by Nick Oldham
To the right, the plane was virtually on the airstrip, the wheels only feet above the cut grass.
Dead ahead of him stood the desperately gesticulating Chalmers.
Away to the left were the gunmen, each now holding their machine pistols in firing positions. They had fanned out into a line and were jogging inexorably towards Chalmers, who continued to throw his arms upwards.
The plane touched the ground.
Chalmers ran towards it, waving, signalling, but he had run only a few yards when the men opened up and fired a short burst from each weapon, cutting him down face first into the grass as a criss-cross of bullets slammed into his back.
It was the second horror Henry had witnessed in the last few minutes, another brutal, seemingly senseless killing, and Henry was as certain as he could be that Chalmers was as dead as his security guard.
Henry ducked down.
He heard the sound of the plane’s engine growl as the pilot pushed the throttle forwards, sending more power to the pistons. The wheels had touched the grass but now as the wing flaps were turned down, it rose easily and flew over the heads of the gunmen who followed its trajectory with their upturned faces and also their weapons as they opened fire as it skimmed overhead.
Henry heard the bursts of fire above the roaring sound of the engine.
He also heard the metallic slap as at least eight bullets punched into the fuselage.
Henry saw the plane wobble uncertainly, but then lift and continue to rise, banking, rise again and then it was gone.
He ducked flat down on his belly, rubbed his hands in wet soil and scrubbed his face with it, primitive camouflage, and attempted to control his breathing and his fear. He watched through the grass as the three men approached Chalmers’ splayed-out body. One of them flipped his machine pistol on its strap over his shoulder and took a handgun from his waistband. He stood over Chalmers and put two further bullets into the back of the man’s skull.
Literally overkill, Henry thought: professional overkill.
Terror swept through him like a tidal bore when all three men turned as one towards the spot where he had disappeared into the trees. In a line they walked towards him. One of them extracted a paper folder from his waistband.
SEVEN
That morning’s flight from a private airfield to the north-west of London had been uneventful. The German-built Ramos GX, a high-wing single-engine light aircraft, had been piloted by Lady Chalmers, the wife of Lord Chalmers, flying having been one of her passions since her teens. She loved the sensation, the sense of freedom it gave her, but although she was a skilled and highly competent amateur pilot, as she aged she became a fair-weather flyer and fortunately the conditions that day were excellent.
She had owned a variety of planes throughout her life, all financed by her husband’s business dealings, of which she knew little and, mostly, wanted to know less. The Ramos GX was the latest in a long line of light aircraft and although not new – some nine years old – it was her favourite and was always kept in superb condition.
However, she approached that morning’s flight with some trepidation.
Usually she was keen to get up to the house, away from London. It was a lovely, secluded, chill-out place.
The package made that all different.
She had been told to wait for it before flying. Her husband had given her those instructions and she had wanted to say no, but there was little choice. She had become aware that Chalmers had become involved in some very ugly financial and property shenanigans involving unsavoury characters, including so-called ‘clean’ politicians (who weren’t so clean), businessmen and gangsters. She had learned by accidentally overhearing a conversation that the ‘package’, whatever it contained, would be the ‘deal-maker’.
Her wait at the airfield had been nervous and edgy with the Ramos ready, waiting and raring to go.
Finally a man in an old silver-grey Aston Martin DB9 pulled onto the car park, climbed out and approached Ella. He had an attaché case in his hand.
He was in his fifties, smartly dressed, but was overweight and sleazy in Ella’s estimation. She had seen him skulking about in her husband’s company a couple of times. Once he had even been round to their house in Eaton Square and she had not liked what she saw. He made her tremble with repulsion.
‘Lady Chalmers,’ he said. ‘Good morning, very nice to see you.’
‘OK,’ she said dubiously.
He held up the case. ‘Your husband asked me to give you this.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, seeing his eyes flit over her slim body with lust in them. She was in her mid-fifties, quite a bit younger than her husband, and good dieting and exercise had kept her fit and healthy and she was still proud of her boobs, which so far had no need for any supportive surgery. Normally she enjoyed an appreciative glance from a man, but not this slimy individual. For a horrible instant, she had a creepy image in her mind of the man’s tongue licking her between her legs.
He handed over the case, allowing his fingertips to touch the back of her wrist as she grabbed the handle. She almost dropped it as she mentally recoiled.
‘Tell him it’s all there,’ he said, his eyes lingering on her breasts, then rising to look meaningfully into hers.
‘What’s all there?’
‘Don’t you know?’
She shook her head, wishing she hadn’t asked the question because he took a conspiratorial step towards her, invading her space, and whispered, ‘You might want to share it with hubby … wank each other off as you do.’ Then he stepped back, laughing dirtily. ‘On the other hand … well … you know what you could be doing with the other hand.’
‘You revolt me,’ she said simply. She spun and walked towards the waiting plane, totally aware that the man’s eyes were watching her behind and slender legs which were clad in tight-fitting three-quarter-length leggings.
Five minutes later, after redoing the pre-flight checks, she was in the air, flying north-west from the airfield, tilting the thirty and a half feet wingspan and steadily reaching a cruise speed of 120 mph, which would bring her to the private airstrip at Brown Syke about two hours later.
She settled in for the flight, picked up the radio, called ahead and spoke to one of the security guards who worked for Lord Chalmers, telling him she should be on time.
It did, however, take a few more minutes to get her bottom comfortable in the seat and purge the gruesome thought of that man’s tongue.
The man – his name was Brooks – watched the plane rise from the airstrip, but he wasn’t trying to clear his mind of the fantasy he was visualizing with Lady Chalmers. As the plane became a speck, he turned back to his car and walked uncomfortably to it, grasping his erection via his trouser pocket.
The airstrip was just a few miles from the M40, reached by a series of narrow and winding country lanes on which Brook met two black Range Rovers coming in the opposite direction, hogging the lane, making no attempt to move over.
Irritably, Brooks slowed down his Aston Martin and pulled into the side of the road, flashing his headlights at the approaching cars which stopped, one behind the other, completely blocking passage and offering no chance of squeezing past at all.
For a few moments the three cars were involved in a stand-off.
Brooks opened his driver’s door window and poked his head out.
‘Get out of the fucking way,’ he bawled.
There was no movement or concession.
‘Shit.’
Brooks selected reverse, realizing he wasn’t going to win this one, recalling a passing place maybe a hundred metres back into which he might be able to pull. He began to edge backwards in a car with a limited view at best and certainly not designed to be reversed, other than into a double garage.
He continued to swear.
The Range Rovers moved with him, as though herding him. The front grille of the leading one was almost eyeball to eyeball with the front of the Aston, harrying him like a sheepdog.
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br /> ‘Get fucking lost,’ he shouted, but began to get a bad feeling about the situation.
Finally, after having avoided putting the rear wheels of the meaty sports car into the ditch, he manoeuvred into the widened passing place and scowled at the driver of the lead Range Rover as the guy drew alongside and stopped. The second Range Rover swerved slightly in front of Brooks’ car, blocking it in.
‘Bastard,’ he roared.
The driver’s door window of the lead Range Rover slid down. The man at the wheel was young-ish, close cropped hair, wearing a baseball cap.
‘Have you delivered the package?’ the man asked Brooks.
‘Eh? What the hell are you talking about? What package? Can you just get out of the way, please?’ Brooks’ voice faltered, his instinct about the Range Rovers right on the nail. ‘Got the wrong guy,’ he blustered.
He looked at the other Range Rover, which was angled across the front of his car, boxing him in.
He swore internally now and panic began to creep with a horrible taste into his mouth.
The driver of the first Range Rover opened his door and slid down to the road, just a few feet away from Brooks. Then he took one stride and there he was at the window, suddenly with a gun in his hand pointed at Brooks’ head.
‘Christ, what’s going on?’ Brooks demanded, his voice faltering.
The man leaned in. ‘The package … where is it? Please do not mess me around or I’ll kill you here, now.’ His voice was cold, calm, hardly above a whisper. Menacing. ‘Your blood will never clean off your car,’ he added.
If anything, Brooks was a realist. He pointed to the sky. ‘It’s up there, on its way to Lancashire.’ He saw the man’s expression flicker as he took in this information. ‘May get there in two hours. You seem to have missed it, sorry.’
Brooks could see the man knew exactly what he was talking about.
‘That’s a shame,’ he said.
‘Hey, I’ve told you, now can I get going?’
‘Nah.’ The man shook his head and a moment later, as predicted, the blood and brain matter from Brooks’ head had decorated the inside of the pristine Aston Martin, never to be cleaned away. The man was then on his mobile phone, having a hurried conversation before dashing to the second Range Rover and shouting orders to the occupants. ‘We’ve got two hours to get to Lancashire,’ he said grimly. ‘And we’ve got to beat a plane there.’
Fortunately for the men in the black Range Rovers, Lady Chalmers was in no hurry. In a direct flight she could have made her destination in two hours at top cruising speed, but because the day was gorgeous and because she simply could, she dawdled through the skies and treated herself to some sightseeing along the way, enjoying twenty minutes swooping over and across the Peak District almost in a delightful dream, taking in Bakewell, Buxton and the high moorland at Howden, before adjusting course to skim the southern edge of Manchester and use the motorway system to guide her across to the M6 which she then followed directly north over Preston and Lancaster, before bearing north-east and loping across to line up on the private airfield at Brown Syke.
She was only minutes away from landing when she received the urgent-sounding radio call from her husband, which she could not really make sense of and she needed to land just as urgently because she needed to pee. It was almost painful.
On the final approach with the beautiful house visible at the head of the airstrip, the beautiful fells of Lancashire on either side, she saw the figure of her husband gesticulating madly, clearly signalling for her not to land, and the three figures behind him.
The wheels of the Ramos had just touched grass, and her husband was running towards her, still gesticulating, when suddenly he pitched forwards and Ella made out the guns in the hands of the men.
She slammed on the power and heaved back on the joystick, willing the little plane to respond and lift its nose skywards.
Miraculously, it did.
She flew over the body of Lord Chalmers, saw the raised faces of the three men and also the guns in their hands coming up as the plane rose and banked towards the hills, then jumped as she felt bullet holes being punched into the underside of the plane, then the near miss as one skimmed her left leg, but then the pain as another entered the sole of her shoe into her foot and another smack as yet another one came up through her seat and entered her lower abdomen.
She lurched on the impact, tried to fight the quickly spreading agony in her lower belly, but hissed when she glanced down and saw blood already pooling on her seat. She had been wounded very seriously and knew it. She swooned for a moment, then tried to get a grip of herself, tried to convince herself that it could not be as bad as it seemed.
The plane rocked.
She corrected it, but then all her limbs and joints started to tingle weakly. She forced herself to keep a grip on the control column, concentrate, find somewhere safe to put the plane down.
She blinked repeatedly as her vision swirled sickeningly.
The pain in her belly became a flame.
In the seconds before she passed out, she was aware of the Ramos flipping sideways, flying at ninety degrees to the ground and plunging towards a tight gulley sliced into the moorland, though when the plane crashed she was unconscious and was killed instantly.
The man held up the file, waved it in the air.
‘I know your name,’ he called into the trees. ‘I know where you live.’
Henry heard the words and slated himself for, somewhere along the line, dropping the paperwork he had completed for the quote on Chalmers’ granddaughter’s party, which he assumed would not now be happening. In his rush to outrun the gunmen he hadn’t even realized it had gone. It had been unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Now it was the most important thing in the world.
‘Henry Christie. Tawny Owl,’ the man shouted.
It sounded like a roll call for a transgender scout in a Girl Guide group.
Henry remained still. He watched one of the men – the Judas of a security guard – whisper something then run back across to the radio shack and disappear into it.
‘Henry,’ the other man continued, ‘come out. You’re going nowhere because we hunt down people for a living. That’s what we do. That’s what we’re paid to do. That’s what we’re good at. Save yourself some agony at least because if we have to come in there and find you, it will be much worse. Promise. Henry Christie, Tawny Owl,’ he concluded.
Henry’s nostrils flared. He was not going anywhere in their direction.
The two remaining men stood shoulder to shoulder, their machine pistols at hip height, facing Henry.
He knew what was about to happen.
This was a firing squad. They were going to strafe the trees.
The man who had called to Henry said something to the other guy. They made a show of cocking their weapons, as if they weren’t ready to fire, then on another word out of the corner of the man’s mouth, they sprayed whatever bullets remained in the magazines into the treeline.
By this time Henry had rolled sideways and tucked himself half-underneath an all too slim fallen log, rather like a dog who hides his head and thinks no one can see the rest of his body.
There was a short burst of fire, not a long ‘drrr’, and both guns clicked on empty chambers because they had already fired many rounds into Lord Chalmers and the light aircraft.
Even so, Henry had braced himself for the worst and cringed as bullets flew just inches above him or smacked and splintered his protective log or sent spits of soil or rotting foliage from the ground around him.
Then it was over and he had not been hit.
Henry knew they would have to reload. This would entail a change of magazine. He wasn’t naive enough to think they would fumble about. They would be well-practised and fast and would probably do the swap quicker than a Formula One pit-stop.
However, it gave him a quick window of opportunity which he took advantage of because he knew he had to put serious distance between himsel
f and these cold-blooded killers. It would only be a few seconds, but he could not afford to dally.
He rolled, came up onto his feet and keeping low and trying to make as little noise as possible he ran, zig-zagging between low branches and deciding to go left because he had a vague plan in his head which he hoped would fool them if only for a little while. They would perhaps expect him to simply run away from them, not parallel to the runway back in the direction of the house, because that is where the cars were parked and he knew that his best chance of escape would be to make it back to the Navara and drive away.
He didn’t feel remotely confident in trying to out-manoeuvre them in the woods.
He was almost surprised when he made it in one piece to the edge of the lawn surrounding the gravel turning circle at the front of the house where all the cars and ATVs were still parked and on which the body of the security guard was still laid out, his blood soaking into the chippings.
Keeping low, he looked back down the airstrip to see the men had not made any progress. They were in a tactical huddle, making plans. He then looked at the cars, weighing up distance and time. Could he get into the Navara, fire it up and then get away before the men surrounded him?
Looking at them he saw all three of them slowly walking towards the treeline like a line of beaters on a pheasant shoot. They were going to put him up and shoot him down.
Henry waited until they had all entered the woods and were out of sight, then he dashed across the gravel and jumped into the Navara, fumbling for the keys in his pocket. He started it and looked up. One of the men had reappeared from the trees and seen him and was shouting and beckoning to the others.
Henry revved the engine.
‘Keep your cool,’ he told himself.
He selected reverse and swung the big car backwards in an arc so it faced down the drive, managed to get it into drive and gunned the beast, hoping the front gates would be open. The thought of having to crash out through them was not appealing.
He almost stood on the accelerator but as he came around the last curve in the drive before the gates he saw with horror that, though they were open, they were starting to close.