“Won’t they he just follow us?” Melissa asked, standing upright now, hands fixed on her hips.
“Probably. We don’t have a Plan B, though.”
“I thought they were negotiating,” Terry said. “Instead, they were just buying time.”
“Give me the phone,” I said. Terry frowned, but dug his hand into his pocket, took out the mobile and handed it over. I snapped the cover off, slid out the battery and pulled the SIM card from its slot. I jammed the separate pieces into my own pocket. “Right. Let’s get out of here.”
“I have somewhere you can take me,” Terry said through his pain. A film of sweat lay across his forehead. He looked as weak as I had ever seen him. “A quack I use for… emergencies.”
Nodding, I said, “Okay. Mel, your job during the drive is to fix your gaze on the back and tell me if you spot the same vehicle on more than a couple of occasions. Just focus on three things: colour, shape and some part of the number plate. Just two or three characters.”
“Got it.”
Between us, Melissa and I helped Terry up and into the truck. We gently laid him across the back seat, taking the place Mel had occupied on our drive to the Priory. I couldn’t stand to see my friend in such a bad way. I was now consumed by guilt, and that hurt more than my own aches and pains.
“Where to?” I called out, the Toyota roaring into life.
“Barton Mills,” Terry replied. “Just the other side of Mildenhall. Straight run down the A11.”
“Know it well,” I said. “Taken many a flight out of the airbase.”
“Yeah. I was with you on a couple of occasions.”
I smiled to myself. I had been so raw back then, and Terry had taken me under his wing, despite being only a few years older. Even then I knew the man who would become my closest friend was a lifer. Only death or serious injury was going to prevent Terry Cochran from spending his entire career in the forces. As it transpired, I was wrong. The British Armed Forces decided that he could no longer be put into certain conflict areas. The price on his head drew too much attention and put those around him in harm’s way. Rather than feel like a spare appendage, Terry had resigned his commission and entered the private security arena. One thing I could be sure of: he would be a fighter until the bitter end, however that might come.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” I told Mel. “You see anything suspicious, have Terry take a look as well.”
“I will. How’s your arm? You’re still bleeding.”
“Not enough to be serious. I’ll get us there.”
As I sped away from the Priory, I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything I had witnessed since Susan’s murder had escalated far beyond the logical reaction to a botched strike. Whoever these people were, they were now operating in the open with apparently no thought of public awareness. It was wrong. I just couldn’t pin down why.
41
Our thirty-minute drive to Barton Mills was uneventful. I had to trust in Mel and my own many rear-view mirror observations. Neither of us spotted a tail which did not mean there wasn’t one. I remained guarded as I followed Terry’s directions through the village, but could not allow that to distract me. When we pulled off the road and onto a block-paved driveway outside a sizeable bungalow, its facing wall draped with ivy, we surprised an elderly man watering the front lawn.
The tall, angular figure, looked on with no apparent alarm as Melissa and I clambered out of the truck’s cab. When we started to help Terry from the rear, the man sprang into action. He ushered us through into what he told us was his back bedroom, opening doors and clearing away the usual hallway clutter ahead of us. He helped us to settle Terry onto a sturdy hospital-style bed.
“Nice to see you again, old chap,” the man said. It was as if the two had run into one another whilst out for a stroll.
“You too, Howard.” Terry regarded myself and Melissa. “This is Howard Smith. Doctor, surgeon, friend of wounded servicemen and women everywhere.”
The man turned. Smiled warmly and affected a mock bow. “I’m just an old sawbones who stitches mad bastards like Terry here back together again.”
We exchanged greetings, before the doctor turned his attention back to his new patient. Howard Smith was a sixty-eight-year-old widower whose last decade had been devoted to helping ex-servicemen recover from various wounds. He explained this to us as he carried out a preliminary examination, after which he pronounced Terry unfit for further service.
“I can fix you up well enough,” he told him. “There’s no damage to anything vital, and no immediate potential for increased trauma. Blood loss is a concern, however. You’ll require a minimum seventy-two hours recovery. Possibly a further twenty-four if we can’t control the inevitable infection.”
The complaints were loud and defiant as expected, but Terry was eventually convinced by all three of us that he would be a liability if he continued in his current condition. We could not afford any passengers if we were going to confront these people. Melissa left the room whilst the surgeon and I prepped Terry. I tuned out my friend’s moaning dirge of a voice, and turned my thoughts instead to what lay ahead. With Terry out of the game, it was just me and Mel on the road together now. But perhaps not for long.
The idea had come to me at the point where I had begun to despair. My friend down, Charlie gone, there did not seem to be a way back. My thoughts turned to how the nightmare had started: Ray Dawson murdered, with his brother out for revenge and unseen forces hunting us down.
Chris Dawson was now the key. The throw of the dice we had not wanted to take.
Who would want Charlie back more? I asked myself. Family was family. Previously we had ruled out going to Dawson for help on two counts: first, the possibility that he had paid for the hit on his own brother. Second, he might have a shoot first ask questions later approach to negotiations.
“There is no way all of this is being controlled by a medium-size gangster like Chris Dawson,” I reasoned back in the doctor’s spare bedroom, once Terry was ready for surgery. “I am confident of that much. As for the fact that he may overreact when it comes to me, the man who supposedly murdered his brother, well I think now we have little choice but to put that theory to the test.”
“That’s a crazy chance to take,” Terry said, shaking his head. “No, there has to be another way, Mike.”
“Tell me what it is, Terry. It’s just me and Mel now. We have to get some help.”
“But Chris Dawson? How much help can he and his thugs provide?”
“Numbers. Men to hold and shoot guns. Plenty of them.”
“But they’re not trained,” Terry argued.
“With the right plan, maybe they won’t have to be.”
“And you have a plan?”
“I do.”
“You want to share that with me and Mel?”
I looked between them. Took a beat. “It’s simple really,” I said. “We use me as bait.”
I pushed the Toyota as hard as I dared. Melissa sat by my side, her chin set as firm as my own. We consumed the miles in silence.
After more discussion following my suggestion, both Mel and Terry had given in. In the absence of any other strategy, mine would have to do. I didn’t like it any more than they did. The risks were enormous, but Charlie was out there somewhere and she needed us to do the right thing.
Once we were all agreed and fed, I swiftly fitted Melissa’s mobile back together again. Called the last number to have dialled in.
“That you, Cochran?”
I glanced over at Terry. Another layer of guilt to add to the skins I was already wearing. My actions had now led to his identity being discovered. I wondered in how many ways that might come back to haunt my friend.
“It’s Mike Lynch,” I said. “I think we need to talk.”
“I think you could be right, Mike. Or, should I do the talking and you do the listening?”
I bit down on my bottom lip. The arrogance of the man oozed down the connection. I wanted
to bury this bastard. Deep and forever.
“Actually, it’s you who needs to listen,” I said. “I have a trade to suggest. Me for Charlie Dawson.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do, Mike. I told your mate, it has to be you and Melissa for the girl, or no deal.”
“It’s a different game now. Your sniper took one of us off the board. If me and Mel hand ourselves over, there’s no one to take Charlie off your hands.”
After a brief pause: “We’ll drop her off outside a police station. How’s that?”
“Not good enough.”
Another pause, shorter this time. “No. I don’t like it.”
“Why not? Mel saw nothing, so she can’t hurt you. It’s me you really want.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Lynch.”
“You know what I mean. Melissa can never hurt you.”
“And you think you can? Without your wounded comrade?”
I paused for thought. “You know what I’m saying. You don’t need us both. It’s a fair exchange. I’m the one who saw everything that happened in that lay-by.”
This time there was a momentary silence at the other end. “I’ll consider the deal. What exactly do you have in mind?”
“Good. So now listen closely.”
I outlined the exchange agreement. After a few minor quibbles, the time and place were agreed upon.
Terry had meanwhile postponed his treatment whilst he made a couple of phone calls of his own on the burner phone given to me by Susan Healey. While we waited, the ex-doctor patched up my arm and gave me a jab of penicillin. My wound was deep enough that it would hurt for a while, but had caused no muscle damage. Ten minutes later Terry received a call-back. I wasted no time taking the phone off him afterwards and punching in the number provided.
When I revealed my identity to Chris Dawson, the man began ranting and screaming at me down the phone. At least a dozen threats to my life were made in less than a minute. I allowed the man to tire of his own voice before speaking again. In a calm, authoritative manner, I told my side of the story. Dawson listened. When the moment came to tell him about Charlie’s abduction, the inevitable reaction was heated and loud. But I sensed it was half-hearted by this time.
“Do you want your niece back, Mr Dawson?” I had asked.
“Of course I fucking want her back.”
“Then listen to me.”
That was forty minutes ago. It had been a huge wrench leaving Terry behind, but he was in good hands. And safe, I believed. I would not have left my friend there and driven away otherwise. As I drove I went over the plan time and again, seeing it from all different angles, from many different perspectives. Like all plans it was about as steadfast as a paper towel in a monsoon, but experience had taught me that you had to start somewhere. After that, all you could reasonably do was react and adapt to changing circumstances.
Ultimately it had been easier to persuade Charlie’s captors than I had imagined it would be. Sure, the man had argued. But he had also been persuaded without too much of a fight. I guessed that in our opponent’s head, having me in the bag was a positive step. And given he was never going to let Charlie go, the deal meant they would have two of their three targets, with the third close by and exposed. I was banking on that being their line of thinking.
Still it bothered me.
To continue with their conspiracy, they only needed Melissa and me. They did not need Charlie; she was too young to influence anything. So why had they not held out for a swap that would hand them both me and Mel. That arrangement had been requested, but not fought hard for.
I badly wanted to know why.
42
From what I knew of the Otterburn Ranges, in the Northumberland National Park, some of the hills that comprise the territory were Bronze Age burial mounds. There was also evidence to suggest that Roman soldiers used the area as a training ground during their occupation of Britain. These days it is owned by the military, and is still used as a training area for warriors. Much is freely open to the public, particularly hikers. Others visit the area because of the graveyard.
Instead of human skeletons, the land is littered with the remains of tanks from different eras. Some still have their tracks and appear to be undamaged, if stained by rust and naturally camouflaged by moss. Others are in ruins, innards stripped out, guns and cannons missing, treads long gone. Rusting hulks, inviting the interest of enthusiasts and ghouls alike. There was a time when the tanks were joined by the husks of old airplanes, but they had been either removed or destroyed.
In nearby Holystone stood another of Terry Cochran’s safe houses.
He had told me and Melissa where to find the spare key, and gave me the six-digit combinations to both an underground arms cache and a safe hidden away inside the house. As soon as he mentioned its location, the idea for a meeting place where the exchange could take place took root inside my head. It was about a five-hour drive north from Barton Mills, much of it at speed in good conditions on the A1. I kept the dial at just on the 70mph limit, my mind wandering all the time from the road to the situation we were about to confront.
“You all right, Mike?” Melissa asked at some point. From the look of concern she gave me, I guessed she had read my body language.
“About as right as I can be,” I said. “Given the circumstances.”
“You look… crushed.”
I nodded. “I feel it. I think it’s the sheer weight of responsibility.”
“For what?”
For what? For her, for Charlie, for Susan’s death, Terry’s injuries, and the discovery of his identity by those who wished us harm. I thought about each pull on my guilt, my conscience. Ultimately it would do no good to burden Mel with my problems. We had plenty to confront together.
“For what comes next,” I said instead.
Melissa nodded. I hoped she understood the magnitude of our situation. The awful consequences should it all go to shit. There were a hundred and one things I had probably not thought of. A hundred and one things that could go wrong. A hundred and one ways for us not to get out of this alive.
I smiled to myself. A hundred and fucking one glances in the rear-view mirror, hoping like hell I was half as good as Terry at this sort of thing.
As we continued to leave miles of road behind us, the landscape changed dramatically. From the flatlands of the Fens and Lincolnshire, to the industrialised outskirts of Sheffield, Doncaster and Leeds, past the Yorkshire hills and dales, back into northern industry represented by Newcastle Upon Tyne, before bursting into the bleak and hostile, yet glorious and beautiful sweeping Northumberland countryside. Thousands of sheep spread across acres of land, penned in by low wooden fences. We came off the main drag and immediately encountered winding, narrow roads. After a sharp bend, the River Cocquet lay to our left. It was fast running but shallow, white foam smashing into rocks and boulders squatting on the bed.
“Here we are,” I said, spotting the gate on my right-hand side. Terry had told me to look out for one painted blue and white. I nosed the Toyota off the road and onto a small plot of dirt barely able to take a single vehicle. I jumped out of the truck and strode across to a stone wall to which the wooden gatepost was affixed. I studied the grey, mossy rocks. Terry had said that one of them would appear out of place, but to me they all looked alike. I brushed a couple with my hands, and finally saw what my friend had meant. One of the stones was clearly darker, cut from a seam containing iron I thought. I wriggled it, pulling it back towards me at the same time. After a few seconds, it gave and came away in my hand.
The key to the gate’s padlock was my prize. I popped the stone back into place, unlocked the gate and pushed it open as far as it would go. After shifting the truck past the opening, I closed the gate behind us and snapped the padlock into place once more. The route up to the farmhouse, which I could see lying further up the hill and half tucked away behind a small cluster of sycamore trees, was no more than a dirt track ground out by years of pressure from var
ious sets of tyres. I followed it all the way, the house becoming more impressive as we grew near.
“Your friend Terry must be raking it in if he has all these properties,” Melissa remarked. “Why isn’t he sunning himself in the Bahamas instead of lying on that bloody bed with bullet wounds in him?”
“Because I called him,” I replied, stepping out of the truck’s cab once more.
She looked at me. Shook her head. “If it hadn’t been you it would have been someone else. Think of the security and weapons we’ve seen. What we’ll undoubtedly find here, too. Your pal is hiding from something, Mike. Or someone. Maybe even lots of someone’s. He’s clearly financially able to go anywhere, but he chooses to remain. It’s his life.”
I let that sink in. Melissa was right. No matter what came his way, and irrespective of the personal price, Terry lived for the action. He used to refer to it as the “juice”. Leaving the forces could never have meant retiring to a country estate, turning to farming, or basking on a yacht anchored in the Med. To Terry, retirement might just as well mean death. And if he had to go out, he would do so on his own terms.
“I only wish he was with us now,” I said, turning towards the house.
“Well, he’s not. But from all we’ve been through together these past couple of days, Mike, you may be all we need.”
I felt my forehead crease. Flat-handed my chest. “Me? And whose army?”
Melissa stepped towards me. Peered up at me. “I mean it, Mike. Something changed in you after… after your friend got shot and killed. It was in there, had to always have been inside you all along, but it came out strongly after that. You took charge. You stepped up. You did what needed doing.”
“Mel, I took charge and stepped up by calling for help. By running to my old friend and fellow marine, tail between my legs.”
“Don’t say that!” Her cheeks flushed, and anger flickered in her eyes.
“Hey,” I said, reaching for her arm. “It’s okay. I’m sorry.”
Scream Blue Murder: an action-packed thriller Page 27