by Nick Oldham
The handgun dangling in his right hand by his outer thigh was a Browning 9mm automatic, a Carswell noise suppressor screwed on to the muzzle.
He raised it slowly as Nursey growled a warning and Tod spun around.
Henry rose to his feet, collected his paperwork and extended his hand to shake Chalmers’.
‘I’m certain we’ll put on a great weekend for your granddaughter,’ Henry assured his client. ‘Other than the public areas, the whole of the Tawny Owl will be exclusively for her and her party.’
‘Sounds excellent. I’ll show you back out and keep the dogs from eating you,’ he said with a grin.
The Dobermanns had retaken their positions side by side as if they were the guardians of Hades, but they paid Henry no attention, which pleased him as did the fact they were chained to the pillars on either side of the door.
From the top of the front steps there was a view along the close-cropped runway, which looked flatter and better maintained than a premiership football pitch, just as wide and many times longer.
‘You could land a Jumbo on that,’ Henry quipped.
Chalmers laughed. ‘Just long enough for a small plane … in fact,’ he checked his wristwatch which Henry noticed was slim Patek Philippe (Henry had a thing about nice watches and actually owned a Rolex, though wore it rarely), ‘my wife’s due to arrive in her plane fairly shortly.’
‘Not that I know anything about it, but don’t you have to use proper runways and all that?’
‘No, not at all,’ Chalmers said. ‘We file flight plans, keep the local commercial airports updated, keep out of the way of passenger jets and the military … we have council permission to have a private runway and we don’t really use it often enough to annoy the neighbours, not that we have any to annoy … just think what parachute clubs do.’
Henry nodded. ‘Very nice,’ he said, although the prospect of being in a tiny plane with just one engine and propellers made him queasy. ‘Anyway, I’ll take my leave and send you that quote.’
They shook hands again.
In the distance, but getting closer quickly, Henry heard the sound of two car engines approaching.
He looked back along the gravel driveway just as two black Range Rovers with blacked-out windows burst through the treeline.
The reality is that a silencer – or more accurately, a noise suppressor – does not completely deaden the sound of a bullet being fired from a firearm. There was no whispering, ‘Phtt’, but more a sound like a china cup being dropped onto a tiled floor.
Within the context of the woodland, though, the sound of the bullets leaving the muzzle of the Browning automatic was quite loud.
Tod had seen the pistol rise in the man’s hand and tried desperately to dig into his pocket, find two shotgun cartridges and load his weapon but he had no time or chance and the 9mm rounds spat out and slammed into his chest, both entering his heart and shredding the muscle. It was an almost perfect double-tap, the shooting technique where two shots are fired in rapid succession at the same target.
Tod dropped the shotgun, slumped down onto his knees, then fell face first into the ground, dead.
The sniper approached slowly.
Nursey stood over Tod’s unmoving body and growled menacingly at the man who, without compunction, also shot her.
The Range Rovers were new and looked impressive, speeding along the gravel drive, the lead one throwing up grit and a cloud of dust that almost shrouded the one behind.
They circled into the turning area at the front of the house and crunched to a halt.
Henry glanced to his left and saw that Chalmers’ two security guards were racing towards them on quad bikes from the direction of the airstrip, bouncing across the grass, the men on them standing astride in a very macho way.
Henry looked back at the Range Rovers, the dust starting to settle around them. No one got out. Henry could see a male driver in each car, biggish individuals.
‘Friends of yours?’ Henry asked Chalmers.
There was no response.
He looked at the millionaire, who had frozen.
‘No,’ he replied then.
The security guards skidded to a halt on their ATVs by the Range Rovers, kicking up their own gravel and dust storm. They dismounted quickly as the drivers’ doors of the four-wheel-drives opened and two men climbed out.
The guards strutted to the interlopers, their body language clearly stating their tough-guy credentials, men who meant business. The lead man had his palm out towards the new arrivals in a ‘stop right there’ gesture.
Henry watched the scenario unfold, already feeling uneasy about the whole thing. He was too far away to hear anything that was being said, but the lead security guy seemed to be questioning or lecturing the men from the cars, who Henry would have liked to think had wandered innocently into Chalmers’ grounds and were being given a dressing down before being sent on their way. ‘This is private property, get the hell off it,’ sort of thing.
Except Henry knew the Range Rovers were there with a purpose.
There was nothing accidental about this incursion.
The two drivers stood with their arms folded, feet shoulder-width apart, looking cool and unperturbed at the security guard who was lambasting them.
They were late twenties, Henry guessed, both in short-sleeved shirts, three-quarter-length cargo pants and trainers. They had close-cropped hair and had sunglasses pushed up on to their foreheads.
Intuitively, what Henry was seeing gave him a bad vibe, sensing this was bad news but not knowing why.
He knew the type of men, could tell they were trained, versed in the art of violence. He had come across many such people in his life as a cop, come face-to-face with some of them – but always with backup on its way.
Henry’s eyes jumped from the two interlopers to the two guards, trying to get a handle on what was happening when something else clicked with him that confirmed his suspicions: the Range Rovers must have been allowed in through the electronic gates as entry was controlled by someone inside the grounds, one or both of the security men. The guys in the Range Rovers had been let in and unless there was someone else on site today that he had not seen or heard, Henry concluded it must have been one of the security guards.
‘Sure you don’t know them?’ Henry asked quickly.
‘Positive.’
The security guard who had taken the lead in confronting the men was beginning to remonstrate with hand gestures and a threatening stance when one of the interlopers began to laugh at him.
Henry frowned, did not get it for a moment.
Then he did.
The second guard, standing behind his colleague, slid his right hand around to the small of his back, to his waistband underneath his T-shirt. It reappeared quickly with a small handgun in it and in a single, flowing motion, with coolness and without hesitation, he brought up the gun. Before Henry could cry out – his voice croaked in his throat – the guard fired two shots into the side of his colleague’s head, a cold-blooded execution, one that the two men from the Range Rovers totally expected.
The guard crumpled as blood fountained from the terrible, fatal wounds, then became a dribble.
Henry said, ‘Christ!’
The Dobermanns suddenly came to life, flinging themselves towards the incident, but dragged roughly back by the chains. They began to bark madly.
‘What the fuck’s happening?’ Chalmers demanded. He made to go towards the men who all looked at him, then moved as a team towards him.
Henry grabbed Chalmers’ upper arm and swung him back into the entrance hall, slamming the big double doors closed. In the microsecond before the doors closed Henry saw that guns were in the hands of all three of them. As the doors came together, Henry jerked away as at least four bullets – he wasn’t counting – crashed into the thick, solid wood, but did not pass through.
‘Run,’ Henry said.
He grabbed the confused-looking Chalmers, who appeared reluctant to move,
completely dumbfounded by what he had just witnessed.
Henry ducked instinctively as more bullets thudded into the other side of the doors.
Without any finesse, Henry yanked the older man across the hallway towards the rear of the house.
‘Just move,’ he demanded of him.
Chalmers tore himself free of Henry’s grasp. ‘I need to tell her not to land,’ he insisted.
‘Tell who?’
‘My wife, for God’s sake. She can’t land, she mustn’t.’
Henry jerked his head towards the front doors as what now sounded like a machine gun was being fired into the thick wood, and this time the doors began to splinter, particularly around the lock.
These men were coming in and very soon.
He shared a desperate glance with Chalmers.
‘I must warn her, I must,’ Chalmers said firmly.
‘How?’
‘There’s a brick-built shed on the airstrip.’ Henry recalled seeing it, a small building with a very tall aerial on its roof. ‘The radio’s in there.’
Chalmers looked pleadingly at Henry, then jumped as another series of rounds thudded into the door, causing more splintering and more weakening.
‘This way.’ Chalmers turned and began to move, although not as quickly as Henry would have liked.
They raced through to the rear of the house, back into the orangery, past the table with their mugs on it, and out of the double doors onto a series of Indian stone steps leading down to the lawn. Chalmers veered right onto a paved garden path that plunged behind a high trestle fence beyond which was an ornate walled rose garden that Henry had not realized was there. He assumed there were many surprises to behold in this rich man’s domain, not least of which was a brutal murder and three men coming after him armed to the teeth.
There was more gunfire from the front of the house.
Henry thought they must be through the door now and if they were it gave him and his Lordship about a thirty-second lead which would reduce dramatically once the men started to run through the house. They were young, fit and healthy looking. He and Chalmers were not as well equipped as that.
Henry did keep himself as fit as he could. He knew the temptations of running a pub were rife so he tried to control his diet, with the exception of his morning bacon bap, and he did jog two to three miles every other day in a very sedate manner and he was only about half a stone overweight, and his slight paunch and man-boobs were camouflaged by his height.
He couldn’t speak for Chalmers, who he tried to shoo along.
Neither was he sure why he was doing this, a question he asked himself as Chalmers stumbled ahead, but was effectively answered by the shouts of the men chasing them who emerged from the orangery obviously having got through the front door. They didn’t seem like the kind of guys he could have waved past. He knew he was fleeing for his life because he realized that if such a thing as a hit squad existed, these men were it and to approach them with placating body language would simply result in him being riddled by bullets.
They were getting close.
The odds were very much against him and Chalmers but Henry knew he would rather die trying to help this man than not, although Chalmers was obviously the target in this scenario, not himself, but he knew he would be seen as collateral damage.
There were other reasons he did not want to die on that day, not least of which was his desire to know why the men had turned up to assassinate Chalmers, who the hell they were and what this man could possibly be embroiled in.
Hit squads don’t just turn up for fun.
Henry managed to grab Chalmers as he tripped and they ran on through the rose garden to a door set in the wall on the far side. They reached it without any of the armed men coming into the rose garden, making Henry wonder if they had split up to search the house as well.
It was an old, rotting door, but that did not mean it opened easily. In fact it was stuck fast. Henry had to barge his shoulder against it to force his way through. It opened with a loud crash and immediately after there were more shouts from the men, who had clearly heard it.
‘Shit,’ Henry said, bundling through the opening, dragging Chalmers with him and closing the door, forcing it back into its tight frame.
Chalmers ran ahead to a gap in a high hedge, Henry on his heels. They ducked through the opening and came to a small tarmacked area on the north side of the house. Directly ahead was the helipad, beyond that the airstrip with the radio shack to one side.
Chalmers’ arms pumped. His face was cherry red and he was panting heavily, beginning to slow right down, but still determined to reach his goal.
Henry thought a heart attack seemed more likely than a bullet at that stage.
He came alongside, twisting back as he ran, keeping an eye over his shoulder on what was happening behind.
No sign of the men. Just yet.
He glimpsed the tableau at the front of the house. The two Range Rovers, Chalmers’ two cars, the quad bikes, Alison’s Navara and the dead body of the security guard splayed out on the gravel.
So it had been real.
He and Chalmers reached the shed and dipped their heads to get in. It was sparse. Just a metallic table on which stood a very ancient-looking radio set, headphones and a microphone on a stand. A small table to one side had a kettle, two mugs and brewing tackle on it.
Chalmers, gasping hoarsely for breath, thudded onto the plastic chair in front of the radio table and with dithering hands, fitted the headphones over his ears and flicked on the power switch. Henry could have sworn he heard the unit start to hum.
He took it all in but remained by the door, keeping it open a crack and peering through with one eye.
No sign of the shooters.
‘Base to Ella, base to Ella,’ Chalmers said urgently into the mike. ‘Base to Ella, come in please … urgent.’
Henry continued to look back towards the house and gardens; still the pursuers did not appear.
‘C’mon, c’mon,’ he intoned to himself, working out what the best escape route would be if he and Chalmers managed to make it out of the shed. It would have to be straight across the width of the airstrip and then plunge into the woodland opposite, then put as much distance between them and the gun-guys.
‘Ella, come in, please,’ Chalmers begged.
‘Edward, Edward? What’s going on, dear?’ came, Henry assumed, the voice of his wife piloting the plane. The signal was weak, her voice distorted by static.
If it was actually possible, Henry tensed up even more at that moment because he was sure that in the distance he heard the drone of an approaching plane. Ella, it seemed, was not far away.
‘I’m almost there,’ she said.
‘Ella – do not land, repeat, do not land,’ Chalmers shouted. ‘Pull away, land at the parachute club near Pilling and contact Brooks. Do you copy?’
The sound of the plane grew.
He took a chance, bobbed his head out of the door and narrowed his eyes down the airstrip and there she was, just a tiny black dot in the distance, but definitely getting larger and noisier, and intending to land within the next ninety seconds, Henry calculated.
Chalmers screamed into the mike, ‘Do not land, do not land!’
There was no response from the plane.
‘Fuck,’ Chalmers cursed.
Henry pulled his head back into the hut. ‘We need to move. They’ll find us here.’
Chalmers hurled down the mike. It came to pieces on the table top.
‘Can you keep running?’ Henry asked. ‘If we get into the trees we might have a chance.’
The older man looked at Henry, his watery eyes weighing up the options.
The sound of the plane grew louder.
‘I cannot allow her to touch down,’ he said – at which point Henry had had enough. His own survival instinct kicked in strong and was assisted by Chalmers who said, ‘You go.’
‘We can both make it if we go now,’ Henry said, giving the old ma
n one last chance.
‘No, go.’ Chalmers flicked his fingers at Henry, shooing him away.
Henry cocked his head, nodded and glanced out of the door.
The sound of the plane was much louder but there was still no sign of the gunmen. He gave Chalmers one last glance, then went for it. He contorted out of the shed door and sprinted across the airstrip, his pumping arms impelling every last bit of energy and speed out of him. It was perhaps sixty metres at most but felt like a half-marathon and his legs felt weak and heavy as he tunnel-visioned his goal – a split in the longer grass on the far edge of the strip, a parting into which he could dive, then roll into the trees.
As he ran his head jerked one way, then the other.
To his left, still high in the sky but now more definable, was the single-engine plane approaching down the valley formed by the River Roeburn, with Salter Fell to the right and Mallowdale Fell to the left. In that glance Henry could not even begin to estimate how far away the plane was, he just knew it was closer.
Then, with a head jerk to the right Henry saw the gunmen emerge from the garden, reminding him of a team of mercenaries, killing machines, and in that glance he saw each man was now brandishing a machine pistol as opposed to a handgun, much deadlier and requiring less skill.
They must have seen him, he knew that, but he powered on, knowing that to hesitate would get him killed.
Then he was there, launching himself into the dense grass and rolling until he stopped with a jar against the roots of a tree, an impact that winded him, but he kept on moving, doing a snake crawl further into the trees where he came up onto one knee and hid behind several low-hanging branches.
With horror he saw that Chalmers had run into the middle of the airstrip and was standing, facing the oncoming aircraft which was on its final descent. He was making a gesture that resembled repeatedly opening an up-and-over garage door.
Henry got the meaning. He was telling the pilot to stay up, do not land.
But the plane was getting closer.
Henry stretched his neck to see without actually sticking his head out of cover.