by Chris Ryan
'And you tried to stop him?'
'Of course, I bloody did. Cooksley's already dead, and someone is after us. You said we have to stick together.'
Matt sighed. He knew Damien well enough to know that he wasn't going to put up with Reid telling him what to do. Damien had always been a man who walked along his own path. He knew nothing about teams, or how to work with them.
'He lost it, right?'
'Like a rocket with the blue fuse lit,' Reid said. 'Started telling me I couldn't tell him what to do. I argued with him, said we had to stay together, that it was only one week until we collected the money. He seemed to accept that, calmed down for an hour or so. I was just ready to turn in, when out of the upstairs window I see him slipping out of the lodge, and heading for his car. I was about to run after him, but he'd locked the door to the bedroom and tossed away the key. By the time I got out he'd vanished.'
'No indication of where he was going?'
'Nothing,' Reid answered. 'I would have chased after him, but I didn't want to leave Jane and the kids by themselves.' He paused. 'I don't like it, Matt. I know he's a friend of yours, but that's no way for a man to behave. This is the guy who's meant to be fencing our money for us, and now it turns out we can't trust the bastard.'
'There's probably nothing to it,' said Matt.
'Fuck it, Matt – I don't like it one bit,' Reid snapped. 'I want to know where he is. And I want him back here where I can keep an eye on him. He could be buggering off to take all our money. Or he could be coming back in a black mask to kill us all.'
Matt glanced at the clock on the wall. It was ten past ten, and it had already been a long and tiring day. 'I've got his mobile numbers,' said Matt. 'I'll try to track him down. In the meantime there's nothing we can do. Try to get some sleep and we'll talk in the morning.'
'He better be bloody sorry,' said Reid, his tone starting to calm down. 'How are you, anyway?'
Matt glanced across at the body stretched out in the hallway. 'I've had better days,' he replied slowly. 'I'll be pleased when we've collected our money and put this whole thing behind us.'
Sallum looked down at the man at the door and handed across a ten pound note. The man was maybe twenty-five years old, with cropped dark hair, a black T-shirt and a single metal stud hanging from his left ear. He smiled upwards as he folded the money into the till. 'You're new here, aren't you?'
Sallum nodded.
'Down the stairs,' said the man. 'The showers and changing rooms are on the right. You'll find gowns and towels down there. Just grab one.' He looked closer at Sallum's face, as if he were examining him for something. 'Have fun.'
The Penthouse Sauna was on Tariff Street on the outskirts of Manchester. Sallum had followed the target from the moment he'd left the lodge, and was still waiting for the right moment to strike. He hadn't wanted to take him out on the road – car chases are fine for Hollywood films, but a professional assassin knows they are too dangerous and too unpredictable. Only an idiot would attack a man in a car.
He'd followed at a discreet distance from the Peugeot. It was dark, and that always made it harder for a driver to spot when he was being followed. Sallum had waited for ten minutes after Damien had pulled into the roadside and disappeared into the building. From the posters on its façade, he could tell that it was a gay club: there were pictures of men embracing, and of men dressed in leather and tight jeans.
There is no level of depravity that the infidel will not sink to.
Sallum walked down the stairs. It was dark and humid within the club. The temperature was turned up to eighty degrees, and soft, purple-tinted halogen lights kept the rooms in semi-darkness. He turned right into the changing room, nodded to the man just emerging from the showers, and started to strip off. He tucked his clothes into the locker, and stepped into the shower, turning the water on to hot.
I need something to cleanse my body already.
Wrapping the red gown around his body, he slipped a four-inch double-bladed surgical knife from his clothes locker into the pocket, and started to walk through the building. The first room was a bar serving beer and soft drinks, in which a huge plasma screen was showing gay porn films. There could have been ten or a dozen men in there, it was hard for Sallum to tell in the near darkness.
He walked on. There was a steam sauna and a fifteen-foot Jacuzzi, but both were empty. He saw a pair of men disappearing upstairs, and followed them. There was a series of doors on the landing, and from inside the rooms Sallum could hear the sounds of men having sex. Towards the back of the landing there was a fire door. He snapped open the metal lock, shoved the door aside, and a blast of cold night air hit him in the face. He looked outside. A small, dark alleyway – illuminated only by the distant neon sign of a Kentucky Fried Chicken bar – led out on to the main street.
My escape route.
Downstairs, Sallum counted nine men in the bar. He asked for a Diet Coke, and took a seat on one of the couches fining the wall. He could see the victim just across the room, sitting back, a beer in his hand, watching the television. Sallum waited until the man caught his eye, then smiled in his direction. The man smiled back, then nodded. He stood up, walking towards the staircase, glancing backwards. Sallum stood up, following in his footsteps, watching as he started to climb the stairs.
Inside the pocket of his gown, he ran his finger along the edge of the blade.
The sound of a man dying is not so different to the sound of a man having sex. No one will suspect a thing.
It was dark in the corridor. 'Wait,' said Damien, his hand reaching out and ruffling through Sallum's hair. 'I just need to wash.'
Sallum paused. Two men brushed past him, then another man, by himself this time. 'Here,' said a voice from the third bedroom. Sallum walked in to the darkness. The man reached out a hand and pulled him inwards. He could feel his gown being unwrapped and a pair of hands running through the hairs on his chest. He took the blade from the pocket, holding it squarely in his right hand, and jabbed it forwards – stabbing it straight into the heart, and pulling the blade roughly upwards to make sure the main arteries in the heart were severed. The victim gasped twice, then fell forwards into Sallum's arms.
Sallum held his left hand tight over the man's mouth, stifling the scream that was about to erupt from his lips. With his right hand he twisted the blade, and he could feel the life ebbing away. He paused, counting to twenty, making sure his victim was dead, then laid him out on the bed. Using the knife he cut into the bone and flesh, sawing away at the man's right wrist until the hand was free from the body. He removed the locker key from the stump, and walked out into the corridor. In the next room, he could hear the sounds of three men having sex together, and was grateful for the covering noise.
Sallum walked to the back of the corridor, opened the fire door, and dropped the severed hand into the alleyway. Turning back into the sauna, Sallum walked back down to the changing rooms, which were mercifully still empty. There was still some blood on his hands, but it washed away easily. One of the best things about blood, Sallum reflected. It never stains. He used the key he had just ripped from the man's wrist to open the locker, and, reaching inside, he took the wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket. Then, opening his own locker, he retrieved his clothes and dressed.
He combed his hair, checked himself in the mirror, then walked back up to the entrance. The man at the desk nodded towards him, asked him if he'd had a good time, but Sallum just smiled and walked on without replying.
He walked a few yards, and turned the corner into the alleyway. The hand was where he had left it. He picked it up, held it underneath his coat, and headed back towards the car. He swung open the car door, deposited the hand on the passenger seat, and fired up the engine.
Another perfect kill. The honour of the Prophet is satisfied.
Matt dialled the number impatiently. He held the phone to his ear, listening to the ringing tone. Nothing. Damien wasn't answering.
He jabbed the off bu
tton, then pressed redial. The mobile took a few seconds to locate the number, then started to ring again. Matt waited, counting ten rings. 'Welcome to the T-Mobile answering service,' started up the mechanised voice on the line. 'The person you are calling is not available.'
'Damn him,' muttered Matt, putting the phone down.
'Where's he gone?' Ivan handed down a cup of coffee.
'I haven't a clue,' Matt snapped angrily.
'I don't like it,' said Ivan thoughtfully. 'Your team is coming apart at the seams.'
Matt looked up at the window, and stared into the darkness.
Damien, where the hell are you?
It was now four in the morning, and Sallum wanted his work to be completed by sunrise. Assassins are like owls, he reflected to himself. We are night creatures.
He looked down at the hand, nodding his head and whispering as if in prayer. 'In the book of Sunan Abu Dawud, it is written: a thief was brought to the Apostle of Allah – may peace be upon him – and his hand was cut off. Thereafter he commanded for it, and it was hung on his neck.'
Sallum smiled to himself, drawing quiet, professional satisfaction from the way the execution had gone. An assassin, he reflected, should always act within the commandments laid down by the Prophet. A hand has many uses. Even a dead one.
From his coat, he pulled out the wallet he had taken from the locker. Two credit cards, one bank card, and three different types of reward card. All in the name of Damien Walters.
It's close to dawn. I must act quickly.
He turned the ignition on the car and pulled out of the lay-by on to the open road, turning the heat up high to fight back the cold. He hated winters, and at moments like this longed to be back in Saudi. As a boy he had grown up in a small village in the Ar Rub' al Khali Desert, the vast, desolate space that dominates the centre of the country and stretches down to the coast of Oman. Translated, 'Khali' means the empty quarter – and that was the way he remembered it: he could travel for days with his father and not encounter a single living soul or even a blade of grass. It was completely pure.
Just as soon as my work is done I will be back there.
The lodge from which he had seen the target emerge this morning was five miles away. He drove slowly, careful not to draw any attention from the few cars on the road. As he saw the rough, low-built building on the horizon, he pulled in to the side of the road.
From the glove compartment he took a pad of paper and a pen, ripping free one page, 'THIS IS THE SECOND SEVERED LIMB, THREE MORE TO GO,' he marked out in neat, block letters, 'GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK, OR I WILL KILL ALL YOUR FAMILIES AS WELL.'
Sallum wrapped the paper into a neat square, then got out of the car, taking the severed hand with him. He prised open the fingers – for a man who had only been dead for an hour, the joints were surprisingly stiff. Sallum pulled hard, forcing the hand open. He placed the note inside it, plus one of the credit cards he had taken out of the wallet, then snapped the fingers shut, making sure they were holding on tight.
Stepping towards a stone wall, he selected a small rock, just bigger than his fist. Taking some gardening twine from the boot of the Lexus, he held the hand against the rock and wrapped the twine around them both until they were secured together.
He started walking towards the lodge. The ground was soft under his feet. Rain had fallen during the night, turning parts of the field into mud. Sallum walked slowly, making sure he kept to the contours of the ground, checking that nobody could see him. Looking up, he saw the lights were still out in the lodge. Everybody was asleep.
He judged the weight of the rock in his hand. Accurately, he could probably throw it fifty feet and be certain of hitting his target. He walked closer, edging forward until he judged he was about forty feet from the house. Standing upright, he swung the rock behind his head, putting the full force of his shoulder muscles into the shot. The rock spun away from his hand, and a second later he could hear glass splintering. The target had been hit.
Sallum turned and started running, his feet bouncing over the ground. By the time they heard the crash and looked out of the window, he guessed he should have made it to the car. The most they would see was a Lexus pulling away and disappearing down the road.
Now they will know what it is like to incur the wrath of the Prophet.
Matt had seen Reid in some tense situations. There was a time in Bosnia when they had been pinned down in a farmhouse, with a sniper hiding in the trees right next to the building: they'd had to survive without food for three days until the man showed himself and they could kill him. But Matt had never seen Reid as shaken as he saw him now: his voice was fractured, and there was fear in his eyes.
'Do you want to see it?' he said.
Matt nodded. No man wants to see the dead flesh of a close friend, but he knew he had no choice. 'I'd better.'
The assassin is getting to us. That's part of his plan.
Matt and Ivan had driven straight up to Derbyshire after getting the call from Reid early that morning. A hand tied to a rock had been slung through the window, he said. It had Damien's credit card attached to it, and a note telling them to give the money back. You didn't have to spend long figuring out where it might have come from. Or what had happened to Damien.
Does that mean it's not Ivan? Matt wondered to himself. I was with Ivan when Damien was killed. Maybe Reid killed both Cooksley and Damien . . .
'It's outside,' said Reid. 'I didn't want Jane or the kids to see it.'
The lodge was a simple wooden structure. It had two bedrooms, a wood-burning stove that doubled up as a cooker, and a shower room. The two children, Jack and Emily, had already filled the main room with toys and drawings: Jack was busy doing a picture of his little sister while Jane busied herself packing. She nodded at Matt, smiling but remaining silent. She knows something is up, Matt thought. She can see it in our eyes.
A woman always knows when her husband is not telling the truth.
'Over here,' said Reid, stepping out of the lodge and crossing into the field.
It was a desolate spot, high on the side of a hill, with a vicious wind whipping in from the east. A flock of sheep was grazing in the next field, and the road was just visible at the bottom of the valley, but otherwise the lodge was completely isolated. Whoever had put the hand through the window would not have been seen, reflected Matt. They could be certain of that.
He's a professional. He's not about to help us out by making a stupid mistake.
Reid stepped over a granite wall, and pointed to a pair of large stones. The hand was resting on top. The skin had started to change colour, turning to a grey-blue. Blood had stopped dripping from where it had been severed from the arm, and the fingers had been forced open when Reid took out the note.
He was my best friend, Matt thought. And it's my fault this has happened to him.
'It looks a few hours old,' said Ivan, kneeling down and examining the hand. 'I reckon he killed him first, then cut the hand off.'
Matt's mind was still full of memories of Damien: images of them running the same streets together, bunking off school, kicking footballs across the park.
Ivan stood up, unfolding the note Reid had passed to him. He looked at Matt and Reid, his eyes narrowing. 'There were five of us, and now there are three.'