by David Gilman
Shadows jigged across the space as the gunmen saw a figure loom up through the darkness. Their moment’s hesitation was all Raglan needed. He turned the handgun on Window Man as the other two rolled clear. No time for double-tapping shots: he squeezed the trigger again and again. The man’s chest and head ripped apart. Knife Man grabbed for his weapon, but went down with multiple rounds in his neck, head and chest. Noise thundered in the confined space. Tea Man dropped the mugs and pulled a sidearm from his shoulder rig. He got off two quick shots that went wide as Raglan sidestepped, fired, half turned and fired again. He watched the man hurled down by the force of the rounds that whipped into his neck and jaw. He was dead before he hit the floor. The blurred moments of high intensity cleared as Raglan refocused and stood his ground, sweeping the room for any movement. His ears rang.
He didn’t hear Sorokina call his name, but he sensed the movement behind him as she put her head above the floor level. He turned rapidly and in that millisecond as he saw it was her it was only his years of training and combat experience that made him pull up the barrel as he fired off two quick reflex shots.
‘Elena!’ He stepped to the trapdoor and peered down. She had fallen back down the stairs and was picking herself up, recovering her dropped weapon. She swore at him in Russian. There was no time to apologize. ‘Get an ambulance!’ He turned back to the room and kicked away the knife-man’s body from where he had fallen close to Carter. He tugged a sleeping bag near the chair and, using the dead man’s knife, cut the bonds around Carter’s hands and feet. He lifted his battered friend from the chair and laid him on the sleeping bag, rubbing gently at his wrists where the ties had pressed into the flesh, calling his name.
‘Jerry? Come on, man. Hang on.’
Raglan heard shouts from below, orders bellowed. Carter regained consciousness, his hand touching Raglan’s. ‘You... took your time,’ he whispered.
It went quiet. Raglan knew the man was dying. His mutilated face and the wounds on his body told of unspeakable cruelty. Raglan raised a water bottle to the man’s caked lips.
‘The traffic was heavy,’ he said gently.
Carter licked his lips. He sighed and nodded and managed a flicker of a smile.
‘Knew you’d come.’ He shuddered as his body’s core strength began to dissipate. The low candles flickered and then went out. The shadows closed in. ‘I’m sorry... I... I couldn’t take it any more...’ Tears welled in his eye. Raglan gently wiped his cheek.
‘Don’t talk, Jerry. Help’s on its way. We’ll have you with the medics soonest.’ He spilt water on a piece of rag from the floor and tenderly bathed the man’s blood-caked face.
Carter wanted Raglan to understand his failure. ‘I wasn’t strong enough... The pain, Raglan, my God... I’m sorry...’ He wasn’t going to last much longer.
Elena put her head up. ‘Maguire’s here.’
‘Keep him out for a few minutes,’ Raglan told her.
She saw a man holding his dying friend in his lap, comforting him like a child. She went back down without saying a word as Raglan dribbled more water between his friend’s lips. It revived him.
‘I told him... told JD where the stuff is. An old… safe deposit box… He’s got the codes and the money. I sent him to the money and the… codes,’ he repeated. ‘Did you… understand… the message in the book… did you see it?’
‘The star? The String of Pearls? Yes. Maguire’s probably found it by now.’
Carter grinned. ‘Thank God… Well done, old friend… knew you’d figure it out… That’s the first team list… the real players… I kept going as long as I could… JD’s got the money… and the B team names…’ He moved his head side to side. ‘B team’s not the jackpot… but… they won’t know that…’
‘Jerry, listen: where is it? Where did you send him?’
‘Doesn’t matter now, does it? He’s got more men… had them here and there… don’t know how many… maybe… two more… couldn’t tell.’
‘I’ve got to get him for what he’s done – even though he doesn’t have the main players on that list. Come on, where did you send him?’
Carter’s mind cleared. His mission to live long enough and deflect the killer’s intentions was completed: now he could think only of his family.
‘Is Steve... all right?’
‘He got to the flat. Jerry...?’
‘He’s a good boy... Oh God, Raglan... my baby... my Melissa... oh God...’ The tears spilt on to his cheek again.
‘OK, mate. We’ll have you out of here ASAP. Where’s JD?’ he insisted. ‘This is the last piece of the jigsaw. We capture him, we get a lot of information from him. The Russians want him, Jerry, he’s a direct link through organized crime to the Kremlin.’
Carter shook his head. ‘The money, blood diamonds for the black ops… let it go… No one knows… We’re clean… the Service is clean… all of us…’ He managed to smile. ‘Queen and bloody country, Raglan. It dies with me… He’s gone; I know it… heard them talking… a chopper… Isle of Dogs… somewhere… Christ… I’m scared… Don’t tell Steve... I couldn’t hold out.’
‘No one could have got through what they did to you. I wouldn’t have.’
‘Is this… a confession?’ Carter searched his face. Raglan nodded.
‘Back then, after all those days of being tortured, I told them what they wanted to know. By the time my guys killed everyone the info was old. No one knew. Except me.’
Carter said something but Raglan couldn’t hear. He lowered his ear close to Carter’s cracked lips; Carter smiled and whispered, ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’
The man’s final sigh brushed Raglan’s face.
33
Police lights flashed in the night as Raglan ran out into the light rain. He signalled to the borough commander and her officers it was clear. The men who had covered his back led an ambulance crew inside. Maguire stood with Sorokina.
‘Carter?’ said Maguire.
‘Dead,’ Raglan answered.
‘Did he say anything?’
‘You mean other than worrying for his family?’
‘Christ, Raglan, we’ll do our grieving for the man later.’
‘Did you get the Qatari paymaster’s list?’
Maguire nodded. ‘We hit three of the locations in the String of Pearls celebration that he was most likely to have any association with. The Inns of Court came up trumps. His old chambers from when he practised held them in their security vault.’
‘JD’s got the money and another list,’ said Raglan.
‘More names?’ said a stricken-looking Maguire.
‘Carter planted a B list with the money. You’ve got the prize – the A list. He was your man to the end, Maguire. Carter was innocent.’
‘We’ll see,’ Maguire answered.
‘You didn’t deserve him. He wouldn’t let the Service be seen to have dirty hands. He sent JD for your slush fund. He saved your neck.’
The chastisement washed over Maguire. ‘Where?’
‘Isle of Dogs and a chopper,’ said Raglan. He glanced up at the clouds. ‘Not in this though.’
‘It’s lifting,’ said Maguire. ‘We wanted a police search helicopter, but it’s another hour or so before it starts to lift and even then it’ll be minimum flying weather. If JD has a hotshot pilot waiting somewhere, then he can be gone.’
Sorokina raised her eyes and then scowled. ‘B’lyad’!’ she spat, turned away and pressed a speed dial on her phone.
The corner of Raglan’s mouth creased in what could be taken as a smile. Russian obscenities were unique and rich in their expression and not easily translated, but her expletive didn’t need one. ‘She swears a lot, but she has connections,’ Raglan explained. ‘It’s how we got here. Maguire, listen. JD must have gone to wherever Carter sent him. That will have taken time. Then he had to get to his final location on the Isle of Dogs. More time. And he has to wait for the cloud base to lift. We can still get him.’
Maguire nodded and beckoned his driver. ‘Perhaps, if we’re lucky. There’s a helipad on the Isle of Dogs – companies use it for bringing people into Canary Wharf and the Olympic Park.’ His driver waited. ‘Alert the police and get our people there. Shut it down.’
Maguire saw the borough commander making a beeline for him. ‘Christ, Raglan, there’ll be an inquiry into the shooting.’
‘Tell them I took the weapon off one of the gunmen.’
‘We’re not above the law. They’ll want to interview you and that’s going to close you down. You’re done here.’
‘No. We’re not finished yet, Maguire. We owe it to Carter,’ Raglan told him, taking a step closer to the MI6 man, looking to where Abbie stood a respectful few paces behind them. Her pay grade didn’t make her privy to what her boss thought or said unless he chose to share either with her. ‘Get me out of here,’ he said to Maguire, but with his eyes on Abbie, who barely concealed a grin at still being involved.
Maguire turned his back to the borough commander, who had been waylaid by one of her officers seeking clarification on something. ‘Abbie. Take him home, do something with him, but get him off the streets until I can buy some time.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Raglan followed her to the car, catching Sorokina’s eye as she looked his way. He nodded. She understood. She wanted JD as badly as Raglan did.
*
Raglan looked at the folded map on his lap as Abbie drove the car away at normal speed so as not to draw attention to their escape. The map-reading lamp showed where the hunt for JD had started.
‘Every step of the way he has been heading as far east as he could. He’ll use the river to make his escape. How long until we get down there?’
‘Fifteen minutes if we’re lucky. But where? The helipad is right on the river.’
Raglan pictured himself on the run. If he had pre-planned this operation, a commercial helipad was not the place to make an escape. The Maguires of the world could shut it down with one phone call. Too obvious. ‘Keep driving,’ he told her. ‘Ignore the helipad.’ He keyed in Sorokina’s number. She answered.
‘Nothing yet,’ she said without him asking.
He hung up and went back to the map. Nothing jumped out at him.
‘If he gets a chopper out of here, he’s low level down the Thames. Air traffic control has strict routes for flying over the city and the river is a good safety net if an aircraft goes down. That’s where he’ll be, down there somewhere. A fast pickup and he’ll be across the Channel and gone.’
His phone rang. It was Sorokina. ‘The Hungarians have nothing that far east of the city. It’s a dead end, Raglan.’
Raglan stared at the map. And then he knew where to go.
‘When these top-flight executives come to London, stress their way through boardroom wars and then comfort themselves with rich food, where are you going to take them when they have a heart attack?’
‘Hospital,’ said Sorokina.
‘The Quayside Private Clinic is slap bang next to a dock. Plenty of safe flying through the high-rise buildings. There’s a helipad on the hospital roof.’
He switched off the phone.
Abbie was already threading her way towards the financial centre. ‘Five minutes,’ she said.
*
They turned down the road leading alongside the deepwater dock. The six-storey glass-and-steel building that rose up on the next corner was dwarfed by its big brothers belonging to the world’s financial powerhouses. Penis envy all round. Six storeys made sense. A small private clinic. Two operating rooms, two laboratories, twelve private suites over four floors. Ritzier than The Ritz. Dying in luxury an option.
Raglan wound down the window and looked up towards the roof. The clouds obscured the top of the taller buildings, but not the clinic’s. If he was right, JD had even figured on the weather playing into his hands. The top floor of the clinic was in darkness. He pointed at the down ramp. Abbie swung the car to the barrier. Raglan took the ticket. Visiting hours were any time that suited. There were more spaces than cars. His phone beeped. It was Maguire.
‘I have men at the helipad on the river. There’s nothing scheduled at this time of night in these conditions. Whoever is flying in isn’t using a London heliport. I have ATC tracking anything that moves. We’re ten minutes behind you. Major Sorokina is closest to you with two armed officers. Raglan, that’s a private hospital. You’ll need uniformed police to effect a search.’
Raglan switched off the phone, pointed to a parking bay next to a concrete column. She glided the car forward.
‘There,’ she said.
Fifty metres ahead an old black Saab nestled in the shadows. It was empty.
He tossed the phone into her lap. No need to risk unnecessary distractions even if it was off. Damned thing could tempt him to make a call if the shit hit the fan.
‘He’ll call back the closer he gets. Tell him there was no time for me to wait. Get the car out of here. Stay with it until Maguire or the cops arrive. I can’t have you running loose. You understand?’
She nodded, eyes wide with apprehension.
‘Your word.’
‘I promise.’
‘Thank you. You’ve done a brilliant job. I couldn’t ask for anyone better. It’s almost over. Maguire will be here soon. Time for you to go home.’
He closed the door quietly behind him and then she watched as he jogged into the shadows. Abbie reached for the ignition key. What if Raglan got into trouble? What if he needed to make a run for it? She let her hand drop. She would wait. Just a little while.
*
The lift went from the garage to the roof with an obligatory stop at reception. Raglan took the internal stairs, hoping they would take him to the helipad, but as he reached the turn at the ground floor he met a set of one-way doors: a release bar on the other side to allow anyone escaping a fire, but obstructing anyone from going further without authorization. Raglan pushed through a second door on his left, which accessed the marble-floored reception area. There was no one at the desk. He leant over to check behind the counter in case the night receptionist had been attacked. There was no sign of disturbance. Venturing as far as he could down the dimly lit main corridor brought no joy either; the double glass doors were secured by a code pad and card swipe and led only to consultation and waiting rooms. Everything was closed. This clinic was not for 24/7 emergency care.
Raglan returned to the main reception area and checked the large glass doors of the main entrance. They were jammed closed. Someone had hammered a nail into the locks on the top and the base of the doors. No one was getting in that way. A sign showed that the clinic was operational only during daytime hours. A door was closed next to the main entrance. Raglan eased it open. It bumped against something on the floor. A nurse lying sprawled face down. He turned her over. Her name tag said she was Marjorie Chambers. The receptionist. The dead receptionist. Blood spilt from a wound where something narrow and pointed had been plunged into the base of her skull. Not long ago by the look of the wound. She had not died alone. An unarmed security guard lay crumpled, one arm beneath him, blood pooling below his body.
Raglan went back to the main area. Another door led to an outside fire escape. It was open to the elements and exposed to gunfire from anyone above. He pressed the lift button, but it held on the sixth floor. A larger elevator designed to carry trolleys was also held on the same floor. JD had shut the place down. In the corner of reception, a modern glass spiral staircase swirled upwards. Raglan took the stairs three at a time. The first floor had coded doors to the inner workings of the hospital. The only way was up.
He slowed his pace as he turned on to the final twist of stairs that would take him to the sixth floor. He crouched, weapon raised, looking up. What had been a pristine, brightly lit series of passageways on each floor below, with the occasional glimpse of a night nurse moving across a corridor from one room to another, became an unlit, unfinished area that resembled a vast storage roo
m, the only light coming from the buildings outside. The sixth floor was not yet functional. Hospital beds, equipment, chairs, desks, mattresses, trolleys and wheeled medicine cabinets huddled against the walls like orphaned children in a darkened bomb shelter. The breadth of the building was boxed with room partitions ready to be completed as private wards.
Raglan inched forward. Those ahead of him had jammed the two lift doors open. He scanned the darkened area in front of him and edged along the wall. A window exposed the broad expanse of the concrete flat roof outside at the rear of the building. Beyond the flat area a galvanized ramp with a handrail led up several feet to the helipad where patients would be brought down the ramp on a trolley into the lift. He listened. There was no sound of a helicopter. There might still be time to corner JD. The bodies downstairs were freshly dead. The killers were still in the building. A shard of light flashed at the end of the corridor. A side passage door had been opened. Raglan zigzagged through the detritus, then heard a hiss behind him. He whirled round. A crouching Sorokina flat-palmed him from the head of the stairs. She gestured that the two armed officers were downstairs. Raglan nodded. She made her way towards him. Just paces from where he stood she clattered into a medicine trolley. She gasped. Alarmed, Raglan half turned and instinctively pressed himself against the wall as out of the corner of his eye he saw movement from where the shard of light had been. Two rapid shots followed: Sorokina was hit in the chest. As she buckled Raglan returned fire at the half-concealed man. Rapid gunfire snapped the air around him. A piece of masonry shattered, and he felt a tearing in his thigh. A flesh wound. He heard a magazine being changed. Ignoring the burning sensation and trickle of blood down his leg he strode forward. The gunman dared to look around the corner, ready to continue firing and Raglan shot him twice in the head. He cut across to the other side of the broad corridor. A partition wall offered no effective cover, but it obscured him from anyone else who might appear from the side passage. There was no sound or movement. He looked back. The two uniformed officers appeared at the head of the stairs, weapons at the ready. They were the same two who had covered his back at the factory.