‘First Susie comes by my side,’ said Shelley.
‘Suit yourself. Mrs Drake? Please do as our friend asks.’
Susie shook herself free of Sergei’s restraining arm then stepped forward without a backward glance. Gratefully she took a place by Shelley’s side and they greeted one another with their eyes.
Next Shelley loaded the banking app he’d been given by Drake, a strange, unfamiliar icon on his handset. It was already primed for the first phase of the transfer. ‘Here,’ he said to Dmitry, handing him the phone, ‘input your details.’
‘Tsk,’ said Dmitry, smiling, as he took the phone and began to tap away. ‘It’s like living in the future, where everybody has jet packs and water comes in pills. Now we just press a button and his millions become our millions.’
Shelley looked up to see Karen and Sergei watching him. Every nerve ending, every cell felt alive. It was as though electrical currents ran through his arms and to his fingertips, ready to draw his weapon if anything untoward took place. There was something about this situation that was wrong, something just slightly off-key. But he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
‘There,’ said Dmitry, handing back the smartphone. ‘I have taken the liberty of entering the amounts. Perhaps you would like to enter the password.’
Shelley looked at the phone’s readout and then raised his eyes to meet an impish grin from Dmitry, who had entered the full £20 million.
‘Forgive me,’ said Dmitry, ‘my idea of a little joke. By all means stick to the agreement.’
You had to admire him, unfortunately, Shelley thought. The guy had balls and a sense of humour. But you didn’t get to head up the London section of the Chechen Mafia by being a likeable bloke.
Shelley put through the transfer and prayed Dmitry would continue to play nice.
CHAPTER 59
‘THE TRANSFER IS made,’ said Shelley.
Dmitry looked over to Sergei, who had produced his own phone. Sergei nodded to confirm that the money had arrived. ‘Ten million, boss,’ he said.
‘Then we are halfway there,’ said Dmitry delightedly.
‘Good,’ said Shelley. ‘Susie, start walking back to the car.’ Susie moved off and Shelley began walking backwards, holding the phone aloft as though it were a detonator.
Dmitry, looking supremely unconcerned, called to him, ‘So you don’t need my bank details again, then?’
‘No, mate, I don’t need your bank details again. I’ll do the transfer when we reach your barrier at the other end. You can let the guys know and they’ll let me through. You might want to check that none of them have itchy trigger fingers while you’re at it.’
‘And what if I have changed my mind?’ asked Dmitry innocently.
‘Then there will be bodies,’ said Shelley, ‘and you know what you said about bodies being bad for business.’
‘True,’ agreed Dmitry, his eyes up and to the left, as if the thought was occurring to him for the very first time. ‘Yes, true. But only if the body in question is that of a millionaire’s wife. But the body of an ex-soldier? Maybe not so much.’
What is he getting at?
Behind him, he heard Susie say, ‘Shelley …’
‘I think perhaps the police might ask fewer questions about that,’ continued Dmitry. ‘Don’t you think, Captain?’
‘Shelley,’ repeated Susie. There was a note of distress in her voice that he couldn’t ignore, and he turned to find out what she wanted, only to see that the men at the far end of the road, the three guys who were supposed to be waiting for the second phase of the transfer, had left the Transit behind and were advancing towards them.
Shelley turned back. ‘Stay with me,’ he whispered to Susie.
‘Why? What’s going to happen?’ she replied in the same whisper.
Shelley shifted his hand to the grip of his SIG. He did it slowly, deliberately, not to get anyone overexcited, but at the same time wanting to show his discomfort at the turn of events. ‘What’s going on, Dmitry? I thought you were keeping up your end of the bargain.’
‘I am. The bargain was that I would exchange Mrs Drake for twenty million. These men are going to escort Mrs Drake to a place of safety, and I in return will get my twenty million. I am definitely upholding my end of the bargain.’
‘But you won’t get your twenty million,’ said Shelley, holding up the phone to make his point.
‘Oh,’ smiled Dmitry. ‘But I will.’
Shelley was aware of everything. He felt the cold snap in the air. He felt his own nerve endings, every single one of them raw and on high alert. He felt Susie at his side, the men behind advancing, Karen’s eyes on him, a look on her face that he dared not decipher for all the imminent triumph he saw there. He felt his SIG and saw the light from the Cherokee headlights and the mist that bubbled around the Chechens’ feet. He saw death, treachery and deception.
He saw a double-cross.
‘Shall I tell you how it all began?’ asked Dmitry. ‘This whole thing?’
‘By all means,’ answered Shelley. He glanced behind. The three men were closer but appeared to have drawn to a halt.
‘It was your friend Corporal Johnson,’ continued Dmitry. ‘He came to us, did you know?’
‘I thought as much.’
‘Oh yes, he had learned of our involvement in the Foxy Kittenz enterprise and so he came to us with a plan – a suggestion, you might say. It was a rather short-sighted suggestion but nonetheless, he wanted to know if we were interested in, what’s the word, “bagging” an SAS man. Johnson knew, of course, that your regiment has interrupted the activities of our organisation many times in many different countries over the years, and especially with regards to our supply lines in Afghanistan. And he was right to ask if I was interested in a little prize to show my bosses in Grozny, because as I was saying, we all want to please our bosses, don’t we? We want to do the best we can to earn their praise and avoid their displeasure. There was bad blood between you and Johnson, I hear.’
‘You might say that.’
‘This was his mistake, you see,’ continued Dmitry. ‘He let it all get so personal. Perhaps he might not have missed the bigger picture were he not so intent on revenge. A lesson for all in your camp, you might say.
‘So anyway, I spoke to my superiors about this SAS man that Johnson said I could bag. “Who is this SAS man?” they wanted to know, because one SAS man is pretty much like any other SAS man.
‘Except later, when your friend and mine Guy Drake decided that a sensible course of action was to have his old and out-of-shape ex-soldiers attack me, and Corporal Johnson emerged as nothing more significant than an irritating man chancing his arm and meddling in affairs he really did not understand, I gave your name to Grozny and we looked harder at this Captain David Shelley. We looked at him and we realised that Captain David Shelley wasn’t just your average run-of-the-mill SAS man. Oh no. We learned that you served with something called Special Projects.
‘You weren’t just any old dog, were you, Captain? You were top dog.’
CHAPTER 60
THERE WERE EIGHT of them. Eight of them, one of him. And he was out in the open with no cover. He was dead. He had no chance. But if he could save Susie …
Sergei pocketed his phone and moved his hands to rest on the butt of his pistol; Karen’s fingers fidgeted at her Beretta. Shelley stayed in position with his hand on the grip of his SIG. Every one of them, it seemed, was ready to draw apart from Dmitry, who was lost in the enjoyment of his reminiscences. ‘Bagging the most wanted man of all the wanted men! The leader.’
Shelley’s mind was racing. So they had his name as leader, but not the other two. And that was why Dmitry was clapping like a seal and talking about the most wanted ‘men’, when in fact, one of these ‘most wanted men’ had been at the mercy of his guys just a few hours earlier.
‘You are what they call a person of interest, Captain,’ continued Dmitry. ‘You worry about my men coming up behind you, and
of course, being so gallant, you worry for the safety of Mrs Drake. But your concern is misplaced. You have been right to assume that I will hand over Mrs Drake in return for the provision of the money, because that is exactly what I intend to do. However, I do intend to take a prize. And that prize is you, Captain David Shelley of the SAS. That prize is you.’
‘Okay, Susie, this is what we call a double-cross,’ said Shelley calmly, knowing there would be combat, and ready for it.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dmitry. ‘If it makes you feel any better, Mrs Drake, it is only the captain that we are double-crossing. You may be on your way escorted by my men and with my blessing.’
Susie was looking from one player to another, trying to understand a nonsensical situation.
‘But you only have half the money,’ said Shelley. ‘You can’t seriously tell me that some SAS grunt is worth ten million.’
‘Quite right, you’re not, Captain, but don’t you worry, we will get the rest of our money.’
‘You’d need the passcode.’
‘We shall get the passcode from you,’ said Dmitry.
‘You won’t.’
‘You leave that problem to us.’
Shelley was about to draw – a heartbeat away from doing so – when something happened.
That something was Karen making her move.
CHAPTER 61
KAREN RAISED HER Beretta. For perhaps half a second Shelley considered reaching for his SIG at the same time, but there was no point in making these guys feel even more jumpy than they already were. One raised gun was enough. He needed to see how this played out. His hand stayed on the grip of his SIG.
‘Shelley ain’t going anywhere. Nor is Susie Drake,’ said Karen.
Dmitry looked at her. Her gun was pointed not at Susie or Shelley but at him. ‘Karen,’ he said, managing to make the word sound like neither a question nor an exclamation of surprise, ‘what are you doing?’
‘What do you think I’m doing, dear?’
‘Well,’ said Dmitry without apparent concern, ‘it seems to me that you are holding a gun on me. Holding a gun on me in front of my men. And, it seems to me, you are insinuating that you intend to stage some kind of coup? Is that right? Could that possibly be right?’
Suddenly Shelley felt like a bystander, somebody who had blundered into an unfortunate family dispute. He inched closer to Susie, adjusting his elbow so that their arms met.
‘Karen,’ continued Dmitry politely. ‘I’m afraid I don’t hold out much hope for your coup. Not only are you hopelessly outnumbered, but these are my people.’ He waved an arm to encompass his men. ‘We are Chechens, Karen. I can assure you that counts for a lot more than your Regan family.’
Shelley shifted in order to look in both directions. What he saw was the men looking around at one another, each eyeing up their neighbour. None of them seemed to know where their loyalties lay. All was confusion, and he could capitalise on that.
‘I have support,’ Karen told Dmitry, ‘don’t you worry about that.’
‘Oh, really?’ Dmitry was looking around at his men. ‘Which of my men is loyal to you?’
‘Men,’ she called, countermanding his order, ‘don’t reveal yourselves.’
Could be clever, thought Shelley. On the other hand, it could be that she didn’t have the support she needed. Either way, nobody spoke, which Dmitry chose to interpret his way.
‘We are Chechens, Karen,’ Dmitry repeated. ‘We stick together.’
‘Oh yes, I know that, Dmitry,’ smiled Karen. ‘Family. It’s very important to you, isn’t it? You tend to get very worked up, don’t you, when family comes into things?’
‘What are you trying to say now?’ he said, but the look he wore was no more serious than polite puzzlement.
Credit to Karen, if Dmitry’s lack of concern bothered her she wasn’t showing it.
Why?
Because she had an ace, of course. An ally.
‘Sergei,’ she said, indicating with the gun.
Dmitry wheeled around to see that his lieutenant had also drawn his gun and was pointing it at him. His face fell. ‘Sergei,’ he said, suddenly disconsolate, ‘my friend.’
If there was something of the pantomime to his performance, then it was lost on Karen. ‘Why don’t you tell Dmitry what we mean when we talk about family, Sergei?’ she said.
His sidearm still trained on Dmitry, Sergei said, ‘The Skinsman. He killed my brother Ivan.’
‘Yes.’ Dmitry cast his eyes downwards in apology. ‘Yes, I know this to be the case.’
Yet there was something about the way Sergei had delivered the news, and something about Dmitry’s subsequent reaction, that struck Shelley as even more odd. His eyes went to Karen, instinctively knowing that things had taken an unexpected turn where she was concerned.
Indeed, when she next spoke she sounded uncertain. ‘I’m sorry to tell you, my dear, that one of the men loyal to me has killed Dedushka this very evening. I gave the order with Sergei’s blessing.’
Once more Dmitry’s response took her by surprise.
He smiled.
And then laughed, throwing back his head and guffawing into the night as everybody looked on.
At last his mirth died. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I’m sorry, Karen, but you don’t understand. It is I who gives the orders around here.’ He raised his hand. In response, the two men at the Cherokee moved to the boot, opened it and reached inside, struggling with something that took two of them to remove.
Shelley knew it was a body. He knew it was a body as soon as the boot was open. Out it came, covered in black plastic and badly applied packing tape. The two men brought it close to where Dmitry, Karen and Sergei stood and then dropped it with a thump to the ground.
Karen looked sharply at one of them. ‘I said nothing about bringing the body here.’
‘Again, no, Karen,’ said Dmitry with a kind of patient sympathy you reserve for a child who can’t grasp a simple maths problem. ‘It is not what you think it is. This, my dear, is my present to you. The order to kill Dedushka – you may think you gave it, Karen. But I did. I hated my grandfather.’
Karen had been looking at the man she considered one of her own, her assassin, with wide disbelieving eyes, the eyes of somebody watching their plan unravel. The man returned her gaze impassively. His expression remained unchanged even when Dmitry strolled over and threw an arm around his shoulders, beaming with pride.
At that, Karen looked as though she wanted to be sick. Her gun hand began to shake, and her gaze flicked to Sergei, who until mere moments ago she’d considered her ally, her co-conspirator.
All Sergei said to her was ‘And I hated my brother.’
One of Dmitry’s men – because of course they were all Dmitry’s men – stepped forward. A Stanley knife clicked. He slashed open the plastic, slicing too hard, so that as the black fell away, they saw that he had slashed the face of the fresh corpse beneath.
Even so, judging by Karen’s reaction, there was no doubt who it was.
Malcolm Regan.
CHAPTER 62
IN THE DISTANCE a DLR train trundled past on its elevated rail. Canary Wharf’s aircraft warning light blinked implacably. And Karen Regan looked down at the body of her late father, at the line of freshly parted skin on his face. No blood, almost as though his flesh had been unzipped.
‘Sergei told me everything, Karen,’ said Dmitry. ‘How you tried to enlist him in a plot against me, thinking he might want to avenge his brother. But of course you hadn’t told him the whole truth, had you? And so for that I needed to listen in on your conversation with Mrs Drake. Very interesting. What planning. What cunning.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he continued, raising his voice, ‘when we look back and wonder how all this began, we need only look at my wife, Karen, for it is she who killed Emma Drake and brought the wrath of her father upon us. Should I be thanking her or should I be cursing her? Do you know, I really cannot decide.’
But if
Karen was even listening to her husband she made no sign. Instead she stared in horror and disbelief at the corpse on the tarmac. ‘Daddy,’ she said, and the harsh headlights seemed to accentuate her pallor as the blood drained from her face.
A ripple ran through those present. Shelley could have sworn he heard one of the men giggle. Even Susie Drake seemed to be watching with an ugly fascination.
And for perhaps ten seconds that was how Karen stood. Statue-like. Absolutely stock-still. Almost as though she was gathering the strength for a primal howl of grief.
Maybe Dmitry and the Chechens thought so, too, and had been hoping to savour this moment. Perhaps they’d expected a more visceral and therefore less decisive reaction from Karen.
But, if so, they’d underestimated her. Because Karen was a killer, a survivor – she was her father’s daughter – and in the instant that she had seen his body on the ground she’d realised she only had one option.
To switch sides.
Shelley was her ally now.
She caught his eye, and he was the only one not taken by surprise by what she did next.
‘Run!’ she called, and then she jinked to the side and twisted, her coat billowing and her bad right arm raised for balance as she put two well-grouped shots into a man who stood behind her, who jerked as though punched, spitting blood as he fell.
Men bellowed in Russian. Guns were raised. And it should have been a shooting gallery but for the fact that the Chechens flanked their enemy on both sides and risked hitting each other. For a precious second confusion and hesitancy reigned, enough time for Shelley to pull Susie out of the line of fire an eye-blink before the shooting began.
And then it did begin.
Rounds whistled past. There was the familiar thump of bullet hitting body. Karen screamed, and in the half-light Shelley saw that half her face was torn away as she dropped to her knees, Beretta held two-handed, still firing off shots.
Shelley’s own gun was drawn, and in the next instant they were plunged into near darkness as his first two shots took out the Cherokee’s headlights. Using the sudden darkness and Karen’s gunfire as cover, he manhandled Susie to the side of the road, away from the bullets.
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