by Glenn Cooper
“No problem, guv,” Murphy said.
“You’re wrong about that,” Mellors said. “You lads have a big fucking problem.”
“Now hang on, Jack,” Rix said.
“Don’t fucking Jack me,” Mellors said. “I’m your fucking DCS. My friends call me Jack. You don’t.”
“I was going to say that this problem is best described as our problem,” Rix said.
“Oh, no, my son,” Mellors said. “Don’t you try that one on. I’m your fucking superior. When we’re on the straight and narrow, I’m your superior.” He lowered his voice and looked around. “When we’re engaged in certain nefarious activities, I’m also your superior. You’re bent cops. I’m your bent chief super. Got it?”
“The package was light, guv,” Murphy said. “I hope you don’t think we were skimming.”
Mellors gulped at his beer. “It’s hardly called skimming when you’ve come up almost two kilos short,” he said. “That’s not a skim, that’s a fat load.”
“Look, fault us for not weighing the case or whatever,” Rix said, “but they insisted on doing the exchange at King’s Cross, out in the open. They’ve never shorted us before.”
“Well, you’re well short now, aren’t you? You’re short twenty-five thousand pounds fucking sterling. And you’re going to make good on it or I will unleash our little snarling friend on you. Actually, I’ll unleash Nicky onto you and onto your ladies. Nicky, once unleashed, will look for pounds and pounds of flesh, know what I mean?”
“Leave our wives out of this,” Rix said, seething.
Mellors leaned back in his chair. “Relax, lads. I know you don’t have that kind of ready dosh. I’ve got a way for you to make it quick and easy and get yourself square with me and Nicky.”
“How?” Murphy asked.
“There’s a nice simple job in Knightsbridge. Rich banker fuck. You’ll take something from him. He’ll gladly pay you fifty grand for its return. Nicky gets his twenty-five, I get ten since I’m your superior and all, and you get five each. Everyone wins.”
“What is it we take?” Rix said.
“His little girl.”
“I won’t do a kidnapping,” Rix said.
“Oh you’ll do it, sunshine. Just picture your wives missing all those pounds of flesh. Shit, get them to help. Ladies are just the ticket when you’re snatching a kid.”
“There’s five grand not accounted for,” Murphy suddenly said.
“Eh?”
“The split on the fifty grand. There’s an extra five.”
“Oh yeah, excellent maths skills,” Mellors said. “You’re going to have to take one of Nicky’s boys with you. He’ll be getting five as well. You know Lucas, don’t you?”
“Yeah, we know Lucas Hathaway,” Rix said.
Mellors asked for a glass of water.
Murphy got one from the kitchen and held it to his bloody lip while he drank.
“Did you know that little Jessica Stevenson had asthma?” Rix asked. “Bad asthma.”
“Of course not,” Mellors said.
“We as good as killed her as if we’d put a knife through her heart,” Rix said.
“Things happen,” Mellors said. “You’ve got to think fast, not panic. You still could have gotten the ransom. It all would’ve been square. But what did you too do? You folded like a cheap suitcase.”
“We couldn’t live with what we did,” Murphy said.
Rix stood and began pacing. “We were going to turn ourselves in, do the time, whatever it took to try to make things right. We were going to do that but Lucas must have called you and you must have told him to do us. Admit it, Jack. You had us taken out.”
“Did you think I was going to go down for your fuck-ups? You must be joking. Yeah, I had Hathaway do you and then I made sure armed police were onto him straight away. I whistled past the graveyard that night and here I am. Eighty-five years old, healthy as a horse, still shagging every so often and with a happy bank manager as one of my drinking mates. And where have you two fuck-ups been all these years?”
“Us?” Rix said. “We’ve been in the place where you’re going.”
Ben hadn’t left Dartford in days. He felt as much of a prisoner as the Hellers in their locked cells. He had spent so much time interviewing Molly and Christine that he joked he almost knew them better than his own unhappy wife.
He had long since appropriated John Camp’s office as his own and he was there, reviewing interview tapes, trying to find a clue to the possible whereabouts of Murphy and Rix. He cued the video file where he had the women talking about the night of the kidnapping of Jessica Stevenson. His gut instinct told him that untangling this tale of woe would lead him to the men. There wasn’t much time. The MAAC restart was coming.
One of Ben’s agents called the office phone.
“Yes, I’m at a terminal,” Ben said.
“Quick, punch up the South Ockendon live feeds,” the agent said.
As he did so he said, “There hasn’t been any activity there for almost a month.”
“Camera six. Hurry.”
He clicked on the correct icon and Murphy and Rix came into view looking directly into the camera from the same house on the estate where they’d first appeared.
“Did you reach Ben Wellington?” Murphy said into the camera.
“I’m here,” Ben said.
“Did you miss us?” Murphy asked.
“Desperately. Why are you there?”
“Because we want you to take us to our girls,” Rix said.
“Stay put. I’ll have someone there shortly.”
“That’s all right,” Rix said. “No hurry. We’ve got a last bit of business to do.”
He disappeared from view and came back, dragging a chair. A large, white-haired old man was tied to it.
“Jason, who is that?” Ben said, his voice rising.
“This is the bastard that’s responsible for us and our girls going to Hell, Ben. Not that we’re not responsible, but DCS Jack Mellors is Hellbound too. We wanted to make sure that when he arrives we’d be able to find him. When you send us back we’re going to return to our little shithole of a village in Ockendon. And when we get there we’re going to find Jack Mellors and we’re going to put him in the worst rotting room in Hell.”
Murphy held a knife to Mellor’s throat.
“Don’t do it!” Ben shouted.
Murphy ignored him.
38
The Iberian ship heaved and rolled on the giant swells. John and the Earthers could have had several small cabins to themselves but they wanted to stay together, so the captain gave them his own generous cabin to occupy as a group. The captain, Jose Manuel Ignacius, knew these waters so well he could have navigated without sight. On Earth he had been at the helm of one of the Duke of Medina Sidonia’s invasion vessels in 1588 when Phillip II went up against Elizabeth I and tried to turn England Catholic again. The Spanish Armada was defeated then but Ignacius survived to die years later in a tavern brawl. In Hell, he had been pressed into service on the high seas over and over, most recently when he experienced defeat at the hands of Henry’s fleet. John neglected to tell him that his singing cannon were instrumental in the Iberian’s demise that day. That would have been like him telling a New York City taxi driver that he might have killed his cousin in Afghanistan.
The ship, El Tiburón, accompanied by a dozen Iberian warships, plowed into the storm-churned waves. In the captain’s stern cabin, the exhausted party of ten wanted to sleep but most of them couldn’t because of galloping nausea.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Delia asked Martin.
Martin could hardly answer through his own retching. “No. Nothing. Just. Endure.”
Only the children and John were able to sleep.
Arabel and Trevor sat beside them on the captain’s bed, a bucket at the ready for themselves.
“Thank God they’re out like lights,” Arabel said.
“Angels,” Tracy said, stifling
a gag from the captain’s armchair.
Emily was next to John on the cabin floor, propped against a starboard wall, his head on her shoulder. “Let’s hope they stay asleep for most of the crossing,” she said. “Like this one. I don’t know how he can sleep through this.”
The 40mm grenades pounded the farmhouse.
Explosion after explosion tore apart the mud-brick walls. John had to flip up his night-vision goggles to endure the flashes. He moved to his left to check on Tannenbaum but he knew what he’d find. T-baum’s head was half gone. He swore a few times and refocused. There’d be time for a more human reaction later.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” he radioed.
The desert became quiet again.
John lowered his goggles and radioed, “We’re going in, both squads. Stay sharp.”
He gave a hand signal to his men and they began slowly moving forward, closing on the wrecked farmhouse. Pockets of flames glowed green through his optics.
His headset crackled with the voice of a Black Hawk pilot. “Major Camp, this is your ride home. We’re about three clicks out. We saw your fireworks. Awaiting instructions.”
“Hit the LZ in five mikes. We’ve just got to clean up our mess. One KIA. Repeat one KIA.”
“Roger that. Five mikes.”
They reached the collapsed perimeter wall. Bodies of two Taliban snipers lay among the rubble.
“Mike, you ready to make entry?” John radioed.
“I’m at what’s left of the back door.”
“All right,” John said. “Counting from three, two, one, go.”
The Green Berets flooded in.
There was rubble and debris everywhere in large heaps and small piles. John saw some legs sticking out and an arm with part of a disembodied shoulder against an intact portion of wall.
Then a man’s voice coming from the corner. In good English he called out, “Help me, please! Hostage. Hostage. American interpreter. Don’t shoot!”
Mike Entwistle was closest.
“Careful,” John said, moving in.
“Haji with plastic ties on his hands,” Mike said.
“Please help me. Guys, I am interpreter for American soldiers. Taliban took me. I am injured. I can’t feel my legs.”
John stepped over a mangled body and a mound of collapsed ceiling.
He was ten feet away.
Mike had a switchblade in his hand about to cut off the man’s plastic cuffs.
John yelled, “Mike, don’t!”
Giles looked at the clock in the guest bedroom.
It was 4 a.m.
He’d been up straight through the night finishing and polishing his magnum opus, his get out of jail free article, as he’d taken to calling it. For how else was he going to be able to protect himself from whoever had killed Benny and Derek Hannaford? Putting his article out there was going to insulate him from harm. He poured everything he knew and everything he suspected into it. There’d be no reason to eliminate him without making the story even bigger. Certainly he wished he’d had more than a deductive case. He wished he’d had more data, more interviews but the time had come to go public. The article was titled: The Mystery of the Massive Anglo-American Collider: Have We Opened a Nasty Door to Another Dimension? He had re-installed the software onto Ian’s computer to allow it to connect with WiFi and now his finger was literally hovering over the keyboard. The list of addressees included almost every broadsheet and tabloid newspaper, including The Guardian which was still grinding away on the bizarre murder of their science editor.
He hit send.
It had been the first night Ben had slept at home in a week and he had come to regret it. He’d be spending the next night in Dartford in preparation for the MAAC restart the following morning and depending on what transpired he might not be home again for a while. His wife had been in no mood to play nice and had pointedly decided to retire for the night, slamming the bedroom door while he was fielding a call from MAAC. It seemed the Heller Alfred had punched a guard and had to be Tasered.
After reading a bedtime story to his girls he crept to his bedroom where his wife was either asleep or pretending to be—it didn’t matter which. Soon he had fallen asleep with his arms folded in anger.
His mobile phone went off on full volume and his wife reacted furiously. He slithered out his side and answered.
Trotter was on the line. It was 4:30 in the morning.
“What’s going on?” Ben asked moving to the hall.
“A negative development. Very negative. I’ve sent you an email with the file. It seems a science blogger named Giles Farmer has connected a series of dots and come to a more-or-less correct conclusion on what’s been happening.”
Ben was outside the girls’ room. He peeked in while Trotter was talking. By the glow of a night-light they looked achingly beautiful.
“I see. Can we contain it?” Ben asked.
“No we can’t. It’s gone out to every newspaper in the country.”
“Jesus, that is bad.”
“Yes, quite. Look, I’m on my way into the office. You ought to head to Dartford, control the situation there. There’s likely to be a press melee before long. I’ve got a long list of people to get to, high and low, but I wanted you to be among the first. Look, Wellington, I know it’s not a popular view, but I think this article should cause us to cancel the restart. We should mothball the collider now. Any further problems and we won’t be able to contain the story.”
“Above my pay grade, Tony.”
“Understood. Just looking for all the support I can get.”
John woke in the dark. He felt for Emily but she wasn’t next to him. By the light of a single candle in a hurricane glass he saw the sleeping figures of all of his people camped out around the cabin. Emily was beside Arabel. Trevor had given his spot to her and taken the floor, next to Martin and Tony.
He had no idea how long he’d been out but judging by the pressure on his bladder it had been a long time.
Outside the cabin was the captain’s privy and he spent a while standing there, the ship gently rolling beneath him.
He came back to the cabin.
“Hi.”
Emily stirred and came to him.
“It’s calm,” John said.
“Thank God. The storm broke a few hours ago. We can all finally sleep.”
“Sorry to wake you.”
“Don’t be. How are you so immune to sea sickness?”
He kissed her. “Just am. How long was I out?”
“Almost a full day.”
“Christ! About what time is it?”
“I’d be guessing. One? Two?”
“This is it then.”
“This is it.”
“Where are we?”
“I saw land off to that side before it got dark.”
“Portside is England. I’m going to find the captain.”
“Okay.”
“If it’s two we’ve got eight hours to get to Dartford.”
“I know,” she said.
Captain Ignacius was high on the stern, looking down on the helmsman on the deck below.
He waved John up and greeted him in English. “Did you have a good rest, my friend?” He was a handsome, middle-aged man with long hair tied with a ribbon.
“Too good. I’ve lost my bearings,” John said.
“We are almost at the estuary. Southend will be somewhere off the starboard bow.”
“What time is it?”
“It is time the wind increased, my friend,” Ignacius said, pointing at the slack sails. “We’re dead calm. First too much wind, now not enough. I am aware of your appointment. I no longer pray but perhaps you should.”
Heath bragged he could see as well in the dark as the light, and though it was one of his typical exaggerations, there was some truth to it. His night vision was hyper-acute, a trait that served a rover well.
He remembered his youth and how, as a shepherd, he was the one designated to find a lost lamb
in the blackness of a moonless night. He remembered when he was a young man, a runaway from the farm to seventeenth-century London, how he was the member of the gang who had the easiest time tracking a mark along the dark and foggy banks of the Thames and sneaking up for a bashing. And now in Hell, his nocturnal prowess had served him very well indeed for two and a half centuries. He reckoned he was the strongest, smartest rover he’d ever encountered and he traded on his reputation by expanding his territory.
Heath had grown tired of limiting his raids to the small hamlets and villages that lacked enough men to band together and fight back. He had dreams of amassing a huge band of rovers, hundreds of scum to terrorize entire towns like Crawley and Guildford. But why stop there? Why not dream even bigger and take on the crown itself? Why not take London one day? After all, he had plenty of time. All he had to do was keep from getting crashed on a raid or by one of his own.
Tonight, running through the forest, his lungs full of damp night air, he was feeling good. A week before he’d raided the camp of a large rival band of rovers, scum who’d been competing with his lot for a long time. First he personally crashed the band’s chief taking his head right off his shoulders, “right easy,” as he put it, and then he held it high during his little speech to the other members of the rival gang.
“You lot fall in with me and you won’t get crashed. You know who I am. I’m Heath, the one who can see in the dark. I’ve got big plans. Are you in, or are you out like Cock Robin here?”
He stopped at the edge of the woods and whistled like a bird, halting the eighty rovers behind him.
Eighty!
Most scum he’d ever led by far.
Biggest band of rovers he’d ever heard of.
Across the meadow was the village of Leatherhead. It wasn’t a very large village but it was big enough to have a nighttime guard, some with muskets the story went. There was talk of good grub and barrels of beer. There was even talk of some molls who still had their looks. Leatherhead was big enough that he’d given it a miss until now.