’
‘You told me you didn’t have a mobile,’ I snapped.
‘I lied.’ She shoved her hands into her pockets.
‘Why? For what possible reason?’
‘Because I didn’t trust you.’ Now she met my glare, and this time she did not flinch. ‘I didn’t know you from Adam. We’ve been over this. I was scared out of my wits, Mike, and despite everything you told me, despite everything that happened to us all, I didn’t trust you. Once I’d said I didn’t have a phone, I didn’t want to take it back. I was afraid of what you might do. It was my one hope if you turned out to be a bad guy, and I couldn’t let you know I had it.’
I bit down on that. I was furious with her, but I also understood. Even so, her actions had put us all in danger. I told her as much.
‘I know that now,’ she almost whimpered. Her lips were trembling. ‘Do you think I wanted that to happen back at the other place? Do you think I would have put Charlie though all that deliberately? Everything I have done since Ray was killed has been to take care of Charlie. I wanted that one bit of protection, and I didn’t think of the consequences. That’s all I can say.’
I turned to Terry, frowning my disapproval. ‘And you let her keep it on her? You guessed what was happening and still you let her keep it so they could track us again?’
He nodded. ‘It’s time we took control of the situation, Mike. Confront it head on. I chose to move on because we’re about as well defended here as we could be. Rather than sit and wait for them to find us, we draw them in now, we take them down now.’
‘They were not prepared for you last time, Terry. They will be now. For someone, at least. For a fight. The kind of fight that can leave four of their men dead.’
‘That cuts both ways. And we also have the advantage that they won’t have a clue we know they’ll be coming.’
I inclined my head. ‘I do hope you’re right. You have to be right. Either way, you could have discussed it with me first.’
He took another sip of his tea. ‘We didn’t have time for all that, Mike. I knew we would need to spend some time finding out from Melissa here just what the hell is going on. I wanted to do that from a position of strength. Here is where we are strongest, believe me.’
Have I got any choice? I wondered silently. I couldn’t blame Melissa for keeping quiet about the phone, could hardly blame Terry for taking the fight to those who were hunting us, but neither was I about to welcome the situation with open arms.
‘I suppose the question is,’ I said, staring hard at Melissa, ‘have you done more than leave the phone on? Have you used it at all?’
She glanced at the device before shaking her head. The first movement on her part told me her mute denial was another lie. When I spoke again, I lowered my voice, leaning in towards her. ‘Melissa, you have to be honest with us now. It could be nothing, but it could be everything. The difference between life and death. For all of us, Charlie included.’
Melissa bit her lip. Closed her eyes. ‘Okay,’ she said finally. ‘I’ll tell you everything.’
TWENTY-NINE
The first time she made contact was whilst waiting in the car with Charlie at the motel, sending a text to Chris Dawson. She briefly explained what had happened to Ray. To us. The gist, anyway. The next time she risked checking the phone was while I was asleep in the car. By that point, Chris had asked her where we were.
‘And you told him?’ I asked.
‘No. I didn’t really know where we were for sure, so I sent back a message telling him I’d update him as soon as I could. I then had to wait until we were in that restaurant for breakfast. When I was in the bathroom. Only this time while I was checking my inbox another two messages came in. The first was from Chris again saying he would wait for me to confirm our location, but that as soon as I told him
where we were he’d mobilise a crew to come and fetch us. The other text was from an unknown number. I can’t remember the message properly, but it said something like ‘The man who took you is very dangerous. Do not trust him. Trust no one. Not even family. Just leave your phone on and we will find you.’’
No one said anything for several seconds. Terry eventually broke the silence. ‘I take it you’ve deleted these texts,’ he said to Melissa.
She nodded, adding nothing.
‘And that’s it? Nothing more?’
‘Two more from Chris, still wanting to know where we were.’
‘You responded to neither?’
‘No.’
‘Tell me, Melissa, did the texts from Chris ask about Charlie at all?’ Terry edged forward in his chair this time.
‘I don’t remember. I don’t think so, actually. Why?’
‘Nothing. Just a thought. And you have no idea who that other text came from?’
‘None whatsoever.’
Terry stared at her for a moment. He seemed to have nothing else to say.
I did, though. Yet again something was not sitting right with me. They had tracked us through the GPS on the mobile. We were now expecting them to trace us again. So it occurred to me to wonder why they didn’t do the same while we were in Chippenham. After all, that was the longest we had stayed anywhere since this whole thing kicked off. I voiced my concern at this anomaly.
‘It may have taken them too long to activate a GPS trace,’ Terry said. ‘They would have needed to go through the provider, possibly even obtain a warrant.’
I was still looking at Melissa, and I saw something flicker across her face. ‘Is that it, do you think, Mel?’ I said. ‘Or could there be another reason.’
She took a breath. She could barely bring herself to look at either of us. ‘No. No, that’s not it,’ she said. ‘I got scared. My head was reeling. I remembered reading about how a phone could still be traced even if it was switched off, so I slipped the battery out. I only put it back when we left the hotel.’
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