Hunter Killer

by Chris Ryan

  Kyle’s voice petered out.

  Just fucking call me, okay? They’re not pissing around. She’ll be dead by midnight . . .

  Maddox lowered the phone. ‘So here’s the thing, Danny. Either we can stand here shooting the shit while some greasy Polaks get to work on your girl, or you can get the hell out of here and leave us to do what we’re going to do anyway. Choice is yours, but make it quickly.’ He ostentatiously checked his watch. ‘Half past nine. I’d say time’s running out, no?’

  Danny turned and looked at Victoria. She’d collapsed for a second time. She clenched her hands in front of her, like she was praying. She uttered a single word: ‘Please!’ But Danny didn’t know if she was talking to him, or to the Americans.

  Suddenly he didn’t care.

  Kyle’s voice echoed in his mind. The fucking Poles have got her. It’s your fucking fault . . .

  ‘Everything she promised you,’ Maddox said, pointing at Victoria, ‘I promise you. You know I have the influence. Walk out of here and you walk free. And you never know – your girl might stand a chance.’

  Danny gave the trembling Victoria a hard stare. ‘You’re on your own,’ he said.

  Then he turned again and headed to the exit. He could sense the tension from the balaclava’d shooters as he approached Harrison Maddox. One of them followed him with his weapon as he walked. He knew that, tightly coiled, they’d fire at the merest sign of a sudden movement. He’d been in their position before, after all, and that’s what he would have done.

  But he stopped a metre from Maddox’s position.

  ‘Is Spud alive?’ he asked. His voice cracked slightly as he spoke.

  Maddox looked him straight in the eye. ‘We don’t know,’ he said. ‘He dropped off our radar. And that’s the truth.’

  Danny nodded. Then he stepped out into the night and pushed the door closed behind him.

  In the distance he could hear the noises of London. Buses. Car horns. A passenger aircraft cruising overhead. Danny’s hand was just reaching for his phone when he heard a different sound behind him: like a fist being thumped on a heavy door. He knew what it was: two suppressed shots from the MP5s.

  The Americans weren’t fucking around. The target was down.

  Danny felt nothing but an icy coldness. The spook had been one in a long line of people to learn how death stuck to Danny Black. It chilled him to think who might be next.

  He strode away from the United Reform church. By the time he hit the pavement he was running, while keying Kyle’s number into the phone. He pressed the handset to his ear as he ran. It rang five times. Six. He was already sprinting across Edgware Road when a surly voice answered.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Kyle had the gall to sound offended.

  ‘Can you call the Poles?’

  ‘Yeah, course.’

  ‘Tell them you’ve got their money.’

  ‘But I haven’t.’

  Danny swore as he drew up alongside Ripley’s Yamaha. ‘Just tell them, Kyle. Then call me back on this number and let me know when and where the RV is. Don’t let it happen for two hours.’

  ‘What? Why the fuck not?’

  Danny started the Yamaha’s engine. ‘Because that’s how long it’ll take me to get to Hereford,’ he said.

  Twenty-eight

  Clara tried to work out how long she’d been in that dark, cold basement. Close to 48 hours, she decided. It was impossible to tell, hunched in the dark, trembling with fear. A minute can seem like an hour. An hour like a day. The Poles hadn’t brought her anything to eat or drink and the tape was still stuck round her head and wrists. Her mouth was agonisingly dry, apart from the area around her lips, which were perhaps bleeding, though she couldn’t tell for sure.

  After three hours of confinement she had kicked on the door, her throat making formless noises as she begged to be let out to use the toilet. But they’d ignored her, and she’d been forced to shuffle awkwardly out of her trousers and urinate in one corner of the room. The liquid had trickled towards the centre, and now the stink of it filled her nose.

  Occasionally she heard voices above her. Footsteps. They made a debilitating nausea course through her, which barely eased off when the voices stopped or the footsteps faded away. It was sickening to be here, but the thought of what would happen when they came for her was even worse.

  When the door at the top of the stone stairs finally opened, a shard of light blinded her. She screwed her eyes shut, determined not to make any sound that suggested she was scared. After a few seconds she looked again. A figure was walking down the stairs. Heavy footsteps. She sensed that it was the Pole with the fat lips and the pockmarked face. He crossed the cellar floor, stopping when his feet touched the wet patch. He spat something in Polish – it sounded like a curse – then walked faster over to the corner where Clara was cowering. He bent down and pulled her up by her hair. She gasped in pain, then felt herself being swung round and thrown to the wet floor.

  A boot, on the side of her face, ground her head into her own filth.

  Then he grabbed a clump of her hair again, pulled her to her feet and dragged her up the stairs. He stank of booze and body odour.

  She found herself in the dark hallway with the peeling wallpaper. The front door to her right. She could tell through the glass panels that it was dark outside.

  She was dragged along the hallway and pushed into another room. Brown paisley carpet, a threadbare three-piece suite. Patches of damp on the wall. The Pole with the black-raven tattoo was sitting in here, his huge bulk almost swallowed up by an even more enormous armchair. To his right was an old-fashioned gas fire, all three segments burning. His knife was extended in his hand, and he was twisting it round and round. Clara felt herself being thrown to the floor just in front of the gas fire. The door closed behind her and the second Pole stood in front of it, an ugly leer on his face.

  On the floor by the side of the armchair was a newspaper. Slightly crumpled, open at a double-page spread. Pictures of the London bombings, which Clara had all but forgotten in her current predicament. The tattooed Pole nudged it with his right foot.

  ‘They are good for us, things like that. Keep police busy.’ He smirked. ‘Not so good for you.’

  Clara looked away from the newspaper, sickened.

  ‘Looks like your boyfriend doesn’t want to pay us,’ the Pole said. ‘Shame for us, shame for you.’ He held the knife up in front of his eyes and twisted it round again. ‘More shame for you, though. We both made same mistake, getting involved with junkie like him.’ He grinned. ‘But we get to have bit of fun with you first.’ He looked up at his mate. ‘Cheaper than hooker,’ he said. ‘And no pimp to deal with if we hurt her.’

  On her knees, Clara looked up at him. She tried to speak, but again, all that came from her taped-up throat was an incomprehensible grunt.

  The Pole leaned forwards and placed the tip of the knife into the flame of the gas fire. He kept it there for 30 seconds. Clara couldn’t take her eyes off it. Her body was trembling again, and although part of her didn’t want to give these monsters the satisfaction of knowing how much they scared her, she couldn’t prevent herself from shaking her head.

  She’d half expected the tip of the knife to be glowing when it emerged. It wasn’t. The blade was just slightly blackened. But as the Pole moved the knife to within a couple of inches of Clara’s face, she could feel the heat emanating from it. She recoiled. The Pole laughed. She caught a whiff of his breath, a warm, fetid stench.

  The knife grew closer. Right between her eyes, just an inch from the skin.

  He pointed it closer to the left eye. Then to the right. ‘Eenie meenie minie mo . . .’ The nursery rhyme sounded obscene in his rough Polish accent. ‘Catch a hooker by her . . . eye . . .’

  The knife ended up by the right eye. The Pole grinned again, apparently pleased by his childish ditty.

  Then a phone rang.

  The ringtone was behi
nd Clara. It belonged to the second Pole. Her tormentor inclined his head, then looked up at his mate and nodded. Clara could sense the guy by the door trying to find the phone in his pocket. The ringtone became a little louder as he pulled it out.

  He said something in Polish.

  The tattoed guy withdrew and sat back on his armchair. He nodded. His mate answered the phone.

  ‘Yes?’

  A pause. Clara could just hear the babble of another voice at the other end.

  ‘He’s got money,’ said the Pole.

  Clara felt like collapsing with relief, but something – pride, maybe – kept her upright. She watched her tormentor as he sat in the armchair, staring with a certain disappointment at the burning tip of his knife.

  ‘He says two hours,’ said his mate. In other circumstances they would have been comical, speaking to each other in English.

  The Pole shook his head. ‘Not here,’ he said. ‘Where disused railway track crosses river. Up from rowing club. Underneath bridge. And he has ninety minutes, not two hours. If he’s late, she goes for swim.’

  His mate relayed that. Clara heard Kyle’s voice arguing at the other end. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ the Pole said. ‘We bring girl.’ More arguing, but the Pole soon cut him off.

  There was a moment of silence again.

  ‘So . . .’ said the Pole slowly. ‘So . . . It looks like your boyfriend gives a shit after all.’ He leaned forwards again and cupped Clara’s chin in his rough hand. ‘But you’re too pretty to let go. We still have fun with you, once we have our money. And I don’t think world will miss piece of shit junkie like him, do you?’

  He nodded at his mate. Clara felt her hair being grabbed yet again. She was pulled to her feet, then back along the hallway to the door that led down to the cellar. Thirty seconds later she was entrapped once more, surrounded by darkness and the foul smell of her own waste, half of her wondering if she should try to kill herself now by beating her head against the wall to save her the humiliations to come, half of her defiantly wondering if the journey to meet Kyle might offer her some chance – just some small, impossible chance – of escaping these monsters and getting to safety.

  The screen of Danny’s phone lit up. 11.30, it said. Where the old railway crosses the river. Near the rowing club.

  Time check: 22.23hrs. He had less than an hour. He cursed. He wanted to call Kyle, tell the idiot to put back the RV. But that would mean stopping the bike and losing precious seconds. He tried to give it a bit more throttle. But there was no more to give. Ripley had been right. The Yamaha maxed out at just shy of 140 mph. Not that Danny didn’t try to push it higher. He crouched down over the handlebars, head low, burning down the outside lane of the M4, half blinded by spray from a motorway still wet from the recent rain. The engine screamed, and Danny’s head rang with the Doppler effect of trucks honking at him as he wove dangerously around them. He half expected to see the flashing neon of police lights at any moment, and was grimly prepared to outrace them. But for once, luck was on his side. The motorbike ate up the miles.

  He pictured the location of the meet. Where the old railway crosses the river. Danny knew it well. The railway was disused and the area round the bridge was ordinarily deserted. Close to midnight, the only other people they were likely to see would be winos staggering down the riverside.

  That didn’t mean things would be easy.

  He had no weapon. And no money, of course, to pay these fuckers off.

  Worse still, he had no time.

  He crouched lower over the handlebars, and continued to speed along the motorway.

  23.20hrs

  The Poles had dragged her out of the cellar again. The one with the tattoo had groped her, then pushed her along the dingy hallway to the front door. Now they were bustling her back into the car. The guy with the tattoo sat next to her in the back and pressed her head down into his lap so nobody could see her from outside. She squirmed, but the Pole was too strong for her as he pressed her face down into his stinking crotch. She felt a bulge there, and wanted to retch.

  Moments later, they were moving.

  To keep her mind off the horror, Clara concentrated on the movement of the car. They stopped three times. She heard the click of the indicators on each occasion. They turned left twice, right once. Then a long stretch of straight-ahead driving, during which time her mind lingered on terrifying thoughts. She couldn’t tell how long it was before they started to slow down. Ten minutes? Maybe a bit more? The vehicle bore round to the left, and the terrain underneath them became bumpy. They were heading off-road. That only made Clara’s nausea more acute, because off-road most likely meant they’d be isolated. Very far from help.

  The vehicle stopped. The Pole in the front got out, then closed the door behind him.

  Clara started shaking again. Once more she tried to cry out, but uselessly. After a minute or so she found the strength for another burst of intense struggling. It did no good: the Pole kept her pressed down and she wasn’t strong enough to wriggle free.

  Clara’s passenger door opened. Cold air drifted in. The driver said something in Polish, then grabbed Clara by her collar and yanked her up. The windows were misted up inside the car, so it was only once the Pole with the pockmarked face had dragged her outside that she was able to see where she was.

  They had parked up at the edge of an area of wasteland. The rain had started again – heavy, driving rain that soaked her in seconds. The ground was covered in low, ragged scrub, through which the vehicle had left distinct tracks – two ruts, with untouched scrub between them. She could see the lights of Hereford glowing in the distance, but there were no houses or other buildings nearby.

  On the other side of the car, perhaps 20 metres away, was the railway line, raised up on a steep bank about five metres high. Clara’s eyes followed it along to the right, where a bridge carried the tracks over the river. Clara could just make out its gentle curve. A steep bank led down to the water, and in a matter of seconds she found herself being dragged in that direction through the rain by the tattooed Pole.

  It was a futile gesture. She knew that even as she did it. But she had to try something. She kicked the Pole hard in the shins as they walked. He barked a curse and momentarily let go of her. Clara grabbed her chance. She turned 90 degrees and ran as fast as she could. Even with her hands taped behind her back, her wet, matted hair straggling in her eyes, and even though she could only breathe through her nose, it might have been enough. But after 20 metres, she stumbled on the uneven ground and fell heavily. Unable to break her fall with her hands, she landed heavily on her right arm. A shock of pain thumped through her. She ignored it and tried to scramble to her feet.

  Too late.

  A sturdy boot from one of the Poles connected just below her rib cage. Air shot from her lungs and painfully through her nose.

  Another kick, straight in the thorax this time. She folded up her body, foetus-like.

  ‘Get up,’ said an angry, accented voice. She didn’t know which one it was. She shook her head and whimpered. Seconds later she felt hot breath near her ear. ‘Do that again, bitch, I cut you, and not just on face.’ She felt herself being pulled up once again.

  Her eyes were blurry with tears of pain and fear as they dragged her back towards the river, holding her more tightly this time, and treating her more roughly. At the top of the bank, they pushed her down. She slipped and stumbled down the wet, muddy earth, her body landing with a thump on the riverside path. The river was hissing as the rain hit it. It briefly crossed her mind to make another escape attempt, but the two Poles were by her side almost immediately.

  Bruised and muddy, she stood up. The bridge was 15 metres away. It was a dark brick arch over this narrow stretch of river. The Poles dragged her towards it. Once they were in its shadow, protected from the rain, one of them dealt her another sharp blow to the stomach. She collapsed again and this time she stayed there, bent double and weeping, wanting to scream but unable to make a sound, and suspecting
that if she tried to escape again it would most likely be the last thing she did. She peered beyond the bridge. It was dark and gloomy there, obscured by the night and the rain. She could see nothing. Even if she could escape that way, she’d be running blind.

  Thunder ripped through the sky. A flash of lightning. She heard them speaking. Low voices. Polish again. They sounded pissed-off and she realised why: Kyle wasn’t here. One of the Poles spat on the ground nearby. Then she felt warm breath again, and realised the tattoed one had bent down to talk to her. ‘You better hope your junkie boyfriend turns up,’ he shouted over the rain.

  She shook her head, wanting to explain once more that Kyle was not her boyfriend. The Pole had walked away. They were standing on either side of the bridge, the side from which they’d entered, looking out. Clara did the same, first in one direction, then in another.

  And as she looked in the direction from which they’d come, there was another flash of lightning. She blinked.

  A figure.

  It was standing on the towpath about 20 metres beyond the bridge.

  Just standing. And watching.

  Danny?

  For a moment – just the briefest moment – she felt a twinge of hope. There was something about the figure – the slope of his shoulders, maybe, or the shape of his head? – that made her think it was him.

  But that moment of hope soon vanished. The figure moved forwards and she could tell, from the stumbling gait and the way the silhouette held itself, that this wasn’t Danny but his brother.

  Kyle stopped ten metres from the bridge. She saw that his wet face was still smeared in blood from where the Pole had cut him the night before.

  ‘Where’s my money?’ shouted the Pole.

  Kyle wiped his nose with his sleeve.

  ‘Let her go first,’ he called. His voice wavered as he spoke.

  The second Pole had joined his mate now. They were standing side by side underneath the bridge, looking towards Kyle as he stood bedraggled in the driving rain. They turned to each other and laughed. A nasty, forced laugh that had little to do with mirth. They conferred briefly in Polish, then the second Pole stepped back to where Clara was crouching. He dragged her over to their original position, then forced her to her knees again. His mate pulled a knife, grabbed her wet hair in one hand and rested the blade against the soft flesh of her jugular.