by Tin Larrick
She had taken only three of her purposeful strides before she was firmly halted by a suppressed .223 NATO hollow-point exploding from Fire’s rifle. The round impacted just to the left of her forehead and entered her brain like a razor blade in porridge; her knees jerked, buckled and she collapsed forwards, dead before her face struck the concrete.
Fire had already started to dismantle the rifle before the girl hit the ground. She closed the window. The rain was stronger now.
Once the rifle was packed away, she got back down on the floor and cranked out another one hundred sit-ups. Early on in the partnership Williams had asked her about this pre- and post-kill ritual, and she had ignored him. When he’d guessed –
more or less accurately – that it was a form of OCD, she’d ignored him even more pointedly.
Williams’s cell phone rang.
“Why… the hell… isn’t that… on silent?” Fire hissed between crunches. “Suppose… it rang… while I… was taking the shot?”
Williams didn’t answer. He was staring at the screen. He knew who was calling. When this number called, it meant only one thing – another job, and a sudden lack of oxygen in the air.
“Hello?” Williams croaked, his throat dry.
“Hold fire,” Retallick’s computerised Dalek voice said.
Williams looked at Fire’s lithe body contracting on the floor, and thought: if only.
“It’s too late,” he said into the phone.
“The girl. Kreutz. We need her alive. She sold it on. It won’t die with her.”
Williams swallowed.
“I just told you: it’s too late,” he said, the petulance out of his mouth like a surly defiant schoolboy before he knew what was happening. “She’s gone.”
A five-second silence. The silences were the worst.
“Get yourselves back to London. Now.”
Retallick terminated the call. Williams flipped the phone shut. Fire got up from the floor, ever so slightly breathless.
“What?” she asked.
“We need to go,” he said.
*
“Chicken madras, pilau rice, vegetable samosa… Any naan bread for you, sir?”
“Yes, fine. The coconut kind.”
“One… peshwari… naan.” The Indian man spoke slowly, suggesting that he was writing the order as he did so. “For delivery or collection, sir?”
“Er... hold on.”
He checked his wallet. Bollocks. The contents probably would buy him a half-decent curry… were he still in Latvia. He didn’t think the purveyors of The Golden Samosa would take too kindly to his funny foreign money. He’d have to go out for cash.
*
Don’t deliver, don’t deliver…
Across the street in the white Transit, Williams screwed his eyes shut and unconsciously pressed the headphones tight against his skull. To the casual observer he might have looked like a recording artist tackling a particularly impassioned ballad.
If the mark opted for delivery the plan went to shit before it even started. Unexpected variables like this caused Williams’s bowels to shudder – not a good thing in a cramped surveillance van.
He fiddled with the volume control and held his breath.
*
“Sir?”
“Collection. I’ll come and collect it.” What the hell, he could get some beers on the way.
“Thank you, sir. Be ready in twenty-to-twenty-five-minutes.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.”
“Sir? Your name, please, sir.”
“It’s Switch.”
“Switch?” The Indian man sounded baffled.
“Yeah, yeah. As in Light Switch.”
“Light Switch?”
“Look, it’s Mr Switch, ok?” He didn’t bother to conceal his impatience. How many times had he ordered from these clowns? “See you in twenty minutes.”
Ian Switch hung up the phone.
*
“Team Leader, this is Ocean’s One. Target is on the move.” Williams spoke to the radio mouthpiece built into his wristwatch in clipped, rapid-fire tones. “Mobilise tactical. RV The Golden Samosa, two-zero minutes. Get in position and prepare to engage.”
“Roger that, Ocean’s One. Zero-five to destination.” The team leader’s voice was equally no-nonsense.
Tension descended like a sprinkling of snow over the radiowaves. The silence was loaded with it. There were eleven people involved in this operation, and each one of them knew the shit was about to go down.
*
Ian Switch yawned as he waited for the metal gates of his apartment complex to swing open. Maybe he should have gone for pizza. He could have ordered that online.
The complex was like a gladiatorial arena – five floors of concrete in a U-shape overlooking a bricked courtyard with a neatly kept garden at its centre. It was early on a Saturday night, and the lights of the various apartments seemed warm and inviting – people preparing to go out, to stay in, to go to work. The night sky was like a clear blue canvas dotted with stars, bringing with it a sharp blade of cold.
Switch shivered and cranked up the heating of the lease Vauxhall, sending swirls of warm air around his ankles. The gates took their interminable time, but they eventually opened, and Switch eased the car forwards and out into the night.
It was a straightforward plan – cash machine, off-licence, Golden Samosa, home.
Across town, eleven individuals were intending to see that this plan did not come to fruition.
*
The Golden Samosa was at the end of a parade of shops on the last arm of the town centre’s one-way system before the A-road disappeared out into rural blackness. There was a generous parking layby immediately outside for people wishing to patronise the restaurant or the washing machine shop next door – which, at this time on a Saturday, was closed. Opposite the restaurant was a wide apron of gravel that had once been the car park of a long-disused pub.
In short, it was perfect terrain for a sniper.
Or, indeed, a close-range assault.
Williams monitored the comms as the tactical teams manoeuvred their way into far corner of the old pub car park, where they were blanketed in darkness.
The control panel in front of him took up the entire right side of the van. Williams fiddled with some dials and a video feed from the tactical van swam into focus.
As the tactical vans rolled into position, Williams saw a clear, unobstructed view of the car park, road, the layby, the front of the restaurant and indeed straight through the plate glass window into the restaurant itself. It was still comparatively early, and besides a young couple engrossed in each other over their onion bhajis in an intimate rear corner, the place was empty.
The mark didn’t have a chance.
“He doesn’t have a chance,” Williams said, stretching back in his swivel seat. It creaked under his weight. He could relax a little now. His job was surveillance. The operation was moving into the tactical phase, which meant he could take his foot off the throttle, if only a little.
“It could still go wrong,” said a voice in his ear. A deep, throaty, female voice.
“You would say that,” Williams replied into the transmitter. “You always favour the long range option.”
“It’s less messy. Better success rate too.”
“We don’t want it tidy. Retallick wants to send a message. You know that,” he said in a vaguely flirty tone.
“I know, I know. It’s all about reputation. Next thing you know they’ll be trading operatives for a PR team.”
Williams could have quite happily listened to her all day, but the brief conversation was interrupted by the tactical team leader in his other comms-link.
“We’re in position.”
*
Switch, cash in pocket and San Miguels on the seat beside him, fiddled with the radio and found a station playing a tribute to John Denver. That would do. The drive to the Golden Samosa was not miles, but it was far enough away that he could
settle down a little further into the heated leather seat and try out his country harmonies while steering with his little finger.
He could almost taste his retirement. One more gig. Just one. His bag would already be packed – a one-way ticket to Havana wrapped around a bundle of dollars in the inside pocket – so when he called time and dropped the hammer on his final outing – doubtless leaving fireballs of chaos in his wake – it would simply be a matter of hopping in a taxi. No return home, no dawdling – straight to the airport and into the wild beyond.
He allowed himself a self-indulgent chuckle; it morphed into a yawn as he drove. He felt relaxed. Content, even. The road was quiet, and despite the purchase of the six-pack, he thought he might just limit himself to a couple of beers. By the time he’d digested a monster curry, he’d be ready for bed. He could take it easy Sunday, then attack his swansong mission Monday. By Friday, he’d be under a palm tree watching dusky Latina maidens hand-roll Montecristos on their thighs.
He looked at the car clock as he pulled up outside the takeaway. Twelve minutes past six. He was a little early. Ah well, no rush. He could sit at the bar and read the paper while he waited. He’d be eating alone; he was used to that, but a little chit-chat beforehand wouldn’t go amiss.
He cut the engine and left the car. Stepping out into the cold, he rubbed his gloved hands together in an exaggerated fashion as he walked towards the restaurant’s front door, inhaling the rich aromas that wafted out from unseen vents.
*
The tension inside the tactical vans was like a mesh of infra-red motion sensors – one wrong move and a host of bad alarms would go off.
There were two vans in the car park, each containing five men –five grunts in one, four plus the team leader in the other. The second team actually included a female running point, but that was neither here nor there – sweat and nerves had made the interior of each van smell like a men’s locker room.
Kitted out in full tactical PPE, each one looked the part. They each carried a Heckler & Koch MP5 carbine semi-auto strapped across their fronts, with Glock 17 self-loading sidearms in thigh holsters. In addition to this each carried a small arsenal of incapacitants, small explosives and plasti-cuffs.
The radio from the dash spluttered into life.
“We got a live one.”
“Time you got?”
“Eighteen-fifteen.”
“Shit, he’s early. Okay, everybody in position?” Team Leader One had overall command of both vans. He squinted down at the monitor. A car had pulled up outside The Golden Samosa – but as it was a restaurant, this in and of itself was not necessarily indicative of anything.
“Ocean’s One? Talk to me.”
“Go ahead, Team Leader.” Williams sounded relaxed. Maybe that sniper had been on the phone again. Williams was dying to get inside her combat gear.
“We got a silver saloon just pulled up outside. Looks like a Vauxhall.”
“You see a VRM, Team Leader?”
“Negative, Ocean’s One.”
“Shit, Team Leader. The world and his wife owns a silver Vauxhall.”
“It could be a Citroën.”
“Well, which is it?”
“I don’t know. All bloody cars look the same to me these days.”
Williams sighed.
“Okay. What about occupants?”
“Single male driver.”
“Positive ID on target?”
“Not as yet.”
Williams whistled through his teeth.
“Okay, sit tight. Wait till he comes back out. There can’t be that many men in Vauxhalls collecting takeaways at this time of night.”
Team Leader bristled, the adrenaline fuelling a more brittle response than he might have given in other circumstances. But then again, perhaps not.
“I wasn’t asking you for orders, Ocean’s One. I’m just keeping you informed. Prick.” Team Leader at least had the decency to end transmission before adding this minor postscript.
*
“Prick!” shouted Williams. He flung his headphones across the van. They dinked the edge of the control panel and settled next to a wood-panelled box covering one of the wheel arches.
“Temper,” said Fire, her voice defaulting to the control panel speakers when the headphones were yanked from their socket. Her throaty tones filled the van. “So, have they got him, or not?”
“They don’t know yet. Bloody macho amateurs,” Williams said, crawling across the van to retrieve the headphones – no mean feat for a man of his size. In fact, saddling someone like him with mobile surveillance had to be a punishment of some kind, surely?
He’d always had a chip on his shoulder about his size; in fact, he had done ever since it dawned on him – at twelve years old – that the build he had been born with was going to permanently preclude his dreams of becoming a professional racing driver. Second-row tryouts for the Northampton Saints was the best he could hope for.
Now, at forty-five, his rugby-player’s muscle mass had a mantle of softness over it, but he was still imposing enough to intimidate. And besides, he thought, checking the headphones for damage before slipping them back on…
“Williams? Are you there?”
Shit. She was still talking.
“Yeah, I’m here. Sorry.”
“What’s going on?”
He turned to the bank of video monitors.
“Oh shit. Looks like they’re about to go in.”
*
Switch was ten minutes or so early, and so he sat on a leather bar stool in the restaurant with a copy of the sports pages while the staff buzzed about the gradually filling restaurant. He was in no particular rush, although the wonderful smells drifting back from the kitchen were causing his stomach to growl.
Since Switch’s last visit, the restaurant had been redecorated, as many Indian restaurants seemed to be these days, in a very modern style. That meant parquet flooring, immaculate white walls, blue neon and rock hard black shiny furniture that would have doubled up nicely as kids’ play slides. Personally, Switch preferred the slightly kitsch get-up of garish rugs, muted red walls, fish tanks and curly wooden furniture from the 1970s that harboured smells of smoke and spices.
Time ticked past, and the growl became harder to ignore. He folded the newspaper and tried to catch the attention of a waiter behind the bar as he gathered bottles of Cobra onto a tray.
“Excuse me,” he said to the waiter. “Any sign of my takeaway?”
“Sorry, sir. What was the name?” the waiter said, pulling a double measure of Bombay Sapphire into a tumbler.
“Switch.”
The waiter frowned. He set down the glass and went over to the till, where a stack of yellow carbonated chits had been plunged onto a spike. He pulled them all off and started going through them.
“Switch… Switch…” the waiter mumbled.
Switch, sensing a problem, put the paper down and stood up. He peered at the scrawled chits while the waiter sifted through them.
“Chicken madras, pilau rice and the accessories? Ordered about half an hour ago?”
“I’m very sorry, sir, I can’t find it. One moment, please.”
The waiter respiked all the chits, took his drinks order over to a table, and then disappeared into the kitchen.
Vaguely frustrated, Switch remained standing, and tried to replay events to work out where the mistake had occurred. As he did so, he unconsciously placed his hands on hips and turned towards the window; staring out the black night, his eyes stared while his brain whirred, but he saw nothing.
*
“Sitrep,” Team Leader demanded.
“He’s still in the restaurant,” said a grunt from the cab with a pair of night-sight binoculars. “He’s by the till. Just waiting, by the look of it.”
“What about that ID?”
“Nothing here, sir. We’re going to have to wait until he comes out, I think.”
“That’s no better. It’s dark outside. He’s in a bri
ghtly-lit restaurant with a full length plate-glass window, for Christ’s sake. What do we need to do, go up and kiss him?”
“Sir, it’s the samosa.”
“Come again?”
“On the window. There’s a graphic of a samosa. It’s obscuring his face.”
Team Leader sighed.
“Okay – look. He made the order. Ocean’s One heard it. He’s a single white male in a silver Vauxhall – or similar – arriving exactly when we expected him to. I’ll take those odds. Both teams stand by to engage.”
Everyone in the van sat up a little straighter as their alert levels rose even further. The interiors of the respective vehicles were virtually airless with tension. One or possibly more of them was about to take a life. They were trained for it, but the collective pulse of both vehicles became like a steady hum.
The vans rolled forwards.
*
“Are you hearing this, Williams?” Fire said in his ear. “They’re going to take him out.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Williams said. He’d have been tempted to add my sweet were his own tension levels not also steadily ascending.
“Without an ID?” she said, her tone incredulous.
Had it been anyone else, Williams would have told them to leave him the hell alone. She was a sniper on a mission that didn’t require one, which meant she was here for her own amusement. Technically, she had no business being here, but Williams fancied her too much to piss her off, so he stayed quiet.
“Stand by to engage,” said Team Leader in his ear. “Tell me what he’s doing.”
“Still waiting for the order, by the look of it…. Wait, stand by. Stand by. Got two people coming into the restaurant.”
“All units, stand by!” Team Leader hissed. “Stop the goddam cars!”
Both vans jerked to a stop. From their cover position in the furthest, darkest corner of the car park, there was about fifty yards across the gravel to the low wooden fence that separated the car park entrance from the edge of the road. The vans had covered half this already, which meant they were now smack bang in the middle of the car park, and while the car park had no lighting whatsoever, they were just on the lip of the glow of a street light. They were still more or less in the dark, but anyone looking for them would have seen them.