Scorpion's Vengeance

by Lawrence Hebb

  “Here they come” Jacko cut across the conversation, he reached for his phone, tapped in a few letters and numbers, then pressed send.

  Joey and Sandy both broke off and walked hand in hand towards the entrance, to the rest of the world they looked like lovers who only had eyes for each other, that was only partly true, both of them were scanning their ‘peripherals’ making sure everything went to plan.

  “They're not bothering to watch” Joey whispered to Sandy as they got level, “get ready”

  Sandy tripped ‘right on cue’ flailing slightly as she went down, Joey reached out and caught her just as she ‘fell’ against the big ‘bear’ of a guy escorting a young blonde towards the Mercedes, what people didn’t see was Sandy slip a small metal device inside the wheel well at the back, “trackers in place” she whispered into the small lapel mike.

  On the other end, about two hundred yards down Brompton road, the main road through Knightsbridge, Smithy and Mac were waiting, Mac’s phone went off, the message came up. “It's a white Mercedes 280 SLK rego”

  “There she is” Smithy started the car, a Nissan Pulsar, he pulled into the traffic three cars behind, he’d been following the GPS screen.

  Anywhere else in London a white Mercedes convertible would stand out like boils on a baby’s bottom, but in but in Knightsbridge it's the Pulsar that sticks out, no one is poor enough to want to own one!

  “We just turned left” Mac spoke, they were using earpieces, everyone was on the same frequency, “Old Brompton road”

  “Roger that” Sandy replied, “her place is near Earls court, we’re heading there now, should be about ten minutes.”

  “I’m south of there” Jacko cut in, “got a visual, any minute now he’s gonna try and lose any tail.”

  Gromatski would be careful, it was almost second nature to him in some ways, a lifetime of crime kind of built the skills he had, they were good, but not good enough. He was looking around, using the car’s mirrors, that didn’t make much difference though, he was still cautious, the light ahead had been on green for a while, he got ready for the light change.

  The light changed to amber and he floored the accelerator, the car sprang forward like a thoroughbred racehorse unleashed and given her full ‘head’ to sprint to the finishing line, she shot forward tyres squealing, as soon as she was halfway through the junction he yanked the wheel hard right narrowly squeezing between two oncoming cars, both of whom ‘stood’ on their horns, not that he was worried, he shot down the street, tyres squealing and accelerating away, at the next junction they went right, again without indicating, this time narrowly missing a cyclist.

  “Ya bleedin’ maniac” the cyclist screamed as he fell off his bike, “I’ve got yer soddin’ number on camera ya moron” he was cursing, and Jacko was watching it all from a safe distance.

  “Gromatski just came round the corner” Jacko spoke into the Bluetooth device he was using, “Just as we thought, he’s on Bolton Gardens, just missed a car at the intersection of the A3218” the fact was, his training was such that he was actually predictable, and that’s what they’d done, the tracker had helped, but they knew every journey he made, at the third junction he always made the same move.

  “Roger that” Joey replied, “we’re ready to roll, everything in place”

  About three hundred yards down on the left was a four-story building that looked like a house from the Regency period, early nineteenth century, the distinct red brick build on top of a the first storey of granite with carvings that looked as if they came from the Roman period, the window frames all painted white, giving off a stark contrast to the red brick.

  The car pulled up outside the red-brick building, the double yellow lines indicating ‘no parking’ were totally ignored, not that there were any parking wardens around. The building did have secure car parks, but he was taking the car somewhere after if Sasha, needed transport she’d give him a call.

  He jumped out and moved round to open Sasha’s door, she may be a teenager, but she was the boss's mistress, piss her off and Alexei was likely to hear about it, and that wouldn't be pleasant.

  “Where’s my purse?” Sasha was mumbling and fumbling as Gromatski moved round to open her door, she found it and began to climb out as the door began to open, “Ouch, YOU BIG, what the hell?” she knocked her head, her foot was stuck, trapped in the half-opened door with an unconscious Russian bear like man falling against it.

  “I think he’s had a heart attack” someone shouted from the other side of the door, they were trying to pull the big guy away, she got her foot free, got into the car and locked the door, “Did you hear me?” the guy shouted, “Call a bloody Ambulance!”

  “But I have no phone” Sasha replied through the closed door, her strong accent giving her away, “Not here in car”

  “Then bloody haul ass and go get your phone” another one, this time a female shouted, she’d seen what was going on and came to help, “Look, I know first aid, and can help here, but you need to go get a sodding Ambulance! RUN!”

  She wasn’t sure why she obeyed the voice, it sounded more like a school headmistress than anything else, a voice that in her native Russia must be obeyed at all times, she was out of the car and off at a sprint up the steps to her apartment.

  It took Sasha fifteen seconds to reach the apartment, twenty seconds to unlock the door, and dive into the apartment, she heard a car start but nothing much out of the ordinary.

  “Emergency services, state the service you require” the voice demanded, she wasn’t totally sure, she’d only been in England six months.

  “My friend, he have a heart attack” she began, “he is dying”

  “Where are you, madam?”

  “Earls court, Bolton Gard”

  “Bolton Gardens Madam” the voice was male and speaking very gently, “is your friend breathing?”

  “I not know, I ran inside, make a phone call” she began to move back outside, the phone was cordless, “I check for you”

  “Thank you, meanwhile an Ambulance is on its way”

  “No” she cried, “NOOO” outside there was no Pietr, no car and no people helping a man who’d had some kind of attack and been rendered unconscious.

  Chapter 25

  “You sit tight” Billie said as she opened the car door, “I’ll only be a couple of minutes”, she was obviously still stiff and struggling from the beating, even Jimmy could see that, but she was too proud, or stubborn, (pick your own words for it,) to ask for help, she struggled out of the car, left hand on the top of the door, right gripping the doorframe she managed to stand after a few seconds, she’d been given a crutch to walk with, but was refusing to even contemplate using the thing, Jimmy had a pretty robust umbrella in the car, he was from the North, just like her, where it rained at least once a day, even on the hot summer days, you never left home without either a raincoat or a ‘brolly’

  “Boss,” Jimmy said as she got out of the car, “you do know we took everything from the flat don’t you?”

  “And I told you, what I’m looking for isn’t in the flat” she replied leaning back in. She closed the door before he could say any more, and headed for the entry.

  The flats were in the shape of a rectangle, sixteen apartments side by side all emptying into a central walkway, lifts at either end went up the four floors to the other dwellings, a total of sixty four dwellings.

  “Good” Billie whispered to herself, “nothing’s been touched” she could see from the large pot plants there that nothing had been disturbed. She made her way towards one of the huge pots, it had a medium sized bush that needed a serious watering in it.

  At the base, just visible through the nearly dead leaves and thorns was a bit of earth that looked as if it had been disturbed, she didn't go for that patch, at about ninety degrees there was a flat patch with a few leaves covering the area, she began digging with her fingers.

  Halfway through uncovering whatever it was she stopped, trying not make it loo
k obvious she took a look around, no one seemed to be there, she whipped the device out with one hand while still making look as if she was digging, slipping it into her pocket she stood up and headed back to the car without a second look.

  “Took yer time boss,” Jimmy said as she gently lowered herself into the car, “I was beginning to get a bit worried”

  “Nah, only been gone a couple of minutes” Billie replied, “anyway, let's get the hell of Dodge” she slipped the seatbelt on, “did you get me a laptop?”

  “Yeah, it’s at your new place, a separate modem too” Jimmy replied, “though the sales assistant thought it a bit strange, normal people want internal modems and Wifi you know!”

  “Who said I was normal?” BJ smiled, “besides, all normal is” she went on almost laughing, it was a nervous laugh, “is what the majority do, doesn’t necessarily mean its the ‘sane’ thing to do.”

  “Speaking of ‘sane’ and insane” Jimmy butted in, “you’re aware what DCI Townsend has done?”

  “That jerk” she spat out, “gave us a nearly impossible case, then just to make sure he damn well stitched us up, yeah I’m aware he’s been dismantling the bloody team before we had a chance to do much!”

  “We’re the only two left” Jimmy added, “ apparently someone with real clout wants this investigation to go away”

  “Not surprised” BJ replied, “someone doesn’t want us finding things out” she held up the package, “and whatever this tells us, they were prepared to kill to stop us finding out, and even kill a copper!”

  There’s a code the Police live by, it's unwritten, but the criminal who knows it tries very hard to never break the code. Its known as ‘appropriate response’

  It works like this, commit a crime and they’ll send whatever’s appropriate. Burglary and you’ll get a couple of ‘uniforms’ taking statements and fingerprints. A bit of violence would get the local C.I.D (Criminal Investigation Division) involved. Murder gets a whole team, and they track you down eventually. Kill a copper, and the whole of the Metropolitan Police come after you, and there’s nowhere to hide, they’ll take London apart if they have to.

  But someone had called the ‘rottweilers’ off!

  The rest of the trip, all fifteen minutes of it, was done in silence, Jimmy wondering just how much trouble he’d be in if he kept working the case, he hated to let things go, and he knew there was no way BJ would drop it, Hell would freeze over first.

  She was trying to think which side wanted the investigation quashed, and why?

  Chapter 26

  “Can I help mate” someone offered as Joey began to ease the big man down the pavement,

  “need an Ambulance?”

  “Got one on the way mate” Joey replied pretending to speak into his phone, he was speaking into the device, but not to the Ambulance people, Mac was on the other end, seconds later Smithy pulled up in the car, Mac, who was in the passenger seat sprang out, he began running towards Joey pretending to be slightly unfit and out of breath.

  “Let me through” he bellowed, “I’m a doctor” which was partly true, Mac was a ‘doctor’, he didn’t have the fancy title or degree, but he did have years as an Army combat medic, and a few years working as a junior doc at Hereford General’s Accident and Emergency department. He crouched down and began examining Gromatski, all part of the charade, he knew exactly what Joey had administered, and how much, he’d prepped the syringe with the Chlordiazepoxide in the first place.

  Chlordiazepoxide or ‘Librium’ is pretty easy for Doctors to prescribe, it’s a sleep serum you mix into a liquid and inject directly into a vein, in this case, they’d gone straight for the Jugular, and Gromatski had gone out like a light, similar to what they were going to blame it on.

  “Sudden heart attack” Mac looked at Joey, he had a stethoscope out and was doing a check of the heart rate, partly to make sure everything was going correctly, but mostly for show, they knew exactly how much they needed to give the guy, and not one milligram more, ‘This prick isn’t getting away so easily’ was the thought, ‘death is not an option’. He looked at Joey, “we need to get him to a hospital, and the Ambulance will be too slow, gimme a hand, we’ll take him in our car” he motioned to Smithy to come and give a hand, “how far is the nearest Emergency department?”

  “That’d be the Chelsea and Westminster,” one of the people looking on said, “five minutes away, that way” he pointed down the street, the way they were intending to go anyway.

  “Right then” Mac replied indicating for Joey and a few of the others to grab an arm or a leg and lift the big Russian into the back of the vehicle, “No time to lose, the bloody Ambulance will be at least five minutes, he hasn’t got that long, come on, every second counts”

  If anyone had stopped and thought about things, they’d have realised that everything they were doing was probably the wrong thing to do in the situation, but that’s what the team were counting on, that no one would! No one would challenge a ‘doctor’ who seemed to know what he was doing, yes there was a chance that there’d be another health professional on hand who would challenge things, but the risk of that was so small they decided to ‘run with the plan’, besides, all they’d really challenge would be the choice of vehicle, then Mac would get them to listen to the rapid heart rate, a precursor to a major cardiac arrest, they had everything covered, except that none of that was happening.

  As soon as everyone was busy loading the big Russian into the car, Sandy scanned the area for anything they’d left behind, she already had his phone and wallet, enough to ID the guy, and figure out his contacts, she slipped them into her bag and ‘aided’ them by seeming to support the body in the middle, she checked each pocket to make sure nothing was missed. Ten seconds later Mac was in the passenger seat, “You two” he pointed at Joey and Sandy, “the docs are gonna want to talk to ye” the Scottish brogue coming through, “Get in the back with him, come on MOVE” he shouted, no one questioned.

  As soon as they were in the car Smithy took off, tyres squealing to make it look good, they shot through the traffic lights at the end of the street as they turned red, two cars had to do emergency stops and narrowly missed them, their horns blaring as Smithy sped down the street.

  Round the next corner he eased off the gas, no need to race, Gromatski was just asleep, there was no risk to life, at least not yet, and he wasn’t likely to wake up for at least five or six hours.

  “No wonder this prick was able to get in here” Sandy had begun to look through some of the things she’d retrieved, she had a passport, it was Russian, and had Gromatski’s photo, but a totally different name on it, “He used a false identity”

  “Probably a genuine article” Smithy chipped in, “the passport that is, bought and paid for on the black market, these pricks have so much money and power, that kind of stuff isn’t a problem for them”

  “Problem?” Sandy half asked, “We’ve suspected Serkov of controlling that kind of stuff, along with some of the seedier sides of London’s underworld, never been able to prove it though!”

  “And to think” Joey began, he was looking at here with his cheeky grin that she both loved and hated, often at the same time, “all you had to do was kidnap his main enforcer” he was lucky the big Russian was in the way’ she would have silenced him in a painful way otherwise, she had to settle for giving him a filthy look instead.

  The one place they were not heading for was the Hospital, but the Hospital was on the A3220 and they wanted that road, as soon as they were on it they hung a right and headed south, the Hospital was on the left, but they kept going.

  “As soon as we’re over the Thames take a left” Sandy advised, onto the A3205, it’ll take us around the back of Battersea Park”

  “Better if we carry on down a bit further, and get onto the A3” Mac suggested, that way we can go direct.

  “Where are you folks now?” a voice came over the car's speakers, it was Sir Michael, he’d followed everything over their secur
e comms network, but couldn’t track the vehicles by GPS, if he did that then MI6 would know what was going on, and so would the mole.

  “Just coming over the Thames now” Sandy replied, “should be coming past your location in a few minutes” she didn’t say the name of the location, there was no need.

  “Negative” Sir Michael was emphatic, “stay away from here, go further south and take the A3, we’re having a few issues with the cameras there, technically we’re ‘blind’ on the A3 inside the city, and will be for the next half hour”

  The last thing they needed was a ‘trail’ from the scene where Gromatski went missing leading them to where the car actually took him, Sir Michael had just arranged a corridor where the cameras would not work, and whoever tried to find them would be at a huge disadvantage.

  Most international cities have two, or maybe three airports, and a port. London has five airports and literally a dozen wharves where big ships can come in. Heathrow has five terminals and deals with forty million passengers alone, then Gatwick deals with thirty million, then there are Luton and Stansted. both dealing with a couple of million, but sat right in the heart of the city, dealing almost exclusively with small charter flights or the odd private plane from a very rich person who wants ‘no questions asked’ is Docklands, right next to the financial capital of the world, the City of London.

  Sat on the tarmac was a solitary plane, no markings to reveal what airline it might belong to, it didn’t, it belonged to a government, but not one that wanted it known that the plane was there, beside it three men were stood, one they recognised straight away, it was Jacko, the other two, both of whom were either Military or ex-military, the short hair, bulky frame and ill-fitting suits made them stand out a mile.