by Jim Eldridge
He got up and began pacing the room – he felt useless sitting down. He needed to be doing something. But what? As he walked past his window, he looked out, and saw a man leaning against a low wall on the other side of the street, reading a newspaper. Warning bells went off in Jake’s head. He was sure he’d noticed that same man when he’d arrived home, in the same place, by the low wall on the other side of the road opposite the entrance to his flats.
OK, he could be just a man waiting for someone. But Jake was sure he wasn’t. He studied the man. Tall. Nothing special about him. Wearing jeans, a casual jacket and trainers. And his attention didn’t seem to be completely on the paper he was holding. Every now and then the man’s eyes darted towards the front of Jake’s block of flats, and the entrance.
They’ve been watching for me, waiting for me to come back. And now he’s seen me come in, my guess is he’s phoned the people he’s working with and let them know I’m here.
Who is he? Who are they? The Watchers? Pierce Randall? It was obvious that Sue Clark didn’t believe him when he’d said he’d been for a walk the night before.
Perhaps the man was working for the people who Carl Parsons had been going to sell the book to? Or maybe he was working for Gareth? After all, Gareth was in this up to his neck.
Or perhaps it was a completely different organisation. What was it Penny Johnson had said: there are lots of people who’d like to lay their hands on those books and the information that’s inside them. Governments, crooks, terrorists, investment banks. Which were these: the man watching his flat and his associates?
As Jake watched, a car pulled up beside the man. The man put his newspaper away, went to the car and said something to the driver. The car doors opened and two men got out. One of them looked up towards Jake’s flat, and Jake just managed to duck to one side to avoid being seen.
They’re coming for me! he thought. I have to call for help!
But who could he call? Whoever it was, they wouldn’t be here before those men got to his flat. And locking his flat door and refusing to let them in wouldn’t help. They’d got in before without trouble, when that man had been killed. And, looking at these men, he was sure that they’d just crash his door in anyway.
He chanced a look out of his window. The two men had gone to the boot of the car and were taking something out of it. As the boot lid slammed down, Jake saw that one of the men was now carrying a long dark holdall. It could be anything: a shotgun, a sledge-hammer to batter down his door.
Jake picked up the book and stuffed it into his jacket pocket, then he ran for the front door. He opened it and banged on the door of the flat opposite, Mrs O’Brien. As the door opened and Mrs O’Brien peered out, Jake pushed against the door, but the security chain held it firmly and stopped it from opening.
‘Yes?’ Mrs O’Brien asked curtly, wariness and suspicion showing clearly on her face.
‘Mrs O’Brien, please let me in!’ begged Jake. ‘It’s urgent!’
‘Why?’ demanded Mrs O’Brien. She was about fifty and regarded everything with suspicion, especially her neighbours, and in particular a young neighbour like Jake.
‘Please!!! It’s a matter of life or death!’
Mrs O’Brien glared back at him. ‘You expect me to let you in, after what happened? A dead man in your flat!’
‘I didn’t do it! That wasn’t me!’ Jake appealed to her. ‘If I had, they wouldn’t have let me go!’
Below, he heard the door from the street open.
‘Please, Mrs O’Brien, I promise you, I’m innocent! But I need your help, desperately.’
Mrs O’Brien hesitated, then very deliberately she pushed the door shut in his face.
Oh God, I’m dead! thought Jake. He could hear the men’s footsteps coming up the stairs.
Then the door opened again, released from the security chain, and Jake fell gratefully into her flat.
Mrs O’Brien shut the door again and refixed the chain in its place.
‘What’s going on?’ she demanded sternly. ‘That dead man in your flat. The police arrested you . . .’
‘I didn’t do it!’ Jake told her frantically. ‘Someone tried to frame me! But the police let me go. And now the people who tried to frame me are here!’
Mrs O’Brien looked at him, shocked.
‘Here?’
Jake nodded. ‘They’re coming to my flat.’
Mrs O’Brien went towards the phone. ‘We’ll call the police.’
‘No!’ blurted out Jake. He didn’t want to be found with the book on him. They’d take it off him, and it was the only thing he had that could help Lauren.
From outside, he heard voices. The men were talking, calmly and quietly, loud enough for him to hear them, although not what they were saying. There had been no sounds of his door being broken open, nor his doorbell ringing. He guessed they must have got hold of the keys to his flat and let themselves in.
Mrs O’Brien gave Jake a glare.
‘If there are people like that out there, I’m phoning the police, whether you like it or not!’ she told him firmly.
She picked up the phone and was about to dial, when there was a knocking at her door.
‘It’s them!’ Jake said, horrified.
‘Police!’ called a voice through the door. ‘Open up, please!’
Mrs O’Brien looked at Jake, a bewildered expression on her face.
‘They say they’re police,’ she said.
‘They’re lying,’ said Jake urgently. ‘Ask to see their identification.’
‘I always do,’ said Mrs O’Brien. She put the phone down and called out, ‘All right! I’m coming!’
‘No!’ called Jake, but Mrs O’Brien had already disappeared into the small hallway of her flat. Frantically, Jake looked around. He was trapped!
He heard the door open and then Mrs O’Brien say, ‘Let me see your identification.’
Then a male voice said, ‘Certainly.’
Of course they’d have police ID cards, thought Jake. They’d have everything they needed.
‘Do you know a Mr Jake Wells, your neighbour?’ asked the voice.
‘Why?’ asked Mrs O’Brien.
‘We have reason to believe he may be hiding in one of the other flats in this block . . .’
She’s going to let them in! realised Jake with a shock. Of course she is. She thinks they’re police. And they’ll take me away and find the book, and kill me.
And then he remembered the fire escape which served the whole block, with escape doors from the flats at the back. Mrs O’Brien’s flat was at the back.
As Jake heard Mrs O’Brien saying, ‘He’s here all right. I knew something was up,’ and the sound of the security chain being unfixed, he was already running into the kitchen. Yes, there was the fire-exit door. He rushed to it, pushed it, and almost fell out on to the fire escape. And then he was running, clattering down the metal steps.
He heard a shout behind him, a man calling, ‘Stop him!’ Then the sounds of running feet. A man appeared at the bottom of the fire escape, the same man who’d been keeping watch. The man reached into his jacket and started to pull something out, but he never made it. Jake jumped, kicking out with his foot as he did so, and caught the man full in the face. The man stumbled, and fell back, clutching his face. Jake didn’t wait to see what the man had been pulling from his jacket: a knife or a gun or some other sort of weapon.
Jake ran. His lungs were full to bursting as he reached the pavement and his legs seemed as if they were going to fail him and he would fall, but he could hear the boots close behind him and a voice shout, ‘Get the car!’
A car! He’d never be able to outrun a car!
Only one set of running boots was behind him now; the other had gone to get the car. Then Jake saw a bike, a kid’s mountain bike, leaning against a wall. He grabbed it and carried on running with it, jumped on it and started pedalling, faster and faster, turning rapidly left into one of the side walkways that ran through to the next
street. It went between two blocks of flats and had bollards across it to stop cars getting through.
He cycled faster, picking up speed, and he could hear the running boots behind him recede. He did another sharp turn, and another, into a maze of narrow alleyways that he knew no car could get down, and then he cycled as fast as he could until he reached a main road, busy with pedestrians and traffic. He abandoned the bike, and disappeared into a shopping mall, pushing his way through a crowd of shoppers, until he was gone from sight of the main street.
He’d done it! He’d got away! But now what? Who were those men? And where could he go now?
Chapter 25
He was barely inside the shopping mall when his mobile rang. The voice on the phone was a man’s, very coldly businesslike.
‘You have the book. We have Ms Graham. Deliver the book to us, or Ms Graham will die.’
Jake felt sick. They had Lauren.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ demanded the voice.
‘How do I know you’ve got her?’ asked Jake.
‘Wait.’
There was a pause, then Lauren’s voice was heard saying. ‘Jake . . .’ The phone was snatched away from her; but not before Jake had heard her fear and desperation in that one word.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘An exchange. When and where?’
‘We will contact you and give you the location,’ said the voice. ‘But if you make contact with the authorities or anyone else, and bring them with you, she will die.’
‘No authorities,’ promised Jake.
‘And keep your lawyers out of this,’ added the voice. ‘If you contact them, she will die.’
‘No lawyers,’ Jake assured the man.
‘Good,’ said the voice. ‘We understand one another. We will phone you and tell you the location for the exchange.’
The phone went dead.
Who were they? thought Jake. One thing was for sure, it wasn’t Pierce Randall. The voice on the phone had made the point that Jake wasn’t to contact the lawyers. Unless it was a double bluff on Pierce Randall’s part: getting the book back, but keeping Jake on their side for the future.
Jake was certain it wasn’t the Watchers. He’d met Penny Johnson, and these sorts of death threats weren’t their style, despite Carl Parsons attacking Lauren. He also felt the phone call ruled Gareth out from being behind Lauren’s kidnapping. He’d been told not to go to the authorities. Well, Gareth was the authorities.
But he needed someone with him if he was to make sure Lauren, and himself, came out of this alive once the book had been handed over.
Robert looked out of his front door at Jake, and then past him into the street.
‘Where’s Lauren?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘She’s been kidnapped,’ said Jake.
Robert’s mouth dropped open, shocked. Then he clamped it shut again, his eyes searching Jake’s face.
‘What?! Who by?’
‘I don’t know, but they’ve threatened to kill her,’ said Jake.
Robert’s expression turned to the kind that must have struck terror into his opponents on the rugby field.
‘Over my dead body!’ he snarled.
‘I hoped you’d say that,’ said Jake.
Jake went in and Robert shut the door and followed him into the ultra-neat living room.
‘This is about the books?’ Robert asked.
Jake nodded, and then filled him in on what had been happening over the last few days, including the accidental stabbing of Parsons, and Lauren posting the book to him. Jake took the book out and showed it to him. Robert reached out tentatively and took the book from him, turning it over in his huge hands, studying it, the dark leather-like material that encased it, and the symbol of Malichea etched into it. He didn’t attempt to open it. Instead, he handed it back to Jake, who slipped it into his jacket pocket.
‘The trouble is, they know I’ve got it,’ Jake told Robert.
‘How?’
Jake sighed.
‘They may have forced Lauren to tell them what she did with it,’ he said unhappily.
Robert’s face darkened and he smashed a huge fist against the nearest wall at the thought of Lauren being tortured for the information.
‘Anyway, they said they’d hand her over if I give them the book,’ said Jake. ‘They’re going to phone me to tell me where the exchange is to take place.’
‘And you want me to go with you.’
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. Robert was coming with Jake.
‘Yes,’ agreed Jake. ‘I don’t trust them. The trouble is, they said that if I bring along the authorities, or anyone else, they’ll kill her. So I don’t know how we’re going to play this. I don’t think two of us will be enough to handle them; but if we bring any more, it could blow the whole thing.’
Robert was silent, thinking it over.
‘You’ve no idea where the exchange is going to be?’
‘No.’
Just then, Jake’s mobile rang. He put his finger to his lips to urge Robert to keep quiet, then answered it.
‘Jake Wells,’ he said.
‘Forty-three Wharf Road North, Paddington,’ snapped a voice. ‘Fifty minutes.’
‘I can’t possibly get there in fifty minutes . . .’ Jake began. But he was speaking to empty air. The caller had hung up.
He looked at Robert.
‘Forty-three . . .’ he began.
‘I heard,’ said Robert. He’d grabbed a jacket and was already hurrying towards the front door.
Chapter 26
Fifty minutes. Why fifty minutes? The specific time worried Jake. They must have known where I was, he thought. From Baron’s Court to Paddington. There was no way they’d be able to make the journey in fifty minutes in Robert’s battered old van, certainly not with congestion in central London as bad as it was. The underground was possible, but with delays happening constantly, and changes to be made, and then looking for Wharf Road North on foot, fifty minutes became very doubtful. So it had to be a taxi, the only other vehicle that could use bus lanes and hopefully get through the traffic, and be able to take them right to their destination.
Jake and Robert raced to the taxi rank at the High Road, and very shortly they were in the back of a cab heading towards central London.
In the cab, Jake expressed his concern that the kidnappers knew where he’d been when they phoned.
‘It’s that business of fifty minutes. This way, we can just do it in fifty minutes. If I’d been further out, we’d never make it there in time.’
‘And you think if you’d been nearer, they’d have given you less time to get there. Say, twenty minutes if you’d been at Euston?’
‘Exactly.’ Jake nodded. ‘They’re watching me.’ Then the realisation hit him as he remembered what Penny Johnson had said. ‘No, they’re tracking me!’ He pulled out his mobile phone. ‘Someone told me that both Lauren and I have been tracked by the signals from our mobile phones. Even when they’re switched off they give out a signal.’
‘This is someone with very powerful and sophisticated tracking equipment,’ grunted Robert.
‘It is,’ said Jake. ‘Which means, if they know about you, they’ll know you’re with me.’
Robert scowled.
‘Damn!’ he burst out. Then he leant forward and tapped on the glass between them and the driver. ‘Pull over!’ he ordered.
The cab driver immediately pulled over to the kerb.
‘Wait here,’ commanded Robert.
He got out of the cab and walked along the kerb until he came to a drain, where he dropped his mobile phone. Then he walked back to the cab, got in, and ordered the driver to carry on. Robert looked at Jake and gave a wry smile. ‘That was a good phone as well,’ he said.
‘Someone will find it,’ said Jake. ‘One of the sewer workers. You might end up with phone bills for calls to Australia.’
Robert shook his head. ‘It’s pay as you go,’ he said. ‘Anyway, from now on they’ll t
hink I’ve left you and you’re on your own. So, what’s the plan?’
‘To be honest, I don’t have one,’ admitted Jake. ‘I just thought we’d have more chance of getting Lauren out of this alive if there was more than just me.’
Robert looked at him, his expression doubtful. ‘That’s not much of a plan!’
‘No, it isn’t,’ agreed Jake with a sigh.
‘And we don’t have anything to protect ourselves with,’ pointed out Robert. ‘No weapons or body armour of any sort. And these people are quite likely armed to the teeth, and there’ll be loads of them.’
‘Yes,’ sighed Jake gloomily. ‘You don’t have to come in with me, Robert. Like you say, it’s a loser. All we can hope is they’re true to their word. If they’re not, there’s not much the two of us can do about it.’
‘You give up easily,’ muttered Robert disapprovingly.
‘I’m not giving up,’ protested Jake. ‘I’m just saying there’s no need for both of us to . . .’ He hesitated.
‘Get killed?’ asked Robert.
‘Well, I wasn’t going to exactly say that,’ said Jake awkwardly.
‘No one kills me,’ stated Robert firmly. ‘I play rugby.’
‘But not against bullets.’
‘We don’t know they’ve got guns.’
‘They’re some sort of gangsters,’ countered Jake. ‘They’re bound to have guns.’
‘But they won’t use them,’ said Robert. ‘Not if we bluff them.’
‘Bluff them? How?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Robert. ‘But we’ll think of something.’
He looked at his watch, and then at the area they were entering. ‘And we’d better do it fast,’ he said. ‘We’re just coming to Paddington Station.’
As the taxi turned off the main road past Paddington Station, and then into Wharf Road North, Jake racked his brains for a scheme to bluff their unknown enemies with. Telling them the police were outside wouldn’t help – they’d said they’d kill Lauren if he brought the police in.