by Matt Hilton
Then something unexpected happened.
He yanked open the passenger door of the car behind and leaned in. Over the roar of the bus’s engine Imogen didn’t hear the bang of a gun, but she saw the flash of flame and the spray of blood that misted the interior of the car.
‘Oh my God!’ Caught in a panic, Imogen grabbed at the steering wheel, seeking a way around the rear end of the bus.
There was another flash inside the car behind, a second shot. Then the gunman stood up, and this time he was heading for her. The second car back suddenly peeled out, barrelling along the sidewalk and past the walking man. It screeched to a halt to Imogen’s side, blocking her with its fender. Boxed in by the bus and the vehicle, she’d nowhere to escape to. Imogen let out a series of frightened cries, struggling to extract the revolver from her coat. The hammer snagged on the lining and she knew she’d never get to it in time. She cast a terrified glance at the car blocking her in, but couldn’t make out the face of the driver.
Another prayer escaped her, and she saw the gunman reach for her door. Any second now he’d lean inside and shoot her. She tore at her coat, almost had the gun clear but it slipped from her fingers. The door began to swing open and Imogen screwed her eyes up in anticipation of a bullet in her head.
‘Imogen,’ a voice snapped.
She made a mewling sound, but reaction forced her eyes open.
A man with a scar on his lip and missing a chunk of eyebrow held an empty hand to her.
‘Come with us now.’
Imogen was too terrified to recognise the face.
‘It’s me, Brigham. Joe sent us for you.’
The name Brigham meant nothing to her. But he’d spoken the magic word: Joe. She looked at him now with a mix of hope and revulsion for what he’d just done to the people in the other car. He read the horror in her face. ‘If I hadn’t stopped them, they’d have killed you. Now, come on, we’re sure there’ll be others.’
Afterwards, Imogen didn’t recall being hauled out of her car, or being hustled into the government vehicle. Once she was down on the back seat, with Brigham covering her with his body, she sucked in a deep gulp of air, realising that she’d been holding her breath since she’d been grabbed. Her heart thundered in her chest and she felt woozy, on the verge of passing out.
The government car bumped down off the sidewalk, weaving around Imogen’s stalled vehicle and the back of the bus. There were faint shouts of consternation from within the bus as its passengers realised what they’d just witnessed. Imogen tried to sit up.
‘Stay down,’ Brigham hissed. ‘I told you there might be others.’
‘Those people . . .’
‘Punks sent after you.’ It was the man in the front who’d spoken. Now that she’d had a few seconds to think, Imogen recognised both men as the two who had taken Joe away from her. ‘Looks like we made it here just in time.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘We’re good at our jobs. They’re local scum, but they’d been sent orders to capture you by someone called Baron. Joe Hunter warned us that was going to happen.’
‘Local scum! What if they—’
Brigham cut her off. ‘We were listening in with a directional microphone. They were armed and they were following you, plotting how to take you down. We had to take them down first.’
Imogen was too confused to make any sense of it or the implication of their deaths. Was she complicit in murder? Should she bail out of this car at her first opportunity and run to the police for help? Or should she be thankful that the two CIA agents had risked their own lives on her behalf? After all, it was Joe who had sent them. She shut up.
When Brigham finally allowed her to straighten up in the seat, they were beyond the town limits and heading for Machias Valley Airport. Imogen blinked at the snow-laden trees flashing by. Hartlaub glanced in his mirror at her. ‘You OK?’
‘I . . . I think so.’
‘Good. Now sit back and relax. I think we’re out of the fire for now.’
‘For now?’
‘Who knows when they might try again?’
Imogen ran trembling fingers over her face. ‘Why are people always trying to kill me?’ Even to her own ears she seemed on the verge of hysterics.
‘That’s what comes of having friends like Joe Hunter, I guess.’
Chapter 24
Selwin, North Carolina, was about a mile to the south of Rene Moulder’s veterinary practice. Between her tiny clapperboard house with its purpose-built annexe and the small town, the countryside was dominated by thick woodland, interspersed with the occasional cattle-dotted meadow. It was into one such meadow that Harvey put down the Bell Jetranger and from there we transferred Rink to the rear of the vet’s flat-bed truck. I guessed that in the past Rene had utilised it to cart away sick or dead livestock, so it was big enough to accommodate an ox like Rink. I crouched in the back with him while Harvey clambered into the cab with the woman. Rene set off for her practice, taking it easy over the rutted dirt trails.
Rink had come round from his deep slumber, but he wasn’t looking much better for the rest. His usually tawny skin had a grey tinge that made him look a decade older. That said, he was his usual self in other ways. ‘What do you make of Rene? Told you she was a pretty little thing, didn’t I?’
We’d found her telephone number en route and a quick call was all it took to arrange the pick-up. Rene Moulder hadn’t even questioned why we were in her neighbourhood or why Rink required immediate attention. She came across as being a no-nonsense type, a professional who just got down to business. Rink was right about something else: she was a pretty little thing. She stood only a fraction of an inch over five feet – albeit in flat work shoes – but was curvy without looking frumpy in her tie-dye skirt and gaudy alpaca-wool cardigan and knitted hat pulled low to her ears. She’d big brown eyes and apple cheeks, ruddy without the application of make-up. It was dark and cool out, and someone rousted from their bed would be feeling the chill, so her attire made sense.
Because I’d explained over the phone that Rink was in a state of undress, she’d brought with her a couple of heavy duvets that she’d wrapped round him. She was brusque, but cajoling as she’d made him comfortable.
‘I barely know her yet,’ I said, ‘but already I like her.’
‘Yeah,’ Rink murmured into the folds of the duvets. ‘Would’ve liked to have gotten to know her better myself. Shit happens, though.’
I didn’t know how Rink and Rene had met; there seemed to be many women in Rink’s past, and it never failed to amaze me how they all were happy to see him when he turned up again.
‘She’s an old girlfriend?’
‘Old commanding officer,’ he corrected.
I knew that Rene Moulder had been no part of Arrowsake while we were there, and before that Rink had been an Army Ranger, so it was unlikely he knew her from those days either. He must have read my confusion because he expounded, ‘She was a medic attached to our troop. She was a major . . . out of bounds to a lowly grunt like me.’
‘So she went from humans to animals after she got out?’
‘Animals complain less,’ Rink pointed out. ‘And their gratitude is unconditional.’
‘So you won’t be expecting a belly rub afterwards?’
He chuckled. But the act seemed to send a flare of pain through him and he shut up.
‘They were kind of rough on you, I suppose.’
‘Fuckin’ Baron,’ Rink growled. ‘I’m looking forward to a little me time with him.’
Rink told me how Baron had got the drop on him with a Taser. Having been taken to the mansion, Baron had reintroduced the Taser to him to force him into recording the message that was subsequently played back to me in the warehouse at Little Rock. Baron, it seemed, enjoyed causing pain.
‘You know something, brother? I was pleased when that little punk left to go over to Arkansas. I’ve never known a man who could hurt you so bad without killing you. But at the same time,
I knew it meant the bastards had got you.’
‘Well, you know different now. We planned for them to take me. It was the only way I could think of to find you before it was too late. Harvey wasn’t sure it’d work, but, well, here we are.’
‘Some plan. Left a hell of a lot to chance, brother.’
‘Worked though, didn’t it?’
He laughed again and this time fought through the pain. ‘Fuckin’ Baron, I think he broke my ribs.’
It was obvious from the multiple bruises on his torso that Rink had been subjected to more than just a stun gun. There were burns, a number of them, but they were outnumbered tenfold by the grazes and haematomas.
‘I’ll save a piece of his arse for you.’
‘No need for saving anything,’ Rink said. ‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Rink, you’re not in any state for it, man.’
‘Frog-giggin’ motherfuckers won’t be enough to stop me.’
‘Rink,’ I said, trying to make him see reason. ‘You need to rest. You need to get well again. If me and Harvey get ourselves killed, we’re going to need someone who can finish the bastards for us. That isn’t going to happen if you get injured again.’
‘I’m good, Hunter.’
‘Sure you are,’ I agreed, ‘but you need to be better.’
Rink scowled at me, but then he adjusted the duvet round his chin. He touched that white scar. ‘Yeah,’ he rumbled.
We pulled into the front yard outside Rene Moulder’s house. It was quaint, and despite her professional brusqueness, I could see that she’d lavished much care on her home. There was nothing brusque about the paint job that had decorated the house. It reminded me of the house in that Calamity Jane movie, when she tried to get in touch with her feminine side. It should have looked twee with the flowers painted over the door lintels, but it didn’t. It looked, well, homely. In contrast the annexe was a utilitarian building: white, with a shingled roof, large blacked-out window in front and a door on which the venetian blind had been lowered. Rene led us to the latter building while Harvey and I supported Rink between us. Sweat was pouring off him before we could get him laid on top of an examination table.
‘Smells like dogs in here,’ Rink muttered.
‘Then you should feel right at home,’ Rene said. She ushered Harvey and me through a connecting door and into her house. ‘I’ve enough to be getting on with. You know how to boil a kettle, gentlemen?’
‘You want us to bring clean towels?’ Harvey asked.
‘He isn’t pregnant.’ She waved us towards a kitchen. ‘Go make yourselves coffee and something to eat. I’ve enough with one patient, I don’t want you two fainting out of hunger, as well.’
There was no hint of a Mr Moulder in residence. The interior of the house was as girly as the outside. Maybe Rene enjoyed the contrast after working in the stark confines of an examination room all day. Harvey and I moved about the kitchen, taking things easy, feeling like a couple of lunks as we fixed a sandwich and a pot of coffee. Sorted with food and drink, we finally sat on chairs padded with gingham-covered cushions, and tried not to make a mess on the pale lemon tablecloth decorated at the edges with blue forget-me-nots. Talk about a clash: I’d never felt so out of place.
When we’d done eating, we cleaned up and put the dishes away, but I refilled my coffee mug. I stuck my head through the connecting door and checked on Rene’s progress. She had Rink’s jeans and boots off, but there was nothing intimate about the way she ran her hands over his body. It was brisk and professional, checking him for breakages and internal damage. Rink’s eyes were open, but he was staring into middle space and wasn’t even aware I’d popped in. Rene had already dressed the ragged cut on his shoulder and cleaned up many of his other grazes. Empty syringes lay in a kidney dish on a counter; antibiotics, I presumed, that had already been administered.
‘Does that hurt?’ I heard her ask him.
‘It does when you jab me with your knuckles, goddamnit!’
‘Aw, quit complaining. Some soldier you are, whining like a little girl.’
I grinned, crept back out of the room and closed the door silently. Harvey was watching me.
‘Sounds like Rink’s going to be fine.’
‘I’m sure he is. You made the right call, though, Harve. He needed looking after and Rene’s the right person for the job.’
‘She’s a tough one, I’ll give you that. She’ll need to be to keep Rink flat on his back for a day or two.’
‘Rink will thank us once we get back.’
Harvey rumbled out a laugh. ‘You good to go?’
‘I think it’s best that we leave while Rink’s otherwise engaged, huh?’
We slipped out of the front door, and rather than take Rene’s pick-up, we jogged back to where we’d left the Jetranger.
Dawn was breaking.
We took off with the first rays of daylight refracted on the windshield, turned north for Virginia and headed for our date with Kurt Hendrickson.
Chapter 25
Tubal Cain was also high in the sky.
The Challenger 604 jet had taken him as far as Newark, New Jersey, where, posing as a crew member, he’d boarded a second airplane for the international flight over the Atlantic. For the last twenty minutes or so, the plane had been in descent, huge billowing clouds obscuring the approach to Manchester International Airport in the north of England. In his previous life as a member of the US Secret Service Cain had had occasion to visit the British Isles, but this was his first time this far north. The plane circled for its final descent. When the aircraft touched down, Cain was waiting by the cargo hold doors until the baggage handlers arrived to offload the passengers’ suitcases, then blended with them as they transported the bags to the waiting carousels. With that done, it was a simple task for Cain to make himself scarce. Within twenty-five minutes of touching down, he was in the back of a car driven by one of Hendrickson’s UK contacts.
It had always been a possibility that he’d be approached by security, and although his papers would have passed scrutiny, his weapons would not. Therefore, he opened the case on the back seat of the car and studied its contents. The replacement weapons were exactly as he’d requested.
There were three knives – the main tools of his trade.
Each was a different size and weight. The first was similar to a box-cutter but with a fixed blade. The next was a Recon Tanto like the one he’d employed against the marshal’s back in Montana when his wild goose chase had led him to Jeffrey Taylor. The final one, the most unwieldy, but terror-invoking, was a Bowie knife with a blade more than a foot long and as broad as his palm.
He smiled in satisfaction, then turned his attention to the gun. It was a Walther P99, with polymer frame and steel slide, and internal striker as opposed to a hammer. The gun was the modified model designed to take a box magazine of 15 × .40 Smith and Wesson rounds. There were four magazines in total. Sixty bullets: enough to start a small war if need be. He slapped one of the magazines into the gun, racked the slide, noted the chamber loaded indicator on the side registering that the gun was good to go. As was he.
The driver knew enough to keep his eyes forward, happy to have as little to do with Cain as possible. Cain only conversed with the man enough to get to where he wanted to go; everything else he needed was in a folding leather wallet he found beneath the spare ammunition. While he’d been flying over the Atlantic, Hendrickson’s people had been busy gathering the necessary information. He could have done it himself, but anything that speeded up the process was good by him.
The driver took the car out along the M60 northern ring road, past the Trafford Centre shopping mall, before picking up the M602 through the Greater Manchester city limits, past Eccles and Salford and into the town centre. Joining the A6, the driver passed through the district of Ardwick towards Longsight. Taking a left, he nosed into a housing estate, a mix of council houses and private rented flats. At the end of the road was waste ground and beyond that the mai
n railway line into Piccadilly Station.
The driver brought the car to a halt. ‘There’s a left turn up there, takes you back into the estate. You want me to drive in, mate?’
‘Here will do nicely, driver,’ Cain said, distributing his newly acquired weapons about his body. He checked the wallet, saw some sterling cash inside, but didn’t deem it appropriate to tip the man. He shoved the wallet into an inside pocket of his jacket.
‘Take this.’ The driver handed back a mobile phone. ‘It’s pre-programmed. Give me a call when you need to arrange collection.’
Cain dropped the phone in an outer pocket.
‘Take it easy,’ said the driver. ‘Rough neighbourhood, this.’
Cain didn’t know if the man was being sarcastic or not. English wit was lost on him sometimes. He got out of the car and closed the door behind him. He stood on the pavement – it wasn’t called a sidewalk over here – and watched as the driver spun the car in the road and headed off. Cain wore a waterproof jacket and pulled on a cap: not so much as a disguise, but more against the damp chill that swept down the street. He couldn’t remember being in the UK when it wasn’t damp and chilly.
It was a school day, he was sure, but there were still a couple of kids hanging about on old bicycles, dressed in a uniform of tracksuit bottoms and hooded sweatshirts. They couldn’t have been older than ten or eleven years old, yet they stared at him with eyes as hard as those of the patrons of Fort Conchar. They’d made him as a stranger within seconds. Cain didn’t bother about that: as long as the local police weren’t as perceptive.
Ignoring the young hoods, he strode along the street and took the left Hendrickson’s man had indicated. Here he found old-style tenement flats. Alleyways ran between the buildings. He checked numbers on plaques on the walls; saw the building he was looking for. Good enough, he thought, and angled over to an alleyway on the opposite side. This one dead-ended at a corrugated sheet metal wall to dissuade pedestrians from crossing the rail tracks. It was the home of discarded junk, broken bottles and human waste judging by the smell. Standing in the mouth of the alley, he surveyed the tenement opposite him, allowed his gaze to climb a couple of storeys and saw a window with the drapes closed. Didn’t look like anyone was home. Good enough again. He would come back later, as he’d always planned.