“What is it?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes I bloody do.”
“No, you don’t. If you know what’s on it, they’ll be after you too.”
“They already are.”
“Not just the Russians.”
“Then who?”
He shook his head and refused to answer, mouth set in a firm line. I knew that look, and knew that he’d only dig his heels in further if I pressed him.
“Fine, then where is it?”
He looked around ostentatiously, then leaned forward and lowered his voice.
“I left it with Craig.”
“Craig Harrison?”
“Yeah.”
“So he would have known what I was looking for?”
“Probably, yeah.”
“Then why the fuck did he …”
Jake’s head exploded, spattering me in blood, gore and tiny slivers of bone that gouged their way through my skin. A moment later the boom of a high-powered rifle echoed through the square, followed by a silence that lasted for all of about a second before the screaming began.
Something hot and painful gouged my cheek, the rifle roaring again and then my survival instincts kicked in and threw me behind a nearby delivery van, even as my mind refused to accept what had just happened.
Seconds before I’d been speaking to my brother, and now there was nothing left of him but a half-headless corpse lying a few feet away. One of his eyes was still intact and it stared at me accusingly from the part of his face that remained.
The cold, clinical part of my mind that was all copper was telling me it must have been a military-grade sniper rifle for the bullet to do that much damage, probably a .50 calibre round, while the other part was screaming that his brains were now mostly spattered across my face and chest.
I was vaguely aware of people running, screaming and cramming themselves into any available building or cover, and at some point a pair of terrified American students joined me behind the van. Everything seemed to be happening through a haze, as if someone had filled my head with fog. Long minutes passed, then I watched without really seeing as a pair of ARVs flashed up, blocking both ends of the street. More officers arrived, and after a period that could have been five minutes or an hour they began a slow, methodical sweep of the street from behind ballistic shields. They cleared terrified civilians and sent them back towards the vehicles where they were detained, searched and moved behind hard cover.
They finally reached my hiding place, the students almost crying with relief as they were bundled away. I watched, numb, as one officer covered me with his rifle while the other turned me over.
“We’ve got a casualty,” he called after one brief look at my face. “Get him secured and back behind the cordon.”
Hands grabbed me from behind and lifted me to my feet. I found that I could walk, but as they hustled me down the road under cover of ballistic shields I kept turning, trying to catch a last glimpse of my brother as he lay alone on the pavement.
Chapter 29
Jake always got me into trouble when we were kids.
I remember a time when I was about twelve, during the summer holidays, when he’d convinced me it would be a good idea to sneak into the yard of the farm at the top of our road and break into one of the barns.
Inside, the building was stacked almost to the rafters with bales of hay and straw, and we spent a happy afternoon climbing and jumping about until he got bored and stopped for a fag. Ten minutes later the whole barn was on fire and we were running like hell, praying that no one had spotted us.
Then a few years later, I’d taken a shine to a girl from school. Jake was already in college by then, and far cooler than I could ever be, with easy access to alcohol and cannabis and a laid-back charm that suckered in others like me who wanted a bit of the cool to rub off.
Mum and Dad had gone away for a week, and so Jake decided to hold a party. I invited Jenny, the girl I liked, along with a handful of others, but most of the guests were Jake’s college friends.
With so much booze flowing, not to mention the constant haze of pot from the back garden, things got pretty crazy pretty quickly. Needing the Dutch courage to ask Jenny out, I’d drunk far too much and then gone looking for her, only to finally discover her in bed with my brother, his smug laughter following me all the way down the stairs.
I was barely conscious the next morning when Mum and Dad arrived home, only realising something was wrong when I was dragged out of bed and forced to clean up the mess while Mum stood over me screaming like a harridan. I’d almost finished when I found the note from Jake telling Mum and Dad that he’d gone camping with friends for a couple of days and that he was worried I might throw a party.
Or there was the time …
“Gareth? Gareth, I’m so sorry for your loss but I need you to focus.”
Striker’s voice seemed to float to my ears from miles away, only just registering through the static that fogged my brain.
We were sat in the back of an ambulance two streets over from the square, with two armed officers facing the open back door, as if I was the threat not the sniper who’d just murdered my brother.
“Gareth,” Striker spoke softly, “can you tell me what happened?”
“They shot Jake,” I whispered, the words almost drowned out by the din in my head.
“Who did? Did you see them?”
I shook my head.
“Was it the Russians?”
“I don’t know.” My mouth tasted of blood and I spat on the yellow floor of the ambulance. “It was a sniper.”
“Did he tell you anything before … before he died?”
“No.” I didn’t want to tell her about the flash drive and Craig Harrison. I couldn’t say why, but it seemed important to keep it to myself.
“Okay, well you’re done with this now, the NCA will be taking over effective immediately. PSD are going to want to interview you, but I think that can wait a while. I’ll get a car to take you back to the nick. Can you walk?” She pointed at my face. “The paramedic says it’s just a friction burn and a few bits of bone, and he’s already removed those.”
I glanced at the small plastic bowl containing the tiny slivers of Jake’s skull. I felt the sudden urge to vomit and had to swallow rapidly to avoid heaving on Striker’s shoes.
“Sure.”
“Good. You wait here, I’ll send someone over shortly.”
She left, taking the armed officers with her and leaving me alone with my thoughts, fractured as they were.
The memory of my conversation with Jake was nagging at me. Why had they shot him when they did? Was it just the time it had taken the sniper to get into position, or was it something more? Then it hit me. They’d killed him after he’d told me where the USB stick was. That meant they’d been listening to our conversation. Although they could easily have used a parabolic microphone, I had a sudden and overwhelming conviction that they were savvier than that. Pulling out my airwave unit I studied the screen for a moment, the battery indicator confirming my suspicions. Normally a full charge would last me a day and a half if I hadn’t used it much, but it was already down to thirty per cent. Only two things could drain it that fast: the GPS or what we called ‘active listening’, which is where comms, or someone else in this case, opens your microphone so that they can listen to everything going on around you.
It’s supposed to be a safety feature, but right now it seemed pretty damn deadly.
I stood, dropping my radio on the seat. I was damned if I was going to let the National Crime Agency catch my brother’s murderers, but I couldn’t risk my every move being overheard by the very people I was trying to catch.
Next to my airwave unit went my work phone. I knew that it could be pinged by our telecom unit, which meant the Russians could do the same. I almost did the same with my personal mobile, but as only four people in the world had the number and I’d never allowed it to be stored on the police database,
I reckoned the chance of them even knowing about it was slim enough to risk keeping it. I stood staring at the compromised handsets for a long moment, fighting the urge to say something that would only end up giving the game away. As I stared the confusion began to clear, my fractured thoughts coalescing into a hate so fierce that it scared me.
Jake might have been a user, but he was my brother. I would be the first to admit that I had no time for the person he’d become, but that’s a far cry from wanting him dead. Besides, I’d made a promise to Dad to keep him safe.
It was the weight of that broken promise I felt now, gnawing at me like a trapped rat. Dad would die knowing that I’d failed, unable to do the one thing he’d ever really asked of me.
Turning on my heel, I left the ambulance and walked through the milling emergency service workers that now filled the square. A few looked at me as I passed, but no one stopped me. I ducked under the police tape and past the armed officers guarding the cordon. Soon I was lost in the milling crowd that had gathered, just another face among dozens as I slipped away, fists clenched tight in my pockets and murder on my mind.
Chapter 30
I knew something was wrong before I reached Maggie’s door. There was a lingering scent on the air, faint but detectable, and it made me think of death.
Barrelling through the door into the hallway I stopped dead.
Maggie was sat on the floor, back against the reception desk. Her dress was torn and stained, and tears had turned her careful makeup to smeared ruin. An ugly bruise covered one cheekbone and one of her contact lenses was missing, giving her an oddly lopsided look, like a broken doll discarded in the gutter. I’d never seen her look less than perfect and it took me a moment to realise what she was cradling in her arms.
Across her lap lay the body of the blonde girl I’d met earlier, the large hole in her forehead telling me she was dead as much as the sightless eyes that stared at nothing.
“Maggie?” I dropped to my knees, bringing my face level with hers. “What happened?”
“They killed Alice,” she said, looking at me without recognition.
“Alice?”
“Crystal.” She stroked the girl’s brow. “Her real name is Alice. She wanted to be a singer, you know. She could have done it, too. Voice like an angel.” She half-sobbed the last word.
“Who did it?”
“Who do you think?” she asked scornfully, some of her usual spirit entering her voice. “Your fucking Russians.”
“What about Harrison?”
“I don’t know. They asked me where he was but I wouldn’t tell them. Then they started hurting her to make me talk. I told them he was upstairs but they killed her anyway.”
She started sobbing again and I reached out to squeeze her shoulder. Despite my own pain, hers seemed a raw and brutal thing.
“How long ago?”
“Five minutes maybe. They haven’t come back down yet.”
I was already moving before she’d finished talking, heading towards the stairs at a run. Despite the danger I felt a thrill of savage anticipation at the thought I might catch them. It was the only feeling that broke through the cold, flat emptiness in my chest, and so I focused on it like a drowning man grabs for a life buoy.
I took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the small voice in my head that was yammering warnings about backup, guns and my complete lack of anything resembling a plan. All I wanted right then was to make the people responsible for killing Jake suffer.
All three of the doors that led to Harrison’s hideout were open, and as I reached the final one I could hear raised voices. Instead of slowing I increased my pace, lungs heaving as I pounded up the stairs. What little sense may have prevailed disappeared in an explosion of savage fury.
I burst into the attic room at a full sprint, hoping to take them by surprise.
It almost worked.
As I entered the space, I saw two men pinning Harrison to the bed while the Russian woman straddled him in a way that would have been almost erotic had she not been holding a long, thin knife to his eyeball. Harrison was already screaming, the words indecipherable as the knife was pushed slowly towards his eye.
The Bear was stood halfway between the bed and the stairs, his back to me as he looked on. I assumed he was supposed to be guarding the entrance, but instead he’d chosen to watch the show.
I barely slowed as I leapt into the air, driving my knee into his spine with all the force I could muster. He screamed as something snapped, his legs flopping and spilling him to the ground like a zeppelin crashing.
I hurdled his bulk without breaking stride and got as far as the foot of the bed when things started to go wrong.
The men pinning Harrison had barely had time to turn their heads, but the woman was already up and moving even as I lunged for her. Subdue her, I’d figured, and the others would hesitate to act.
It probably would have been a good plan had she not been so damn fast. Before my fingers more than brushed her hair she tucked herself into a ball and rolled over Harrison’s head, spinning to face me with the knife up in a guard.
Unable to stop my own momentum, I roared in anticipation as I flung myself onto the blade, twisting desperately to avoid it but receiving a nasty slash across the ribs that stung like wildfire.
I crashed into her, but instead of going down with me she slipped out of the way, letting my force knock her off the bed.
She landed in a crouch, knife out again while I flopped like a landed fish, trying to cover the injury to my ribs and straighten up to fight at the same time.
That was the moment clarity descended. I had, I realised with dreadful certainty, just gotten myself killed. I’d heard that grief could do strange things to the mind, but never had I thought it would affect me in that way. I’d just charged into a room full of armed assailants with nothing more than bad attitude and grim determination, neither of which were helping stem the blood that stained my t-shirt and began to pool on the bed beneath me.
One hand pressed to my ribs, I slid off the far side of the bed and backed away.
The men still pinned Harrison, whose screaming had quietened to a desperate whimpering. One of them had drawn a pistol which he held down by his leg as if I wasn’t a threat worth considering. The woman began to advance, moving behind her colleagues with the knife held back along her wrist in a professional fighter’s grip.
“You won’t get anything out of him,” I panted, my mouth working before my brain could think through what I was saying. “He hasn’t got what you want.”
“Bullshit,” she said, eyes locked onto mine as she stalked towards me. “We heard what your brother said.”
“I told him to say that in case we were being listened to,” I lied, trying to think through the lancing pain in my side. “I was going to throw you off the scent and then make him disappear.”
“Still bullshit. We heard everything you said to him.”
“Are you sure?” I backed away, stopping when my heel touched the wall. She was close now, body held low as she prepared to attack. “I’m offering you what you want, but if you kill me you’ll never get it.”
She stopped, head tilted to one side as she considered her options. After a few moments she came to a decision.
“Fine. Tell me where it is.”
“Let Craig go. He can make sure Maggie gets out too. Once they’ve had long enough to get clear, I’ll tell you where it is.” She was so close I could smell her, a hint of strawberry mixed with gun oil and fresh sweat.
“And give them a chance to call the police? I don’t think so. Tell me now and I might let you walk away.”
“Like you did Jake?” The anger returned, swelling like a wave as the memory of Jake’s death came flooding back. “You said you just wanted your property, but you killed him.”
“I didn’t kill him. Besides, he stole from us. He got what he deserved.” The point of the knife was slowly dropping as we spoke, and I felt a tiny glimmer of hope. If I could distr
act her, she might drop her guard altogether and give me a chance to get clear. I glanced behind her at the stairs, judging the distance I’d have to cover. It seemed much further than it had on the way in, and I wondered if I could make it before she buried her blade in my back.
Then I saw it.
Next to the door, tucked under a small table, was the bag Jake had been carrying the day I’d first seen him. Had the Russians not been so focused on hurting Harrison they would have seen it too.
“I don’t know what I thought,” I admitted truthfully, allowing my shoulders to slump as if in defeat. “I guess I wanted to believe you. You know what, just take the fucking thing.”
I pulled my hand out from my injured side and flicked it as if throwing something to her. As I’d hoped it would, her hand twitched automatically to catch it. But instead of throwing a USB stick, I flipped up the lid on the pepper spray I’d worked carefully out of my covert harness while we’d been talking. Jammed my thumb down on the red button.
A long stream of sticky spray hit her right between the eyes. She staggered backwards, blinked once, then screwed her eyes shut and let out a sound that was more howl than scream. She lunged forwards, blade out but I slipped to the side, elbowing her in the temple as I sprinted for the stairs.
Finally, her two colleagues let go of Harrison, one raising his pistol as the other came after me. The moment he was free Harrison moved, leaping up and tearing past me like a hare. He reached the door and disappeared through it, one hand snaking out to grab his jacket from a hook on the wall as he went.
Spurred into action by his sudden exit, I held the spray behind me without looking and emptied the can in my opponents’ direction. I dropped it and grabbed the bag as I hurtled through the door, gasping in pain as the movement tore open my knife wound.
A gun went off, the sound loud enough to hurt. Chips of wood flew out of the doorframe. I ducked but didn’t slow, almost falling down the stairs in my haste. Adrenaline gave me wings as I heard them give chase and I all but flew through the building, leaping down the stairs three or four at a time. The pain in my ribs faded into the background as the endorphins kicked in, and by the time I reached the ground floor I was buzzing with the escape from what had seemed certain death.
Closer Than Blood Page 12