I knew this complex well.
Using the truck as a shield, I wrestled my backpack into place and leapt from the Toyota towards one of three doors on this side of the hut. I had noticed it was leaning askew, hanging off its hinges. I had no need to pause before I was inside.
The long hut was empty save for debris. At the far end to my left, tucked away in the corner, there was a door. This, I recalled, led to a short passageway, at the end of which was another door that opened inwards. Beyond, a set of double doors leading into the ground floor of the main building itself. Further on, a stairway running up to the second level. I pulled out a torch, switched it to a red beam and followed the path my memory had created for me.
At the door which pulled inward, I paused. Took a couple of deep breaths. If the man I was hunting knew about this method of entry, then he could easily be waiting for the door to move. I was an impossible target to miss from short range. I hefted my H&K, set the laser sight to on. The red dot was reassuring, but only if I managed to get through this entry unscathed.
I yanked it back, allowing less time for hinge-squeal. The cry it gave out was loud, but short. I was not met by a shit-storm of bullets, so I crept beyond the door and reassessed. Faulkener was good, and could only have chosen this building to make a stand because of its height advantage. There were two stairways. The central staircase opened up towards the far wall. I knew that it went up to an area of open floor where original rooms remained and office partitions had been torn down.
I licked my lips, again asking myself if it would be better to have support here for this. I came up with the same answer. Charlie’s safety was now my prime concern, and whilst the regiment troopers were the best in the business and with the help of Dawson’s men had easily handled the situation back on the moors, I felt time was against me. People had died, and who really knew what this man Faulkener was capable of? Perhaps he was the calibre of man who could easily and without conscience conceive of using Charlie as a human shield.
Taking the stairs slowly, I ascended in darkness. I opted not to use the torch at this point, wanting to avoid detection for as long as possible. Each step took an age, as litter and debris was strewn across the stairs and I needed to avoid kicking anything down them that would alert the mercenary to my presence. I hoped the man was focussed on the central stairway and not this one. I was counting on him not even being aware of it.
With one foot raised to take the next step up, the other firmly planted, I heard a scuffing sound. Not me. Couldn’t be. Close, though. My heart raced even faster. This was going to get lively any time soo
Right then the staircase filled with the sound of several double rounds being fired off. I didn’t know how many, the noise echoing off the walls around me. All I knew was that none of them had struck me. I had seen the muzzle flash, chunks of wall plaster vanishing in a puff of dust, and as soon as I’d recovered from the volley of shots aimed in my direction, I fired off several of my own.
I ducked as more projectiles came my way, slamming into the walls and cement stairs, sending further clouds of dust and spurts of concrete shrapnel into the air. I fired back, raking across the stairwell opening above me. I switched to full auto and sprayed the remainder of the magazine. The reload took only seconds. When I was ready to go again I stood and listened, holding my breath. Heard only my own frenetic heartbeat and panting.
Remaining in place, still listening intently, I thought about what to do next. One more flight and I would have only a narrow shield of corner wall to hide behind, before being fully exposed to Faulkener.
I asked myself what choice I had.
There was none.
I took the seven treads of the staircase flight as carefully as the previous ones. Edged back against the sliver of wall standing between me and open space. I checked the walls and floor for the tell-tale red dot of a laser sight, but there was nothing. Every breath was proving more difficult than the last. I could only imagine what my pulse rate was, adrenaline flooding my system.
I heard rather than saw the object as it first cut through the air and then hit the end wall to my right. It bounced back and skittered along the floor towards me. I kicked out, and more in luck than judgement managed to send the device hurtling down the stairwell. I crouched low and closed my eyes in anticipation, thinking it likely to be a flash-bang.
It wasn’t.
The sound of the full explosive detonation was immense. I missed the initial white flash, but my eyes automatically sprang open in time to see flame punching up the chute formed by the stairwell, followed by thick smoke. My ears were now screaming. I sank down further, getting as low as I could whilst still remaining mobile. As the sound of the explosion ebbed away, the smoke hung thick against the ceiling but thankfully began dispersing into the wide-open expanse of the first floor.
“You still with me, Lynch?” a voice called out.
For a moment or two I considered not responding. It was the oldest trick in the book. The surprise was that the man had opened a dialogue at all. I knew I needed to take this opportunity and expand upon it.
“Yeah,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Faulkener laughed. “You immortal, Lynch? Or just immune to bullets and bombs?”
“Neither. Just better at this than you give me credit for. So, listen up, why go through this bullshit anymore? There’s no point now. Let me take the kid. You go one way, we’ll go the other. You forget me, I’ll forget you.”
“You know something, Lynch, I wish I could. I really do. It’s not your fault you fell into this tub of crap. That idiot Hendricks was only supposed to hit the woman. I guess he saw an opportunity to get a two-fer the target and his gangster nemesis. This was all so fucking avoidable.”
“So then let us go. What stake do you have in it now?”
“You’ve seen me now, Lynch. You know my name.”
“As do others by now. You gain nothing from continuing this.”
“Like your friend Cochran, I can go dark any time I please,” Faulkener said. “But I can’t go all the way and leave you to identify me. Cochran, I can’t leave alive because I know he’ll stop at nothing in coming after me when we’re done here today. So, when I’m done with you, it’s his turn.”
I took a breath. I was only buying time, knowing Faulkener was never going to let me walk away from this. I took one last shot. “Hey, I understand your target was Melissa. I understand you need me and Terry gone as well. But there’s no need for you to hold on to Charlie, is there? You only took her in the first place to lure us into a meet, knowing you didn’t have time to continue the firefight before the police arrived. So, do the decent thing and let her go.”
“The decent thing? Did you really just say that? I can’t believe you were ever one of us. As it happens, Lynch, I do have a role for the child to play still. Currently she is tied up and gagged in one of the far offices. I’ve attached a small explosive to her, which is on a timer. I’m not going to tell you how much time she has, just that every second you delay stepping out gives her less on the countdown.”
“You’re bluffing!” I called out. I thought I was right, but had no baseline by which to judge this man.
“Easy to say when it’s not your life about to end.”
“Not even you would do that to a little kid, Faulkener.”
“Wrong. Especially me, Lynch.”
Hanging my head, I spat out a wad of phlegm: smoke from the grenade explosion had dipped inside my throat. It didn’t matter if Faulkener was bluffing or not, I thought. There was no way I could risk finding out I was wrong.
I stood and stepped out from behind the wall.
The red dot that I had searched for earlier came almost instantly, wavering over my neck and face. Faulkener was taking the possibility of body armour out of the equation.
I dropped my weapon, allowing it to clatter to the floor amongst the rubble. Raised both hands. In the dark recesses beyond I saw nothing other than the laser source. “Tell me
,” I said. “Were you bluffing?”
“You’ll never know,” Faulkener said. He took a step forward and prepared to fire.
The explosion that occurred next had to have been unscripted, for if his reaction was anything to go by, it took Faulkener by surprise every bit as much as it did me. The rooms at the far end spouted flame and smoke, throwing out debris in a vast, billowing cloud. I was shocked, but whilst he ducked and turned his head in the direction of the blast, I ducked and swept up my weapon.
The gunfire we exchanged next was copious but inexact. As we moved around one another, our trigger fingers remained depressed. Each of us hid behind whatever we could find. The gunfire was continuous, but it stopped coming my way seconds before my weapon clicked on empty. I peered around a filing cabinet, and saw Faulkener turned sideways on, his weapon pointed in the opposite direction from me.
Only then did my fragmented mind allow me to dwell on what the explosion had meant.
Charlie.
Enraged by the man’s inhumanity that had caused the loss of such an innocent life, I reloaded, sprang out from my shelter and fired at him once more. The same sort of blind defiance that had overtaken me back in the car park in Chippenham rose up again. Faulkener turned, but too late. He took several rounds that twisted his body and threw it backwards. They put him down, but not out. His body armour would see to that. I walked towards him, still firing. He tried to wriggle away, but I gained on him and eventually stood over him.
Faulkener stared up at me, blood bubbling from his mouth. His lips and teeth were smeared with it as he laughed. “Take me in,” he said. “My people will have me out again within an hour.”
My hearing was still unclear. Chest heaving, I said to him, “What did you say?”
His laughter continued. My eyes flickered to the devastating scene behind him, the area in which he said Charlie had been secreted now alive with flame and dense smoke.
“What did you say?” I asked him again, this time shouting the words.
“I said, take me in. My people ”
He never got a chance to complete the sentence.
46
After firing the two shots that ended his life, I gave Faulkener no more attention than I would a dead rat. I dashed past him and made my away across to the far end of the upper floor, where splintered wood and shattered walls spoke of the devastation that had occurred there. The flames were everywhere, forming a barrier I simply could not cross. With all my heart, I wanted to get in there, to search for Charlie, but I knew there was nothing I could do for her now. She could not have survived the explosion.
I heard a sound then, and guessed it had to be my hearing playing tricks on me.
It came again. I knew it could only be my imagination, because it sounded so much like
Melissa.
I ran across to the front of the building, stared out and down through one of the many windows shattered by the blast.
There, leaning up against the truck, was Melissa.
In her arms she carried Charlie.
And Charlie was very much still alive.
I got out of there as quickly as I could, taking the stairs two at a time, overcome with unadulterated joy and complete bemusement. I sped across to the pair of them, listening rapturously to the joyous sound of Charlie complaining.
“What the… how the..?” I started to say, uncertain as to whether this was a dream or that I had not survived after all.
“I jumped into the back of the truck before you pulled away,” Melissa explained. “I saw and heard from down here what was happening. I knew that you were keeping him busy, so I crept up the stairs, worked my way behind him and found Charlie in one of the rooms. The grenade was only taped to her, so I unwrapped it and then as we ran for it. I pulled the pin and tossed it behind me. After firing at you first, that guy got off a few shots in our direction as well, but I knew you’d finish him off for us, Mike. I believed it with all my heart. You did finish him off, right?”
I nodded. Thought about those final two shots directly into Faulkener’s unprotected head.
“Yes, I finished him off.”
Melissa nodded. She held Charlie out towards me. “Good,” she said. “Take her for me would you. I have a terrible pain in my chest. I think you broke my rib earlier.”
I took the squealing Charlie from her. The kid looked absurdly pleased to see me, and wrapped her arms around my neck and started weeping. Then I looked at Melissa more closely and saw the blood on her clothes.
“Mel?” I said.
“I don’t feel at all well,” she said. Then her eyes flickered and rolled back, her body swayed and she slumped in a heap on the floor.
For twenty-four hours we were all kept apart. The investigation was broad and carried out by multiple agencies. Moving only between a holding cell to an interview room at the grand old red-brick Newcastle City Centre Police Station during that entire time, I bitched about my treatment to all who grilled me. It was only after I requested a solicitor that the police at least relented.
The spooks were a different matter.
I took each different agency police, NCA, the counter-terrorism unit, MI5 through everything that had happened to me, Melissa and Charlie, since the shooting and killing of Ray Dawson. The only issue I refused to discuss was Terry Cochran’s involvement. It didn’t matter to me that they insisted Terry had himself detailed his every step from the initial point of contact from me to the point where Mel and I drove off leaving him about to undergo surgery. If his name came up I declined to comment.
The two men from the security services neither of whom identified themselves were particularly interested in that one thing I refused to talk about. All manner of charges and threats were mentioned, but the solicitor provided to me by Chris Dawson batted them away each time. Twenty hours in, I was told that the police had cleared me of any involvement in the murder of either Ray Dawson or Susan Healey, Terry having confirmed his understanding of events relating to Dawson. Charges were being considered still at that point for what had happened at both safe houses, but the feeling was that the argument for self-defence was almost certain to be upheld.
The spooks kept at it for another two hours. Finally, they walked away, though they insisted they were unsatisfied with my lack of cooperation and would be questioning me further about the time Terry and I had spent together, as well as the events at the abandoned barracks. Two hours after that, I was released.
My solicitor, Carl Ingham, informed me that Terry was likely to be detained further. I met up with Chris Dawson in his suite at a nearby hotel, where we waited together for further news. The enormous black muscle sat at a table at the far end of the suite, chatting softly with the smaller, wiry man with scarring on his bearded face.
“You are going to look after Terry as well, aren’t you?” I asked of the gangster.
“Absolutely. You and your mate only ever have to pick up the phone for help even after today is long over. My brief was going between the two of you, which is why things were delayed. Those MI5 bods really have a beef with your pal, though.”
I nodded. “I suspect he worked, or may even still work for them at times. Off book, of course.”
“Yeah. That was my understanding from Carl. The problem being that this Faulkener character may have been one of their own as well.”
“It’s a murky old world out there,” I said.
“Yeah. I’m familiar with murk.”
I nodded. “I think I’m pretty much in the clear. For the time being. There’s a lot to unravel still. I worry about Terry, though. He gave up three safe houses to us, two of which are now definitely blown and which he cannot ever use again. His three colleagues melted away into the background before the police arrived on the scene, so they are out of the picture at least. Terry is very much the opposite. I don’t want to tell you your business, Mr Dawson, but you owe him big time.”
“Please, call me Chris. And for what it’s worth, I agree with you. We’ll cover
any losses he has. Yourself as well. Whatever is necessary after you put yourselves at risk to get our Charlie back.”
“How’s she bearing up?” I asked.
Dawson shrugged. “Kids are resilient. We haven’t told her about Ray yet, but she’s been asking for him every ten minutes, so that’s something we’ll be dealing with a bit later on.”
“But she knows Melissa is dead?”
“Mel collapsed in front of her, blood everywhere. It was not something we could hide.”
One of Faulkener’s final stray shots had not been so stray after all.
I nodded. “By the time paramedics arrived on the scene, Mel was already gone. I kept Charlie away from the worst of it, but the poor little mite was devastated at seeing Mel in such a bad way. I’ve had a long time to think about it now, I’ve questioned myself harshly. I just don’t know if there was anything I could have done differently.”
“Mr Cochran gave a pretty full account to Carl,” Dawson said. “Everything he learned from both you and Mel whilst you were all together, plus what he got from his colleagues who were out there with you on the moors. Plus what I saw and heard myself. You did your best. You tried to prevent Mel from chasing that bastard down. You couldn’t have known it would end that way, Mike.”
“Maybe. Charlie is unharmed though?” I asked him. “Physically, I mean.”
“She is. Fortunately, the men who had her treated her okay.”
“I’m very glad to hear it.”
“And yourself? How’s your injury?”
“Fine.” I reflexively glanced down at the bandage now covering what had amounted to little more than a flesh wound received during the firefight. It was as minor as the one from back in Thetford. “Could have been much worse.”
It felt strange sitting there listening to this gangster ask about my welfare. A man who not so long ago was after my blood. He sat forward, meeting my gaze. “You name it and it’s yours,” he told me. “What you did was fucking heroic. I know a bloke like you won’t want to have anything to do with a bloke like me, but you need to know that whatever you need and whenever you need it, all you have to do is ask.”
Scream Blue Murder: an action-packed thriller Page 30