by Tin Larrick
Someone had got to her.
They must have.
*
Switch turned circles in the car park and tried to theorise a likely turn of events.
Someone else was after the same information. A competitor, most likely. After all, the information was valuable to whoever managed to steal it first. Possession was nine-tenths of the law, after all – whatever the hell that meant.
Whoever the competitor was, they must have had the same lead Switch had – their paths had almost crossed in the office, hadn’t they? But while Switch’s methods involved stealth, subterfuge and an intention of being long gone by the time anyone realised the stuff had been compromised, his rival – having bundled Magine out the door and hang the consequences – was obviously rather less subtle. She was probably already tied up in a garage somewhere, having things inserted under her fingernails in an attempt to extract information she could probably only barely comprehend the value of.
Switch thought about his own source, but couldn’t rule him out. Peddlers of information often had a sick sense of humour, and probably found the thought of several contenders – each unwittingly trying to outrun the other and be first to the prize – quite gratifying.
The answers were tantalisingly just out of reach, but one thing twenty years’ experience had taught him was when to swap stealth and secrecy for overt action –
which in this case meant doing away with pleasantries and getting to Magine Taylor, pronto.
With that in mind, his eyes came to rest on a pink Mini Cooper in the car park. The plate read MT LUV U. He raised an eyebrow.
He went to the boot of his van, and removed a switchblade, a Glock 17, a jemmy and a length of packing tape.
After checking no one was looking, he sprung the driver’s door of the Mini. It took eight seconds.
He rifled through the glove box, and found Magine’s home address on an insurance policy note. He used the goggles to photograph it.
And froze.
There was a car at the gate. A growling black Audi that seemed ready to pounce the moment the huge steel gate slid back.
Switch thought about pulling the sun visor down, but decided too much movement was bad. Besides, he wanted to know if he’d been made or not.
He held his breath as the car drove slowly into the car park. It passed within six feet of the Mini’s front bumper, and then exhaled as it passed.
There were two occupants – a woman driving and a man in the passenger seat. Neither of them gave him a second look, which made sense. This was their turf. They weren’t going to be looking for the enemy here.
Despite the apparent setback, a laugh tugged at Switch’s mouth. He liked a challenge. This was what it was all about. The thrill of the chase.
The Audi cruised around the corner of the building and disappeared out of sight. Switch watched and waited for a few moments, and then slid out of the Mini. He forced himself to walk normally to his van, where he made another roll-up and used the time to scan the car park again.
Nothing. In fact, for a hub of clandestine activity it was remarkably low on activity. But, he surmised, maybe that was the point.
Then he saw them.
The man and the woman from the Audi, stalking purposefully across the car park. To the untrained eye, they were walking from A to B with scarcely a passing glance at their surroundings, but Switch’s seasoned instincts told him they were looking for him.
He stepped backwards and took refuge in the van.
*
“Did you see him?” Fire said.
“Who?”
“The mark. He was sitting in that pink Mini. Come on.”
Fire and Williams left the Audi and crossed the car park to the pink Mini. In close-fitting suits and sunglasses they didn’t look a bit out of place.
“Whose is this?” Williams asked as they approached the Mini.
Fire didn’t answer, but stood with her hands on her hips while she stared at the grille.
“I said…”
“Quiet. I’m thinking,” Fire snapped.
She stared at the front end of the Mini for a few more moments.
“It must be his contact,” Williams said. “Whoever’s selling him the stuff.”
“It doesn’t seem a bit conspicuous to you?” she said.
Williams spun around and scanned the car park. It was crammed with Mondeos, Vauxhalls and Volkswagen estates, decked out in blacks, browns and navy blues. In the midst of all this neutrality sat the hot pink Mini.
“Hmm,” he said. “Maybe.”
He made a call on his mobile, and was patched through to a drone in Retallick’s office to run MT LUV U through the DVLA database.
“No name or address,” he said to Fire when he’d finished the call. “It’s registered to a lease company in Swindon.”
“Of course it is,” she said, more to herself than Williams. “How many lease companies have hot pink Minis on their books?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Twelve?”
“It’s a rhetorical question, you lug,” she said. “Come on. The prick’s still here.”
He followed her across the car park at a trot, their visual scanning less subtle now. The car park was deathly silent – there was no foot-traffic in or out of the building, and the fleet of vehicles waited quietly for the all-important scramble that might never come.
“There it is,” she said.
“Where?”
“The contractor van. Oldest one in the book, but it seems to work.”
They walked over to the van, a Vauxhall Combo that was presumably white under all the grime. It had a towbar, a set of ladders strapped to a roof rack and crude signwritten panels.
Williams would have walked right past it.
“Oh yeah,” he said.
“He’s in there,” Fire said, pointing towards the building with her thumb. “He’s using a contractor cover; he’s going to steal or copy the shit and then do one.”
“So what do we do? Keep obs?”
She scrunched up her face as her brain worked. Then the nodded towards the rear doors of the van as she reached a decision.
“Rig it,” she said.
*
In the back of the van, Switch was absolutely still. Curled up on the floor, he strained his ears desperately, but could not discern the words of the man and the woman from the Audi.
Sweat dropped from his forehead and fell in his eyes and ears. When their footsteps scraped on the tarmac, he couldn’t suppress a wince. If they decided to breach the van, he had very little chance of getting the drop on them. His Glock had one in the chamber and was good to go, but if they came at him from both sides – the most likely manoeuvre – then he wouldn’t have time to get it in hand.
So when they walked away and their voices faded away, the relief was like a warm wave cascading over him. He gave it five minutes, and then scrambled into the driver’s seat.
He stepped on the gas and drove as casually as he could to the exit. He couldn’t be sure that they weren’t watching him, but he had to count his blessings. He tapped his fingers impatiently as the huge metal gates slid slowly back, checking around him like an owl for any sign of followers.
He wasn’t entirely satisfied – in fact he felt like a sitting duck – but the urge to put some distance between himself and whatever operatives he had on his tail was slowly becoming difficult to ignore. He realised to his dismay that he was sweating and breathless. For the first time in twenty years, his cage had been rattled, and he did not know why.
The gate opened fully, and Switch roared out of the compound, his survival instincts usurping his training for as long as it took to get away from the bloody place.
Besides, he still had a mission to complete.
He had to find Magine Taylor.
*
“There he goes.”
Williams leaned forward and squinted at the number plate as the van raced past the lay-by where they were parked. Fire stamped the throttle and gunned the car
onto the main road.
“This better work,” Fire muttered as she drove.
Williams didn’t answer. Of the different MOs in their repertoire, this one was the most risky. There were a number of variable factors involved, and even though they boasted a 100% success rate, Fire was convinced there was a first time for everything.
At the compound, Williams had fitted a tiny explosive to the nearside rear wheel arch of Ian Switch’s van, which was armed by a tiny dynamo measuring the revolutions of the wheel. When it got to sixty miles per hour, it would cause a blow-out of spectacular proportions, and the car would roll, killing its occupant.
Variable #1 was that the mark might be a cautious driver. But the industrial park was designed to be of optimum benefit to the distribution and haulage requirements of its plot subscribers; as such, it was surrounded on all sides by a network of dual carriageways and a line to the M40, and the odds of the mark not playing ball on that particular score seemed to be fairly low.
Variable #2 was, of course, that Switch might not die instantly from the impact, if at all. So Williams and Fire would follow along behind, and assess the likelihood of the mark’s survival. If there was any doubt at all, they would stop the car and Williams would rush over. To all intents and purposes he was a concerned witness, but if the guy was talking, breathing or in any way not dead, Williams would carefully close his hand over his face until he stopped breathing.
This tactic had a double bonus. Should anyone look into the crash a little deeper than standard practice demanded – which both Fire and Williams considered unlikely – then discovery of trace evidence linking Williams to the car could be explained away by his conspicuously approaching the scene as a witness.
Variable #3 carried the biggest chance of failure. In order for Williams to look like a suitably distressed everyday normal-Joe witness, he would need a bit of physical enhancement. Fire had not bothered to conceal her pleasure when she realised the best way to achieve this was by exploiting his tendency to suffer motion sickness.
“Ready?” she asked as they joined the snake-line of traffic, six or seven cars back from the van.
Williams just nodded, and picked up a newspaper from the door pocket. He concentrated fiercely on the words.
Fire stomped on the brakes, and the car lurched forward. It was like flicking a switch. Williams groaned as his stomach backflipped.
She dropped the car into second and accelerated away again. Williams’s head was thrown backwards as he read the paper, and then Fire started swerving from side to side.
“That’s enough,” he said, touching her arm. “I’m there. You don’t need to do any more.”
Fire tried not to grin. Williams was grey and sweating – the perfect witness to a fatal road crash.
They had no further time to debrief. The van hit sixty, and the rear wheel blew out. There was no time to react; the car lurched sideways and rolled – three, four, five, times – down the carriageway, in a deafening cacophony of pulverised metal.
Cars screeched to a halt around them. Fire brought their Audi to a sudden stop. Williams leaned his head against the window.
“Get out,” she hissed. “Before someone else gets there.”
This was why Variable #3 topped the list – once the nausea kicked in, Williams just wanted to die.
He opened the car door, and gingerly stepped out. After two or three steps, he vomited onto the tarmac. Fire looked around her. One or two others were getting out of their cars, but they seemed to be rooted to the spot. A couple were using their cell phones – presumably to call the emergency services.
*
After being sick, Williams felt a little better. He trotted forwards to the destroyed car, the smell of burning rubber and leaking fluids radiating through the air.
The van was on its roof in the middle of the road, almost complete flattened. Williams fell onto his front by the driver’s window – which, mercifully, was on the other side of the line-up of transfixed drivers behind the crash – and peered in.
He recoiled at the sight of a mangled, stubbled, leathery face. Blood poured from a head wound, and the impact had mashed the guy’s teeth through his mouth.
He stuck out an arm, hearing sirens in the distance, and jabbed his fingers into his carotid artery. No pulse. No breathing. He twisted onto his back to try for a view of the footwell. His legs looked okay, but the arms were twisted at an awkward angle. William twisted again, and realised why he had recoiled at the sight of his face. It wasn’t the injury so much as the unnatural angle at which his head was to his body. Broken neck, most likely. The guy was a goner.
The sirens were upon him now, then footsteps. Strong hands gripped him, and he was pulled to his feet by Michelle Fire, in the luminous jacket of a paramedic.
“Are you okay, sir? Are you hurt?” she said, making a show of roadside triage.
Williams was painfully aware of her hands on his body, and he tried fiercely to remain in character,
“N-no. I was… driving behind. I saw it all… oh Jesus!” He covered his face with his hands and started to sob.
“Okay, okay sir. Stand aside and let us help. You’re in shock.”
She guided him away.
“Witness. Had a nasty shock,” she called back to the other paramedics that were clamouring around the scene.
As the police arrived to join the paramedics, Fire and Williams edged back to the car, making use of the critical two or three minutes of initial confusion as the emergency services tried to gain a snapshot of what had happened.
They rolled past the scene.
Nobody noticed.
*
Switch couldn’t move.
Waves of pain laced with lightning crashed over his body intermittently, just about kept at bay by whatever delicious painkiller he had on tap, activated by a button under his thumb.
His right side seemed to be worst. He was aware of every bone in his arm and leg, as if each one had been fired with radiation and then set upon by an army of staplers.
His vision was fixed on the blue squares of light in the ceiling. His head was immobile from the spinal board, but he wasn’t sure to what extent he was being restrained or whether his body was just not listening to his brain.
Which – Class ‘A’ opiates aside – seemed to be working fine.
There was no doubt that the accident had been no accident. The pricks from the takeaway had just caught up with him. Not too shabby, using a speed-activated IED. Must remember that one.
How they had found him seemed irrelevant, but then, of course it wasn’t. Despite his better efforts, they’d seen him in the Mini, and were obviously professional enough to make an educated connection to a works van being used as a cover.
But to have found him so quickly, they had to have someone on the inside, surely. A source. A mole. Much like himself.
There was something else troubling his fractured, pain-wracked mind.
One-way glass.
OPERATIONS/INTELLIGENCE had mirrored, one-way glass.
This in itself was not unusual – those involved in the business of handling secrets did not want every Tom, Dick and Harry peering in through the windows.
Switch’s thoughts accelerated with the pulse monitor next to his bed.
What was unusual was that the one-way glass was the wrong way round. The reflective surface was on the inside, and smoky grey transparent side on the outside. So any passer-by could have a free nosey, but the workers inside wouldn’t know because all they could see were their own stupid reflections.
It seemed to Switch to be a major design error.
Unless it had been built in a hurry.
Unless it was fake.
The door opened, and a person walked over to the bed and stood over him. Switch’s fuzzy vision made out pale blue and dark blonde – belonging to, he assumed, a nurse.
A waft of glorious perfume descended over Switch as she sat on the edge of the bed. A soft hand covered his.
“Hello, Mr Switch,” she said.
The soft hand suddenly wrenched his hand away from the morphine plunger.
“We’re going to take a little walk.”
*
“You stupid cretin,” Fire said quietly.
Williams ignored her, and continued studying the television.
“He didn’t die,” Fire said. “He’s still alive. You loused it up. You loused up MY kill rate.”
“’Critical and life-threatening,’ the news said. He won’t make it through the night.”
“Thanks for the prognosis, Dr Dick.”
“Michelle, if you’d seen him… There’s no way he could have survived.”
Fire threw her hands in the hair and began pacing around the hotel room.
“Oh good. That’s okay then. Who’s going to tell Retallick? You?”
Williams swallowed, and flicked off the television.
“So what do you suggest?”
Fire crossed the room and stood over him. She placed a painted finger under his chin and tilted his head up towards her.
“I suggest YOU go to the hospital, YOU find him, then YOU finish the job.”
Her face was inches from his. He could smell her lipstick. He swallowed.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit risky? I was seen at the crash…” His voice tailed off.
She traced her fingernail across his lower lip.
“Don’t worry,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
Despite himself, a look of hope spread across his face.
“Really?”
She lowered her mouth to his ear, her breath warm.
“Yes. By not cutting off your balls and force-feeding them to you if you don’t clean up this mess. I don’t DO failure.”
She stood up and stalked to the bathroom.
“If you’re still here when I come out, Retallick will be the least of your worries.”
She slammed the door.
*
Williams parked some way from the hospital, and with a white coat, stethoscope and laminated badge managed to move freely around the emergency room with minimal difficulty.
Fire breathing in his ear was still monopolising his thoughts, and despite her rage, he still entertained some fantasy of success being rewarded with her passion.