Jordan’s companion was interested only in the yacht that had begun to drift at the whim of wind and tide. He fought heroically with rudder, ropes and sail, trying to get alongside.
Giving up with the key and opting for brute force, Lightfoot battered the door until it gave way. And that was the trigger.
The bomb attached to the keel detonated.
The blast was nowhere near as dramatic as the one in the Thames Estuary, but the powerboat’s fuel exploded. Parts of Windsong flew apart and the rest caught fire. Water erupted and Norman Lightfoot was tossed into the air along with the fibreglass shrapnel from the devastated boat. The force of the blast snapped the mast of Charles’s unmanned yacht and shredded its orange sail. Fragments of nylon fell from the sky like burst balloons. The boat itself flipped over. Its centreboard and rudder poked up out of the water like sharks’ fins.
Jordan felt the heat on his face and he gripped the side of the boat as it rocked uncontrollably from side to side.
“What the...!” Charles hung on to the mainsheet with his mouth open.
“Over there!” Jordan called out, pointing at Norman Lightfoot’s body. He was floating face down on the water.
Charles guided the yacht through the flotsam. Jordan leaned over the side and grabbed Lightfoot’s arm. The old sea captain’s body was incredibly heavy but Jordan steeled himself and began to heave him onboard with his powerful right arm. Behind Jordan, Charles leaned over the opposite side to counterbalance Norman’s weight and to stop the yacht capsizing.
Jordan landed his catch. Norman Lightfoot flopped into the yacht like a wounded whale and Jordan said, “Let’s get him to land.”
“Is he dead?”
Jordan shrugged.
Lightfoot was a dreadful sight. Much of his skin was burned, his left leg was missing below the knee and watery blood was streaming from the wound. But both of his eyes remained stubbornly open.
Was this shattered man responsible for killing Ben Smith, his family and so many others? Jordan was already sure. He leaned over Norman Lightfoot. “You’re not dead, are you?” he said. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but you’ll survive. If I could, you will as well. And you know what? I’m glad. I want you to pull through. I want you to live with it.”
19 PROOF
The Crouch Harbour Authority and the police were waiting at the jetty. Jordan did not need to explain who he was because a mystery man, sent by Angel, had already spoken to them. He didn’t know how the agent had worked out exactly where he was, but he was very grateful for the backup. While an ambulance raced to the scene and a first-aider tightened a tourniquet round the remains of Lightfoot’s left leg, Jordan simply told the police what had happened and Charles nodded his agreement absent-mindedly.
A few minutes later, the ambulance took the disgraced captain to the nearest hospital with a police escort. Angel’s assistant whisked Jordan away in a Jaguar. Along with the harbour master, Charles was left standing on the jetty, staring glumly at the river and the remains of his precious yacht.
On the way back to London, Jordan sat in silence. He had imagined how this moment would feel. He’d expected to run around and punch the air as if he’d just scored the winning goal. But he didn’t feel like it. He wasn’t ready to celebrate. He wasn’t content. He wanted to believe he’d discovered Red Devil and handed him over to the police. He wanted to believe he’d succeeded where everyone else had failed. But where was the proof that he’d completed his mission?
Norman Lightfoot would not be convicted because he looked guilty; because he ticked all the boxes, as Angel put it. Unit Red’s job was to prove a case against the bad guys. To make this one watertight, Jordan felt he needed more evidence. He wished there was a way to detect Lightfoot’s fingerprints all over the crime. But Jordan wasn’t a forensic scientist and the original crime scene had been obliterated twelve months earlier.
Desperate for proof, Jordan wondered why the man who’d once captained Ocean Courage had walked into his own booby trap on board Windsong. Lightfoot could have been dazed, drunk or depressed. So depressed by what he had done that he wanted to blow himself up. If that was true, perhaps his attempt at suicide was an admission of guilt.
Something else stopped Jordan celebrating. The arrest hadn’t changed anything. The disaster had still happened and it could never be undone. His family was still dead and, as Jordan Stryker, he still had to remain a stranger to Amy Goss.
The next day, as Jordan sat in the bunker, he wondered if the dead of Highgate Cemetery were also curious and eager to hear Angel’s words. He could picture them pressing their decomposing ears against the other side of the wall.
Angel stopped typing and turned towards his young recruit. “You look like you’re in a world of your own.”
“Just thinking,” Jordan replied.
“What about?”
He jerked his thumb at the wall behind Angel. “The graveyard.”
Angel nodded. “It’s because of the dead that I asked you to come down. We’ve got some loose ends to tie up.”
“Oh?”
Angel glanced at his computer screen. “Those remains we pulled out of the river near Hoo Marina. The DNA was degraded, but there was enough to be sure we’ve seen the last of Salam Bool. End of that part of the story.”
Jordan didn’t feel sympathy, only relief. “I’ll let Vinnie Dowd know.”
“I guess we owe him that.”
“Is that all?” asked Jordan.
“No.”
“Is it Norman Lightfoot? He hasn’t died, has he?”
Angel shook his head. “No. He’s under sedation in hospital.”
“What then?”
“I’m not satisfied he’ll be convicted. If he gets a good lawyer... We don’t really have the killer piece of evidence. It’s all circumstantial.”
“Unless he admits he did it,” said Jordan.
Angel nodded. “That’d help, but I’d still like to see solid evidence.”
“I want to go and talk to him.”
“What?” Angel looked troubled.
“I want to hear him confess. You could record it if you fitted me with a hidden microphone or something.”
For an instant, Angel looked surprised. Then he put up his palm. “I’m not convinced. I don’t know how you’ll react when you come face-to-face with him. Revenge is a powerful emotion.”
Jordan realized that Angel’s decision was final. It was a waste of time arguing. He stared at the floor for a few seconds and then looked up. “I know.”
“What?”
“How to get evidence,” Jordan said excitedly. “If you get bits of bomb from the Crouch explosion and compare them with those fragments left over after the estuary blast...” He looked at Angel and said, “Why are you smiling like that?”
“Because you’re on the ball. I’ve already got forensics working on it.”
“There’s another thing. I bet he was going to set it off with some sort of remote. If they find that, it might match what he used on the Richard Montgomery.”
“Good point.” Angel typed something into his laptop and then stood up. “Look, you deserve that break you keep missing. I’ll probably get the results on Tuesday. Till then, you’re on leave.”
Over the weekend, Winter returned empty-handed from Norway and Jordan phoned Vinnie Dowd to tell him what had happened to Salam Bool. But Jordan believed someone else deserved to know. After all, Amy Goss had given him the lead he needed to discover the truth. He set out to meet her after school on Monday, but he didn’t announce his intentions to Angel, Winter or anyone else in Unit Red.
He lurked for a while outside Amy’s school but felt too exposed there. Worried that one of Melissa Pink’s thugs might walk or drive past and notice him, he moved on. He went down Main Road, crossed over, and took the quiet lane that Amy used to walk home. Less conspicuous, but unaware that he’d already been spotted, he sat on a wall and waited.
He couldn’t go to Amy’s house and linge
r there because Jordan Stryker would not know where she lived. She’d be very suspicious if she thought he’d somehow managed to find her address. Then there was Mr. Goss. If Amy’s dad saw him outside their house, he might send out some heavies – if he still had any.
Yet, after twenty minutes, there was no sign of her.
Jordan decided to take a gamble. Reckoning that there was one place she might have gone, he set out for the farm in Lower Stoke. He was so intent on finding her that he forgot to make sure no one was watching and following him.
As he squeezed between the grain silos, a voice said, “Hey? Mr. Bool’s creepy but heroic next-door neighbour.”
Jordan was delighted to find her, even if she’d reminded him straight away of the lie he’d told her last time they’d met. He looked at her and said, “Sort of.”
Actually, more than one lie had come between them. He’d put his injuries down to a car crash and he’d given her a false name. Outside of Unit Red, though, the only person to figure out who he really was had disappeared. Jordan believed he was working for the good guys, but he wondered if Unit Red had blown away the firefighter who had saved his life. He didn’t want Amy to suffer the same fate so he had to keep her in the dark for her own protection.
“Why are you here? Been thrown out of the sports club again?”
“No. I was looking for you.” He smiled and sat down on the cold ground. “I just thought you’d want to know what I found out about Mr. Bool.”
“And you guessed I’d be here?”
“I missed you outside school and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to try.”
Amy nodded as if she almost believed him – but not quite. “So, what’s with Mr. Bool?”
“He’s dead. Ed Hathaway killed him. Not on purpose. Not really. They had a bit of a scrap and Mr. Bool banged his head. That’s why Ed went away.”
Amy looked puzzled. “Why didn’t anyone say anything?”
“No one knew,” Jordan answered. “Ed and his mates pushed him out in a boat and it sank. His body was trapped underwater. The police have just found it.”
Somewhere nearby, the engines of farm vehicles spluttered into life. Jordan turned down his hearing.
“Well,” Amy said, “I didn’t like him, but...”
Jordan shook his head. “Don’t feel too sorry for him. Do you want to know what he did for a living?”
“Teach?”
“Apart from that. He had a nasty sideline.”
“You’re weird,” Amy said abruptly. “It’s like you know too much. Like you’re a cop or something.”
Jordan shrugged. “I just asked a few questions. Got a few answers. That’s all.” He hoped that the real parts of his cheeks had not turned bright red.
“Okay. What’s his other job, Sherlock? You’re itching to tell me.”
“He beat people up to get money out of them.”
“What?” Amy cried out.
“It’s a long story.” Deciding where to begin, Jordan drummed his fingers on one of the metal struts. He took a deep breath, took one look at Amy and stopped before he started.
Amy was staring at him, her face completely drained of colour.
“What is it?”
She could barely speak. She raised a hand and pointed at him. “I know who you are! Not Jordan at all!”
It was Jordan’s turn to gasp in astonishment. “What do you mean?”
She scrambled to her feet and nodded towards his left hand, still resting on the silo. “There’s only one person who does that.”
“What?”
“Taps a rhythm out like that. No one does it as well as...” She still looked startled, her eyes wide open. And she was breathing rapidly. “You’re...”
They both jolted as a tractor rammed into the gap between the silos. On the opposite side, two more farm machines crashed into the metal containers and blocked off their retreat.
Melissa Pink and her bodyguards clambered over the wreckage, violating the secret meeting place. More heavies stood outside, encircling the area.
They were trapped. Instinctively, Jordan and Amy moved together in the centre of the space.
“What do we have here?” Melissa said with glee all over her freckled face. “Goss’s daughter if I’m not mistaken.” Shorter than both of them, she didn’t risk getting too close. She smiled at Jordan and said, “Confirmation, I think, that you work for Goss. Maybe you’re young Amy’s minder.”
“Wrong,” Amy said. “He doesn’t work for my dad.”
Amy must have known she was facing her dad’s victorious rival because she almost spat.
Melissa was plainly enjoying another moment of triumph over the Goss family, enjoying her power. “So, what’s going on here? Is it a love nest? How sweet. And quite a catch for me. Must be my lucky day.”
Amy growled, “My dad will...”
Melissa interrupted with a loud laugh. “Your dad won’t do anything. Believe me, I own most of his people now. And the rest...” She shrugged, suggesting that they no longer mattered.
Jordan had to hope one of her gang members was still loyal to Mr. Goss. He had to hope that person would slink away and phone Mr. Goss secretly. Jordan needed Amy’s father to come and rescue them because he couldn’t see any other means of escape. Both of Melissa Pink’s bodyguards had trained their guns on him. He might be able to deflect one bullet, but he’d be helpless against two fired at the same time.
But Melissa Pink was even more cold-hearted than he thought.
She turned to her minders and said, “No, no, no! Don’t aim at him. Aim at her.” She jabbed a finger towards Amy.
Clearing her nose with a grotesque sniff, she grinned at Jordan. “Maybe you can protect yourself, but you can’t protect her. Try anything and she gets it. Understand?”
Jordan nodded.
“Someone should’ve told you the problem with friends and family,” Melissa said as she waved some men into the gap between the silos. “Caring about someone makes you vulnerable.”
Coming up behind him, two men grabbed Jordan by the shoulders.
Melissa pointed at one of the strong metal struts. “Use the towrope to tie his right arm to one of them. Then attach it to the tractor.” She gazed into Jordan’s face. “When we put it in reverse, you’ll be disarmed. Literally.” She laughed at her own malicious joke.
Realizing the true horror of his situation, Jordan flinched as the men dragged him to the side, attached his artificial arm to the metal rod, and then looped the rope around a bar across the front of the tractor. If the bolts in his arm were weaker than the bones of his shoulder, the arm would wrench off without damaging him. If the bolts held firm, the tractor could wrench the bone out of his body.
Amy had worked it out as well. There was terror in her eyes.
Melissa did not react. She was simply doing what she did best. “We’ve got unfinished business, you and me. It’s time it was dealt with. But I’ve learned to be careful. You’re dangerous with that arm. Let’s see what you’re like without it. You know, in the good old days, bad guys had their arms and legs tied to horses that were made to gallop off in different directions. Being pulled apart was a spectator sport back then. So’s this, I guess.”
He shut his eyes and braced himself as the engine started to clatter.
The tractor clunked into gear, revved, and then jerked backwards. The rope lifted off the ground.
Jordan recalled Angel’s words in his mind. “You don’t give up.” It was true. So, why had he closed his eyes and accepted what was about to happen?
He looked down at his fake arm as the rope became taut. At once, he saw what he had to do. He couldn’t stop what was about to happen but he could lessen the damage – and the pain. He crooked his arm so that its elbow joint nestled against the strut. That way, the elbow and metal support would take the full force, instead of his shoulder.
The rope tightened and tugged but he kept still, making sure his arm wasn’t dragged out of position. He concentrated
on bending his elbow firmly around the metal rod. The tension increased and he felt the strain on his shoulder, but that’s all it was. A dull ache, not pain. The elbow joint creaked as if it were being crushed in a vice.
His gut told him to expect agony and blood but his brain told him that flesh and bone weren’t coming apart. It was only metal, carbon fibre and wire.
There was a massive crunch and a jolt. By instinct, Jordan cried out as his forearm detached at the elbow.
His hand and lower arm flew in one direction and he collapsed in the other.
Above him, Melissa Pink scratched her nose and said, “Not as spectacular as I’d hoped. But it’s good enough. You can’t do much damage with a stump.” She shouted to her men, “Tie them both up, gag them, and sling them in the back of the van. Leave the arm here in case anyone comes looking for him. A nice little warning about what happens to people who cross me.”
20 TORTURED
The ride in the van was horrible. He lay on the hard metal floor, barely able to breathe because of the tape across his mouth. Each time the van went round a corner, he rocked sideways. When it braked or accelerated sharply, he slid up and down. His sweatshirt hung limply from the smashed elbow, reminding him how helpless he felt without his forearm.
But that discomfort was nothing compared with Amy’s angry face. She made him feel awful. Also gagged, she was trying to communicate with her eyes. They were very expressive. “How can you still be alive?” she was saying. “What was your funeral all about? Why do you look so different? WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?”
Jordan felt tortured by his dishonesty towards her, yet how could he have explained what had happened to him? The truth was too complicated, too hush-hush and probably too dangerous. He’d made a deal with Angel never to contact her, never to reveal who he really was. He didn’t want her to vanish off the face of the planet like Deborah Metland.
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