Below Zero (Ryan Kidd Thriller series)

by Roger Hurn

  ‘He contacted the Al-Quaedea affiliated group, Aasad al-Sahara, with a view to giving them a weapon that would tip the balance of power in the rebels favour.’ He shook his head in disgust at what he obviously saw as an act of complete folly. ‘And you know what happened from there on in.’

  ‘Yeah, like you squealing to Mossad,’ snapped Carly. ‘Those kidon guys were an execution squad. You dropped us right in it with them and they could’ve killed us.’

  Crispian steepled his fingers and tapped them together. ‘But they didn’t though, did they?’ His face was flushed and his tone was the steely side of irritated. ‘In fact, Carly, they saved your life.’ She tried to interrupt but he waved her objections away. ‘No, they were your last and best hope of surviving that whole situation. I didn’t want to lose the memory stick but your safety was paramount in my mind and that’s the sole reason I “squealed” as you so delicately put it.’

  He glared at her and she glowered back. He shook his head and snorted dismissively. ‘Believe me, young lady, if I hadn’t acted as I did both you and Ryan would not be sitting here in your cosy little office bandying words with me today. You’d already used up more than your fair share of luck in getting to Rhonda. It was about to run out and that is a stone cold fact.’

  Carly broke eye contact and I could see he’d rattled her. Me? I wasn’t sure what to believe. I could see why Greenstick had gone over to the dark side. Family ties run deep and men have sold their souls for far less. And maybe Crispian was telling us the truth about why he gave us up to the tender mercies of the kidon. I had no idea one way or the other. But I think he was probably right about us riding our luck into the ground.

  However, the one thing I did know for certain was that the memory stick and the information it contained was now lost to everyone. Obviously this was a blow for Crispian but, on the plus side, the kidon owed him a favour which he could call in at any time and the bad guys had failed to get their hands on whatever it was Constantin had discovered. So, whichever way you sliced it, I guessed Crispian was still just about ahead of the game.

  I sat up with a jolt. The question I still needed to ask was staring me in the face and this time I was going to make sure I got an answer.

  ‘What was it on that stick that was so damned important that it could tip the balance in the Syrian civil war? And don’t say you don’t know because I know full well you do!’

  Crispian smiled his trip wire thin smile. ‘Something extremely nasty I’m afraid. It was the formula for a nerve gas one hundred times more lethal than any other nerve gas known to science. Stere codenamed it “ICE” after the initials of the incomprehensible collection of chemical compounds that you need to concoct that devil’s brew.’

  I knew that both sides in the conflict had claimed the other was using chemical weapons so I could see why they’d all want it in their armoury – and why the Israelis would want to stop them.

  Crispian gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘Though God knows you’d need a PhD in chemical engineering just to pronounce the names of the bloody things that made up “ICE” let alone understand how to unravel the science behind it all.’

  Then he stood up and said something that surprised me. Of course, he could just have been making the best of a bad job, but somehow I didn’t think so.

  ‘Quite frankly, Ryan, I’m not sorry it’s destroyed. The world’s a dangerous enough place as it is without giving an odious set of fanatics the power to wipe out whole cities, even if they happen to be populated with people who take a slightly different view of religion to them. And it makes my blood run cold that that very scenario came within a whisker of happening.’

  He walked briskly to the door and opened it. Then he half turned and said, ‘You both did well. Not well enough to earn a bonus of course but well enough for me to consider using you again in the future.’ We must have looked shocked because he nodded. ‘Oh yes, you can be sure of it, old chums, there definitely will be a next time.’

  Carly gave him the finger but he’d already gone.

  Chapter 30

  As soon as the door closed behind Crispian, Carly looked across the office at me. ‘Come over here,’ she said solemnly. ‘I want to show you something.’

  I raised one eyebrow and tilted my head but she ignored me so I got up and walked over to her desk. She turned her computer monitor screen so I could see the display. She tapped an icon with her fingernail. It was a standard folder with the word “ICE” written underneath it. I felt my stomach lurch. I don’t know about “ICE” but I suddenly felt as if the temperature in the room had dropped to well below zero. ‘How the hell did that get there?’

  Carly pulled a face. ‘I uploaded it and sent it when we were at Des Hammond’s place.’ She glanced up at me and shrugged. ‘It was when I went to the toilet. You remember he banged on about how long I’d been gone?’

  I did remember. ‘Yeah, but how did you access his computer? I mean he must have a password. A bloke like Hammond’s not just going to leave it open so any Tom, Dick or Harry can use it.’

  A tiny grin of pride appeared on her face. ‘Course he had it password protected but it was a piece of piss to work out what it was.’

  My eyebrows shot up my forehead. ‘Yeah, right, so what was it?’

  Carly leant back in her chair, put her finger to her lips and smiled mockingly at me. ‘Well, he’s such an old school villain that I knew how his mind would work. Guys like him all think they’re Ray Winstone so the password had to be something like “Who’s the Daddy?” – and it was! Well, actually it was “Daddy1” ‘cos I guess he thinks he’s like Gangster Number 1. I mean what a tosser!’

  I had to hand it to her; she can read blokes easier than a bibliophile can read a book. I wondered what she thought when she read me but decided now wasn’t the time to ask.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d done it?’

  Carly pouted. ‘I dunno really. I just thought if we were gonna die I didn’t want it to have been for nothing. And if you didn’t know about it then you couldn’t tell anybody if they tortured you.’

  This second reason seemed a tad on the melodramatic side to me but Carly had a vivid imagination and had probably watched too many old Jack Bauer re-runs for her own good. Then she winked at me. As usual she was winding me up.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘But why didn’t you speak up about it when Crispian was here?’

  ‘Because he’s a wanker and ‘cos I hadn’t told you and I didn’t want you to look a fool in front of him.’ Then she sighed. ‘And ‘cos I wanted to find out what was on it before I decided what I was gonna do with it.’

  I was glad she hadn’t wanted me to look a fool, even though she’d played me for one, but I frowned at her. ‘Well, now you know so what are you going to do?’

  She returned my gaze steadily. ‘It’s not just up to me though, is it, Ryan? It’s up to us.’

  Technically it was up to me as I was the boss, but we’d both risked our lives for the bloody thing and Carly had been the one who’d been smart enough to send it here so I wasn’t about to argue the point. I swallowed hard.

  ‘If we hand it over to Crispian we’d get the bonus,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, we would.’ Carly’s eyes never left mine. ‘And Christ knows how many ordinary people would end up dying because we did.’

  We continued to hold eye contact. Then we both nodded and she deleted the file.

  If you enjoyed reading Below Zero you might be interested in Dead of Winter by Roger Hurn, also published by Endeavour Press.

  Extract from Dead of Winter by Roger Hurn

  Chapter 1

  Christmas was coming and the geese may well have been getting fat, but I wasn’t. This was a worry because normally you can count on the season of peace and goodwill toward men to work its magic. The stark reality of people cooped up together for several days with rubbish telly, their feuding family, and too much booze can have even the most mild-mannered person reaching for the carving knife �
� and not to slice the turkey either. But, for some reason, it wasn’t happening. I was expecting the usual rush of vengeful partners wanting me to go into overdrive during the office party period but it seemed so far that everybody was making a concerted effort to keep it in their pants. Maybe it was the recession, but whatever the reason, the Ryan Kyd Private Investigations Agency was feeling the pinch.

  I was trying to think up a tactful way of telling my associate Carly that her Christmas bonus was about as likely to arrive in her pay packet as Santa Claus was to come down the chimney when I heard a huge kerfuffle on the stairs outside. Carly was barking orders at some poor schmucks and it sounded like they were dragging something large and cumbersome up to the office. My heart sank. I had a shrewd idea what it was. I’m not a detective for nothing.

  I decided to pre-empt matters and opened the door. I wish I hadn’t. Carly was wearing a bright red Santa hat and directing Jason and Ravi, two right herberts who ran a stall in the street market outside, in their attempts to haul a large Christmas tree up the stairs. OK, Carly looked cute as hell, but then Carly is the kind of girl who’d have looked cute even if she was wearing a bin bag and a sou’wester. She is bright as a button, but sees it as her life’s mission to point out my failings both as a boss and as a human being. I’m always on the point of firing her, but somehow I haven’t yet managed to find the right moment. I’ve got an awful feeling that I never will. It’s that kind of a relationship.

  Carly flashed me her megawatt smile. ‘Hey, Ryan, don’t just stand there, give the guys a hand with the tree.’

  I didn’t move. Instead I loomed over them as grim faced as the ghost of Christmas yet to come. ‘Forget it, Carly. We need a flaming Christmas tree like an extra hole in the head.’ I looked past her at Jason and Ravi. ‘Sorry, guys, there’s been a mistake. We don’t need one of your hookey trees. You can take it back to the lorry you nicked it from right now.’

  Jason and Ravi stopped and stared up at me. Then they switched their gaze to Carly. Their stone-hard little eyes melted when she grinned at them. She tends to have that effect on even the toughest of villains. It’s a useful skill.

  ‘Ignore Scrooge and bring the tree on up.’

  ‘Gotcha Carls,’ said Ravi. ‘C’mon Jase, mate. We ain’t got all day.’

  I tried to stand my ground, but I was no match for one very determined female associate and two market traders with a large Scot’s pine in hot pursuit of a sale. They swept me aside and I could only watch in horror as Jason and Ravi proceeded to set it up in a bucket in the corner of the office while Carly directed operations. When it was done, all three of them stood there admiring it.

  ‘Thanks guys. It looks brill.’ Carly gave them both a hug.

  ‘No probs, Carls. Now that’ll be twenty quid to you.’

  Carly winked at them. ‘Take it up with Scrooge over there. He’s Mister Money Bags.’

  Jason and Ravi advanced on me. I knew I was stuck with the tree but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. I do have some pride.

  ‘You’re having a laugh aren’t you fellas? No way is that tree worth more than a tenner.’

  ‘Leave it out, man!’ Ravi sounded aggrieved. ‘You only got it for a score ‘cos it’s Carly, innit. And we gave her the Santa hat for free.’

  Jason nodded. ‘That’s right, Ryan. Everyone else is forking out forty quid and those hats are a fiver a pop.’

  Carly narrowed her eyes, folded her arms and tapped her foot ominously. I recognised the danger signs and caved in before I got a tongue lashing. Ravi trousered the dosh and wished us both a cheery Merry Christmas before he and Jason legged it off back down the stairs. I knew that as soon as they hit the street the story would be all over Deptford market of how the delectable Carly, the girl all the traders – and not only the male ones – lusted after, had a right killjoy for a boss. It’s a cross I have to bear.

  But if I thought this was shaping up to be a quiet Christmas then I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Chapter 2

  It was Christmas Eve and I was sitting in The Harp of Erin. There was a boisterous crowd in, but I was drinking on my own. There was no point in going home. My missus had gone to her sister’s in Manchester for Christmas and yours truly hadn’t been invited. Not that I was bothered of course. Her sister’s tongue is so sharp you could use it to cut through the rock hard icing on a Christmas cake, so I figured I was better off not going.

  Yes, all right, I had been hoping that Carly might have fancied draping herself in tinsel and climbing into the Christmas stocking at the foot of my bed all ready for me to unwrap on Christmas morning. I’d even bought a bunch of mistletoe from Jason and Ravi’s stall to show her I could get into the Christmas spirit as well as the next man. Sadly for me, the next man turned out to be Tyrone, a guy she’d known since primary school, who she’d agreed to meet for Christmas drinks. I’d bumped into Tyrone once on a case we’d been working on and he’d turned out to be seriously bad news, but Carly had a soft spot for him. I suspected the spot Tyrone had for Carly was anything but soft... Anyway, my already wafer thin chances of persuading Carly to come over to my place to pull on the wishbone vanished when she told me that after she and Tyrone had finished celebrating she was going to stay at her nan’s.

  She’d ignored the sprig of mistletoe I’d been clutching and said, ‘Sorry, Ry, but I reckoned you’d be doing something with your wife over Christmas and anyway, I’ve been having Christmas at my nan’s since I was little ‘cos my mum’s such a waste of space.’

  ‘Yeah, I get that,’ I said, ‘but you’re a big girl now.’ I’d grinned at her in a way that even I had to admit reeked of cheese.

  But Carly just shook her head and said, ‘Nah, she’d be heartbroken if I didn’t go.’

  I must’ve had a face like a bag of spanners because she said, ‘Hey cheer up. I’ve got you a pressie even though you didn’t give me a Christmas bonus.’

  She opened up her desk drawer and handed me a parcel wrapped up in gaudy red paper covered in what somebody in China fondly imagined were reindeer. I could see that Ravi and Jason’s stall had been doing a roaring trade with Carly. I forced a smile onto my mug and ripped open the wrapping. It was a copy of a book called The Glory of Spurs. My smile vanished quicker than a rat up a drainpipe. I’m a die-hard Arsenal fan.

  Carly giggled. ‘Gotcha!’ Then she pulled out a second parcel. ‘Actually, skinflint, here’s your real present – even though you don’t deserve one.’

  It was a Nike Arsenal Home Replica jersey. I was made up. I was even more made up to see that Nike was spelled correctly. Carly definitely hadn’t bought this from Ravi and Jason. I grinned at her for real this time. ‘Thanks kid,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Come here, you,’ she said. ‘You’ve been waving that mistletoe around all day so I guess we’d better not let it go to waste.’

  Then, for a glorious 30 seconds, she gave me a kiss that, given what it did to my anatomy, should have come with a government health warning. But, just as I was about to have a cardiac arrest, she broke it off and said, ‘Look I gotta go, but maybe we could hook up for drinks on New Year’s Eve, yeah?’

  It was all I could do to nod as I had no blood left in my head. It had all rushed elsewhere.

  She gave me one of her enigmatic grins. Sometimes I think she could play the part of Mona Lisa without rehearsal. ‘Good. I’ll text you.’

  Then she was gone before I could give her the present I’d bought her. It was a silver chain with a star on it. I didn’t rush after her – though I could have caught up with her easily enough. I didn’t want to risk her showing it to Tyrone and them having a laugh at my expense. Maybe I was being paranoid, but Christmas’ll do that to you when the girl you’ve got a thing for is off with a guy who’s nuts about her and who thinks you’re a complete git. I felt the same way about Tyrone, but he was bigger and considerably tougher than me so I decided to shut up shop and go and get bladdered.

  It wasn’t working. The more I d
rank the soberer I became. I guess it’s like one of those mysterious laws of quantum physics where things have exactly the opposite effect to what they’re meant to have. Or something. Maybe I was drunker than I thought. Anyway, I decided to give it up as a bad job and go back to the office and crash out on the sofa. I stumbled out onto the street just in time to see a woman being mugged. I had nothing better to do so I went staggering to her rescue like some half cut Don Quixote.

  If you enjoyed Below Zero check out Roger Hurn’s other books here: Endeavour Press - the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.

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  Why not read Book Five in the Ryan Kidd series next?

  Bright Lights, Big City

  Also in the Ryan Kidd series

  Business is Murder

  Hand of Darkness

  The Dead of Winter

  Below Zero

  Bright Lights, Big City

  Also by Roger Hurn:

  An Ill Wind

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