Hit Me (The Bailey Boys #2)

by P. J. Adams

  MMA. My cage-fighting days. The calm before the storm.

  It was true. There was a sense of finality to this. Like with Imelda, where every kiss had felt like it could be the last, and every snatched moment together was so much more valuable because we might not get another.

  I shook my head. “Nah,” I said. “Just sharing a beer with my bro’, know what I mean?”

  And so we cracked a couple more beers and talked about life and shit, and for that hour or so it was like old times, the two of us together, sharing that moment of calm before all Hell broke loose.

  §

  Markov had me on a security job the following night.

  There was a delivery due, a big lump of money changing hands – an occasion fit for a display of muscle.

  This was much more my kind of thing. No cat and mouse, no setting myself up as a target and relying on other people, as it had been the night we snatched Jack the Knife.

  This was simple: a trade, a bit of respect between the two parties. Good, solid business.

  Yeah, right.

  We drove up to a commercial district tucked into the hills on the outskirts of Puerto Libre. I don’t normally carry, but tonight was different and I had a Glock 17 tucked into a shoulder holster under my jacket.

  The meet was in a bar called Nightingale’s. I took the door with a kid called Stefan, as Markov and Georgi went inside and took a table towards the rear.

  The place was half-empty, just a handful of tourists – Brits and Germans at a couple of tables, a bit leery from a night touring the bars.

  The barman had nodded as we arrived – from the look on his face this place was either owned by Markov, or under his ‘protection’. Now, the barman went to the tourists’ tables and started to clear their empties. He said something, went to take a half-full pint glass and they protested, but then he said something else and they fell silent and started to gather themselves to leave.

  Within minutes we had the place to ourselves, all according to plan.

  It was interesting seeing how Markov operated.

  I’d been in on dozens of meets like this over the years, in places like London and Amsterdam where it was usually more discreet. But Markov came to Nightingale’s because he liked the place, simple as that. He didn’t seem to care how open he was about it, and thought nothing of emptying the bar to suit his own purposes. Nothing of setting up a couple of lines of coke on the table top and snorting it through a rolled-up 500 euro note – a ‘bin Laden’, as they used to call them because while everyone knew they existed, no one ever actually saw one. The scarcity of those big notes was allegedly because something like 95% of them were tied up in criminal activities, and I could vouch for that: I’d seen a few of them in my time.

  So this was it. Life on the Costa del Crime. Tugging my forelock to the likes of Hristo Markov and, if he had his way, Jack ‘the Knife’ McGill.

  Life in London had been so much more simple.

  Out on the street a Lexus with tinted windows cruised past, and I wondered if that was the Colombians checking out the territory.

  I patted the Glock through my jacket, nodded in response to a curious look from Stefan, and resumed my surveillance of the street.

  I was focused, in the zone, everything on track.

  Or at least I was until Imelda Sanchez turned the corner, approaching the bar.

  She looked spectacular, in a long, slit skirt and a silky top bunched around her breasts, bare at the arms, her glossy black hair pinned up on the crown of her head.

  She barely paused at the door, barely glanced at me. Silenced Stefan with a look when he made as if to block her way.

  “She’s with Markov,” I said to the kid, who clearly didn’t know her, showing he was new to all this.

  She entered the bar and it was a second or two before Markov glanced up and noticed her. Then he did a double take, stood, took a step toward her.

  “Imelda?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  Now Imelda hesitated. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again, and she said, “I... You left a message. Said to meet me here.”

  Markov’s eyes narrowed.

  “No,” he said, finally. “That is not so.”

  “You–”

  He silenced her with a look. Took a step towards her.

  And then it all happened at once.

  The Lexus with tinted windows swung by again, and this time came to a halt a short way up the street.

  “Boss?” I said. “I think they’re here.”

  Markov hissed something at Imelda, and she shrank away, and when I turned back to the street again I saw that I’d been wrong. It wasn’t the Colombians at all.

  Four men piled out. Tracksuits and baseball caps and shades, and the unmistakable dark glint of gunmetal.

  “We have action,” I said, reaching inside my jacket for the Glock.

  Sometimes you just have to fire first – a single shot, taking out a tail light on the Lexus. The four stopped in their tracks. That bullet must have passed right between them, and they knew it, and now they were trying to work out if I was a really good shot or a really bad one.

  Then one of them raised a pistol and fired.

  I ducked behind a pillar, and hoped Stefan had done likewise.

  I heard sounds from inside Nightingale’s – shouting, and the clatter of furniture. A moment later Georgi was in the doorway surveying the scene, Markov at his shoulder.

  And then I saw movement from deeper within the bar. Two dark figures emerging from a door at the rear, moving fast.

  I ducked down and darted into the doorway, barreling off Georgi. He swung wildly at me, presumably thinking I’d turned on them, only pausing when I shouted, “Inside! It’s a decoy.”

  Already I had my pistol raised, taking aim, but a hand on my wrist knocked it sideways.

  Markov?

  “Boss?”

  He shook his head, still holding my wrist, a grim look on his face. He indicated with a flick of the eyes and I saw why he’d stopped me.

  At the rear of the bar: two men in black, one waving an assault rifle and the other... both fists clamped around Imelda’s wrists, dragging her in a half-run half-stagger back through the doorway from which they had emerged.

  Markov had stopped me from shooting because they already had Imelda and she was in the line of fire.

  A split second and they were gone from sight.

  I pulled away, straightened. Looked back over my shoulder and the dark Lexus was pulling away already.

  I sprinted the length of the bar, came to the doorway and paused, gun held to my chest.

  Peered through into the gloom of a stairwell. Couldn’t see anyone loitering and stepped through.

  Stairs up, and another door swinging open to the rear.

  I passed through and emerged in a narrow alleyway.

  Looked left, right, but there was nothing.

  Somewhere in the night wheels squealed and an engine growled.

  Someone joined me. Markov. He smelled of sweat, cigarettes and alcohol.

  “She’s gone, boss. I couldn’t do anything.”

  He nodded.

  “You did more than any other piece of shit in this place,” he hissed, nodding back into the building where Georgi and Stefan must be.

  I paused, then: “That kid,” I said. “Out front. The one who got out of the Lexus and shot at us.”

  Markov’s eyes were on me. “Yes?” he said.

  “I recognized him. He was the one from El Divino. The dealer. One of Jack McGill’s boys.”

  Those small eyes narrowed now. “You sure, Englishman?”

  I nodded. “Bastard set me up,” I said. “Got me shot. I’m not going to forget that ugly face in a hurry.”

  And that was it. The whole thing over in a few seconds, gone from an ordinary business meet to this: guns fired, Imelda taken, and Hristo Markov slowly putting all the pieces together in his head.

  All exactly according to plan.

 
§

  We sat inside Nightingale’s. With whiskey and cocaine, white lines of the latter across the table.

  I didn’t touch the Charlie – I’ve been there and emerged. Coke and speed. That little cocktail had regularly got me through eighteen hour shifts on security, back in the day. That and all the steroids I was taking to build up and maintain my physique had been a deadly combination. I’d felt invincible, when I wasn’t suffering ’roid paranoia and terrifying fits of rage. I was well clear of all that now.

  But the whiskey... Hell, we all needed a fix of something just then.

  Markov had already taken a call from the Colombians. They’d been nearby when they heard the gunshots and they’d bailed. Maybe the deal could be resurrected, maybe they’d go elsewhere. Another slap in the face for the Bulgarian.

  “You think they plan it like this, yes?” said Markov. “McGill and his friends?”

  “It was pretty damned slick.”

  “They try to damage me. They want everyone to see this thing they do.”

  Reputatsiya.

  Then he leaned towards me over the table, and said, “We should have killed the cabrón. You let him go, Englishman.”

  “They’d have hit back anyway,” I said. “They’re clearly escalating. If we’d killed McGill they’d still have come after your organization.”

  “But not Imelda, perhaps. This is personal, yes?”

  Oh yes.

  I shrugged, but said nothing. Markov was on the edge, and anything that might sound like contradiction in front of Georgi and Stefan might be all it took to tip him over.

  Stefan wasn’t so smart, though. He said something in Bulgarian and Markov swung sharply, connecting with the back of his hand to the young guy’s jaw.

  “Of course she not dead,” he said, his English fragmenting under stress. “You think that is better, huh? Cabrón.” He made as if to strike again and Stefan flinched back in his seat.

  I gestured to the barman for more drinks, then took the bottle from him as he came to pour. “Might as well keep that,” I told him, and served out another round.

  “You know them, Englishman, what they do now?”

  “Jack McGill’s hardly going to be the brains behind the operation,” I said, picking my words carefully. “And I don’t know who else he’s mixed up with. You got any names? I can ask around. Maybe someone in the expat community knows something.”

  “We will get names.”

  “If they’d just wanted to take her,” I said, “kill her or whatever... they didn’t have to do it like this. So... blatantly. They were clearly trying to make some kind of statement, make a challenge.”

  Markov was glowering at me. Now, he leaned forward again, and said, “You English, you have a saying to describe a thing you do. It is ‘stating the fucking obvious’. This is what you do, yes? And I don’t like it. You hear me, Englishman? I don’t like it at all when you do that.”

  21

  Lee had left her a voicemail: “Nightingale’s on Calle Málaga. You know it? Ten tonight. Check it out from outside. Pick your moment. Tell him he left a message for you to meet him there. Play the innocent. I don’t know exactly how it’s going to pan out, but you’ll be safe, you understand? But act scared when everything kicks off. Act very scared. And after that it’s down to you. Your plan, whatever that is.”

  Your plan.

  She’d rehearsed it in her head for the past six months. The escape route. The various ways to cover her tracks. The documentation she would need, and which she had then started to bring together one item at a time, and always fearful that it might draw attention to her.

  But the only way it might work was if she could be sure Hristo Markov would not come looking for her. For she knew he would pursue her to the ends of the Earth if she went against him.

  Lee has said she would be safe, but she didn’t like not knowing the details.

  Didn’t like putting her trust in another person. She could not recall the last time she had done that.

  You’ll be safe, but act scared. What had he meant? How could she know how to react if she did not know what she was to react to?

  She reminded herself she had commissioned him for this task. She had investigated him deeply enough to be sure he was a real player, a match for Hristo.

  He knew what he was doing, and so she should trust him to get it right.

  She should be able to put her fate in his hands.

  But it went totally against her instincts.

  §

  She’d been to Nightingale’s before. With Hristo, when she’d played her part as gangster’s glamorous accessory, and without him when she’d just wanted to get away. It was a nice little place, away from the main drag and so a bit quieter, and they served a good selection of tapas.

  She got there before Hristo, and waited in an alleyway across the street watching. Saw his car pull up and the four of them get out. Saw the other customers being hurried out of the door by Paco the barman. That was so Hristo! Just take over a place because he was so much more important than everybody else.

  She took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows. Smoothed her clothes down, took another big breath, and approached the bar.

  Lee saw her, glanced immediately away, then looked again.

  The kid he was with made to step across her path but Lee said something and he stepped back.

  She passed inside and paused. Hristo was at a table towards the back, leaning over a white line with a rolled note up his nose.

  Georgi spotted her first, said something, and Hristo jerked upright. Said, “Imelda? What are you doing here?”

  She said what she had to, that he’d left her a message that said she should meet him. He looked confused, and she wondered what he was going to say, what she should say in response, as Lee hadn’t prepared her for any more than those opening lines.

  Then, from the doorway, Lee called, “Boss? I think they’re here.”

  That thing he did, calling Hristo ‘boss’ – Hristo must surely see through it, but his ego was great enough that he let him do it anyway.

  A gunshot ripped through her thoughts. Somewhere out front... she craned to see, her first thought concern that Lee might have been in the line of fire.

  Hristo and Georgi stood, sending their chairs clattering over backwards.

  Hristo grabbed Imelda’s arm roughly and pushed her towards the bar. “Take cover,” he snapped. “Stay out of the way.”

  She stumbled back against the bar, the wooden counter jarring against her spine. She rubbed at her arm where he’d grabbed her, and another shot rang out.

  More noise – shouting from the front of the bar, the crash of a door at the back, then someone grabbed her wrists from behind and yanked her back.

  The grip on her wrists was vise-like, the pain in her arms from being jerked back so sharp she feared something must break. She opened her mouth to cry out, then the words vanished when she saw the other guy, dressed in black and carrying some kind of assault rifle.

  There was a door at the back of the bar, and her captor wrestled her through it, and when she was able to look back she saw Lee and Hristo watching her, Lee’s pistol averted, unable to get a clear shot.

  Out back of the bar, one of the guys hoisted Imelda over his shoulder and they started to run.

  A dark car waited at the end where a street cut across, the back door open.

  She was bundled inside, sprawled back against another man, and the door slammed. Instantly, the engine growled and the wheels screeched as they jerked forward and away.

  She straightened, twisted in the seat to move away from the guy, turned to peer at him.

  “Ms Sanchez, I think?” he said, in Spanish with a strong English accent. “Pleased to meet you.”

  She strained her back to lean away from him.

  “No,” he went on, “please don’t struggle. We’re under instructions not to damage you, but believe me, sweetheart, I’m one small step away from blowing your fucking b
rains out. You got that?”

  22

  I got away from Markov as soon as I could, without drawing undue attention to myself. I told him I’d dig, ask around the expat community to see if anyone had heard anything.

  I was fairly confident I still had his trust – as far as anyone in our business trusted anybody else, at least – but it worried me the way he just lumped us all together as ‘the English’ and assumed we were all connected and so I must know everyone. I couldn’t risk him taking the next step and assuming I knew too much, and was maybe involved with Jack the Knife’s gang in some way.

  I hadn’t lied when I told him Jack must be responsible. It was true I’d recognized the kid out front of Nightingale’s, the one who’d led me into that trap when I’d been shot. But I hadn’t needed to see him to be sure: I’d known in any case that it was Jack’s boys.

  I was the one who’d made the call.

  Spelled it all out for him.

  “Jack,” I’d said. “There’s a girl. Imelda Sanchez. She was with Markov for a time, but now he’s keeping her against her will. I need to get her out. If you and your crew spring her and let her get away safely we’re all square.”

  Doing it this way would make it authentic and believable.

  And Jack knew he owed me.

  I’d beaten the shit out of him that day up at Markov’s finca in the hills, but if I hadn’t stepped in, we both knew that by now the rats and wild dogs would be picking over what was left of his bones in some remote mountain ravine.

  He understood that I wasn’t the enemy – I never really had been, despite our occasional run-ins. No, his real enemy here was Hristo Markov: the guy whose territory Jack and his crew were trying to take over, the one who’d had him abducted and tortured to within an inch of his miserable life.

  And he understood, more than anything, that if he did as I asked he’d not only be squaring off a debt of honor with me, but he’d also be hurting Markov big time.

  Hurting his so-precious reputation by doing something so public to humiliate him, but also hurting him somewhere the Bulgarian tried to keep locked away, because in some perverse way he clearly had some kind of deep attachment to Imelda Sanchez.