It had been an eventful couple of days. In the immediate aftermath of the ambush, a whole mix of emotions had flooded her. She couldn’t deny the thrill of killing those men who were trying to harm her. She knew that that joy was not normal and rooted in her childhood—but she didn’t care.
She had theorised a long time ago that mentally damaged people could feel exhilaration at a higher pitch than ‘normal’ people. That said, she thought they were more prone to mental illness too.
She had been angry at Connor too; angry at his recklessness which could have easily seen them both killed.
The anger had blended with the closeness she felt in that moment towards him, leading to the best ‘angry’ sex she’d had.
She had caught herself looking at him a few times as he and Louis played a ‘Call of Duty’ game together. That the two men were close was obvious, as they shouted commands like ‘move’ and ‘stoppage’ amid the banter.
He had a warmth with people she had noticed. People responded to him like Jan his neighbour, Van Der Saar, Louis—and herself.
Despite liking the attention, she was always a little standoffish with men. Her father had died just before she had begun secondary school. Her mother Kathy, perhaps vulnerable, brought home a ‘friend’ a few months later. He seemed nice at first, buying her presents and taking her swimming. Her guilt at allowing this man to fill her father’s role slowly dissipated with time.
It soured after a while, beginning with little put-downs of her mother and after a time, herself. Then she heard the shouting matches with her mum. Those died down when the slaps and finally the beatings came. One day, Ciara had forgotten to take off her shoes at the door and traipsed some mud in on the way to the fridge. As she straightened herself out of it clutching a carton of orange juice, it came—a slap cracked off her face, and she had fallen to the floor with her cheek burning. ‘What have I told you about taking your fucking shoes off?!’ he had shrieked. It was the shock she remembered more than the pain.
Slaps had eventually turned into the occasional beating. Not many but enough so that Ciara lived in fear for the next two years. On the occasions that he did beat her, he always took care not to mark her face.
Eventually, he ran off with another woman, and although the murky clouds had lifted, the scars remained. It had been an unspoken thing between her mother and her.
She began to escape into books and eventually came across books on how your thoughts made your reality. With this in mind, she commenced training. Her father’s weight training equipment remained in the garage, and she read a few books from the library on Olympic lifting, powerlifting and bodybuilding. She felt a kind of affinity with him as she worked out with his equipment.
She had quit gymnastics a year before, but the strength remained. Her body filled out with a muscularity that bordered on masculine, but Ciara didn’t care. It was her armour against the anxiety she felt around men.
To her astonishment, her mum announced that she was taking up Thai Boxing and that Ciara was to come with her. It had hooked Ciara immediately. The disciplined intensity, technique, tradition and the respect she found for herself and others had ensnared her.
Nobody cared where you were from, what your race or religion was. White collar city types, muscular black and mixed-race men, ripped to the bone Eastern Europeans, women of different shapes and kids all frequented the gym. Some were doing it for fitness, and some were professional fighters.
Her mother continued to go when she could, and it had brought them closer again.
Ciara went on to win thirteen matches, losing three before giving it up when she went to University. While her relationship with her mother still bore scars, it had improved much in the years gone by.
She began to understand through her study of domestic abuse, how an abusive partner could control a person and she forgave her mother.
Then, one day on a visit back home, terror visited. She found ‘him’ attempting to rape her mother on the kitchen floor. The red mist descended, and it was the first time she had felt that kind of primal exhilaration as she plunged the knife into him.
Afterwards, she was shocked that she wasn’t horrified at her actions. Blood covered her, her mother, the corpse and much of the kitchen floor. However, she calmly took out her phone and informed the operator that she had stabbed her mother’s attempted rapist to death.
Throughout the lengthy process from that call to her meeting with a solicitor at the station she had been on autopilot—not a blur, just devoid of emotion.
Her solicitor explained that she was being charged with excessive force; that a jury might be persuaded that her act exceeded the realm of what was deemed reasonable.
She had been bailed, and she still didn’t fall to pieces like she would have expected. She calmed her mother every evening with a half an hour phone call. Went to her lessons, trained and studied.
Around a week later, her solicitor had told her that she was to come down to his offices on the Saturday morning. In addition to her solicitor, there had been a lofty, lean man there. Her solicitor made the introductions before excusing himself. Bruce McQuillan explained to her that the charges would be dropped if she agreed to a contract of training and subsequent employment. After a long conversation, she’d agreed.
She took a gap year, but instead of backpacking, she’d spent a year of harsh training and tutelage under various special forces and intelligence service types. Her brain had often felt raw with the amount of information she had to absorb during this period; organisations, characters, locations and codes, but most of all the skills and cognitive techniques that needed assimilating.
Now, she was in the back of a helicopter staring at an amount of Ecstasy nearly 100 kilos more than her maximum deadlift weight. Enough Class A drugs to see all three of them receive the maximum tariff of sixteen years behind bars—serve eight with her life and career in ruins.
The two men in the front had shown no outward sign of any tension. They were professional and spent two and half hours earlier discussing and rehearsing the actions on for all the occurrences they could conceive.
But they were laughing and joking even now. Their confidence was infectious, and she began to feel more at ease.
Bruce walked with Janet Quigley down the street of St Margaret’s, central London. Pedestrians peppered the pavement with the air relatively clean due to the early hour.
It had been two days after his conversation with Jamie, and all he could do was wait until the tide brought something. In the meantime, he’d decided to take a morning coffee with Janet on the outdoor chairs of the café.
They were discussing his switching position so that she walked on the inside of the pavement.
“Well, I think it’s gentlemanly,” she said as she linked arms with him.
“I’d like to think so too. But the truth is, is that it’s merely a mental shortcut, a simple cognitive bias that you don’t think about—a judgmental heuristic as they say.”
“Ooohh, fancypants words now?”
“I try my best.”
They reached the small carpark where her dark red rover and his Blue BMW were.
“When you going to let me cook for you?”
“Well, I am guessing you’re not free now? I have an ‘admin’ afternoon?”
“Admin afternoon?”
“An afternoon which you schedule to organise yourself but in fact, you do very little.”
“Oh. I am afraid not. I am due in at the hospital. I could send you my schedule?”
Bruce laughed. “Dating now is very different from when I was a lad.”
“So we’re are dating now?” she teased.
“I beg your pardon, I meant courting.”
“Dating is fine,” and she reached up and gave him a full kiss. “I have to go. Let me know when you can fit around my schedule.”
She parted and got into her vehicle. Bruce waited until she had left the car park before getting into his. No sooner than he had he recei
ved a call. He recognised the number.
“Yes,” he answered.
“I need to speak with you.”
Bruce weighed his options. “You free now?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there by two. Let’s meet the same place as we met last time.”
“You can’t come to my house?”
“No,” Bruce said, “and remember to bring Maslow,” before terminating the call.
The Redcliffe View Barns lay nestled across from the River Orwell, in Shotley, Suffolk. Solar panels adorned the roof of the converted barns. Connor had googled the advertisement for Redcliffe online; they offered fully equipped and tastefully decorated open plan living, dining and kitchen areas.
And he knew the conversions also shielded the helipad from view.
Tris Dixon owned these holiday homes, and Connor had guessed why. Shotley was a small, sleepy parish that lay a half hour’s drive from the UK’s largest container port of Felixstowe. As long as tourists frequented Redcliffe throughout the summer, and the transportation loads were kept sporadic, then it made an excellent place for large drug or gun loads to be received and checked before being moved on.
It had been less than an hour since they took off from Petten.
Three compact men dressed in shirts, trousers and polished shoes greeted them as they alighted the helicopter. One looked around ten years older than the other pair—perhaps around his mid-forties with his short, black hair gently receding. He spoke first, shaking the trio’s hands in turn.
“Mr Reed, Mr Louis, Miss Robson. Welcome to Redcliffe. My name is Ben Millar, and this is Colin White and Michael Holt.”
Gangsters didn’t usually give their full names from the get-go thought Connor.
“Thank you. What happens now?” Connor asked.
“First, we’ll check the weight and purity. After which, my men and I will load it onto the transport which will leave immediately.”
“I am afraid I am going to have insist on staying throughout your purity test. I am guessing that it won’t cause you offence.”
Millar smiled. “Your estimation is correct Mr Reed. Ours is a crooked business after all.”
He returned the smile. “Aren’t most businesses?”
“So they say,” answered Millar. “Mr Dixon is on his way and will arrive in less than three hours. He requested you stay as he wished to discuss some arrangements with yourself.”
Connor didn’t say anything; instead he looked at Louis who’s expression said—I am curious.
“He’ll be discussing it with the three of us in that case.”
“I never like to predict Mr Dixon’s reactions to things. I’ll call him now Mr Reed. In the meantime, we shall carry on with the aforementioned test.”
“By all means.”
Connor noted the professionalism of the men and considered whether it was a good thing or not.
24
Bruce noted the consternation on O’Reilly’s face from thirty yards away. His dog Maslow bounded after the distractedly tossed sticks.
“What’s this about Mr O’Reilly?”
Relief fleetingly appeared on the magnate’s face.
“I received a threatening phone call. Voice digitally distorted.”
“What was said specifically?”
O’Reilly removed a memory stick from his pocket and handed it to him.
“It’s all on there. I have two lines coming through to my house. The private one isn’t screened the same as I have only given it to a select few people. They are all recorded though. The voice told me to ‘call off my investigation’ and warned that I ‘have other relatives’.”
Bruce felt a coolness around the back of his neck and fought the urge to look around.
“Who were the few you gave the private line to?”
“Just close family members.”
“Your daughter being one of them.”
Concern splashed itself on O’Reilly’s face, and he said, “Was she tortured?”
McQuillan decided to assuage his fear of this. “I don’t think so. There were no physical signs.”
O’Reilly looked relieved. “The phone lines, even the private one, is fitted with both a GPS and IMEI trackers—I mean high level. But they were slowed somehow, and due to the brevity of the call, all they could ascertain was that the calls were made within a hundred mile radius of the house.”
“OK,” Bruce said, “I’ll take it from here. And Darren.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you ever get drunk and start spouting ye fucking mouth off again about investigations and the like. Do you understand me?”
O’Reilly’s face became a portrait of contriteness and fear. Satisfied, Bruce walked away.
Connor Reed had stuck around waiting for the results of the purity test while Louis and Ciara went to their respective cabins.
He hadn’t been concerned about the results as he had carried out his own test at Van Der Saar’s depot. He’d stuck around to ensure it had been carried out properly. He first made idle conversation with White and Holt, as Millar busied himself with the purity test and a phone call. They stood awkwardly beside him at first. Connor made small talk and discovered common ground in MMA with the two men. Both turned into him and became more animated.
“Who do you think is the best grappler in MMA then?” asked White.
He seemed the most junior of the three in terms of age and experience, although he looked a good few years older than Reed.
“Personally, for all-around grappling, I think it’s the Russian Khabib Nurmagmedov,” answered Reed.
“You reckon?” White answered, as if not agreeing.
“Yeah. That fucking animal can take a person down a number of ways—throws, trips and the double leg. Then he can control a bloke on the floor, almost surfs on the fuckers. He’s got submissions too.”
“You saying he’s a better wrestler than Yoel Romero?” said White, tilting his head.
Connor turned his palm up, “I think he can control a bloke better when he has them on the deck. When he gets them down he keeps them down—do you know what I mean?”
Michael Holt, now relaxed with his hands on his hips, chimed in, “That’s true, but surely Damian Maia is the best all-around grappler in MMA?”
“Oh yeah. I completely forgot about him,” said Connor. “You might be right. Take it you saw his fight with Gunnar Nelson?”
Holt was about to answer him when Millar interrupted, “Mr Reed. I have spoken to Mr Dixon, and he’s happy for your colleagues to attend the meeting.”
White and Holt stiffened, all business again.
“Thank you, and call me Connor.”
Miller said, “Connor the purity test came back above ninety percent. I have informed Mr Dixon, and he has placed the amount agreed into the relevant account if you would like to check?”
“Again, without wishing to offend anyone, I am going to check.”
“And again, no offence taken.”
With that Connor took out his phone and after a series of finger tappings, he found that the account had received a deposit of £220,000. Connor knew that with its high MDMA content that the total load had a street value of pushing two million. He had a good grasp of the economics; Van Der Saar’s percentage would be much higher than what a cocaine farmer’s in Colombia would be, and Dixon would have the lion share as traditionally that cut would have to look after the mid-level distributors and street dealers. Connor suspected, given Van Der Saar’s stipulation of the drugs not being cut too much, that Dixon would punt it to a more bourgeois crowd—despite their preference for coke.
Still, £220,000 for transportation and a brokerage fee was very healthy.
“I am satisfied. Is there a gym around here?”
“Of course. It’s in the corner lodging.”
Connor walked back. Inside he found Louis and Ciara chatting on sofas.
“There’s a gym in one of the barns. I am going to check it out.”
&n
bsp; “I’ll join you,” said Ciara.
“You coming, big man?”
“Nah mate. Youse go and enjoy yourself.”
“There are marines, and there are Bootnecks I suppose,” said Connor smiling.
“And there’s civvies. You should let it go before you turn into one of those ‘back in ma day’ sorts darn tha Legion,” answered Louis, exaggerating the Yorkshireman’s accent.
Ten minutes later, Connor and Ciara were in the gym.
“What do you want to do?” Ciara asked
He thought she’d be doing her own thing.
“Well, I am going to be doing deadlifts. I’ll throw in some farmers walks if I have energy at the end.”
“OK, I’ll join you.”
“Will you now?”
Ciara put her hands on her hips and hula-hooped her upper body. “Afraid of being shown up by a girl?”
“No. You already know I am weaker by my failed attempts at fighting you off the other night.”
“Fighting me off indeed. You loved it.”
“You’re right. I didn’t fight you off. When I saw what you did to our ambushers, I was too scared to…”
“Bless you. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” he said. “The sight of a girl crying espousing her love for me will just de-motivate me to train.”
Jim Blake’s painstaking reconnaissance of Darren O’Reilly had finally been rewarded. Gathering the information even to approach the bugging of O’Reilly’s domestic communications had been difficult and time-consuming enough.
Blake had been a private surveillance contractor for over eight years since leaving the Army, but it had only been recently since his business went through a rapid growth due to his boss’s deep pockets. That expansion had meant taking on people and forming a team—a professional unit.
Jim’s team had found a weak link in one of Verbatim Securities chief technicians, a Paul Fisher. They had managed to ensnare his interest by posing as financial backers of a rival company. When Fisher began asking for half up front, Jim negotiated an agreement whereby he would be paid for each separate piece of information. The deposit of £75,000 had been made for details on Verbatim’s IMEI tracker.
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