The minutes rolled by. Pimms kept checking his watch, which only made it go that little bit slower. He was just about to call The Boss and tell him that she may have left via the rear exit, but it didn't seem wise. If she appeared at the moment he had ended the call, he would still be labelled a failure by his employer, and he knew exactly how that would end.
'That's her,' he said to the driver, his eyes coming to life.
Across the street, the contact that Wilkes had provided stepped outside the building and adjusted the collar of her long, beige trench coat. It was a slim fit for a lean woman, and it suited her perfectly. She glanced over, not seeming to notice the vehicle, and then headed up the street. Her long, blonde hair trailed behind her in the gentle breeze. In other circumstances, Pimms might have asked her out for a drink. But not now–there was business to attend to, and it wouldn't be pretty.
'Alright, pull out slowly. We don't want to scare her. Not yet.'
The driver did as he was commanded, which gave Pimms a sense of power that he very rarely got to experience. He was so used to being ordered around by The Boss that he never got a chance to make his own decisions. Even his home had been chosen and paid for in exchange for loyalty and the strictest obedience.
The limo inched forward slowly, its lights still off so as not to alert her. But that didn't seem to stop her from constantly looking over her shoulder. It was probably strikingly obvious to her that she was being followed, but at this speed and in this manner, it was known to leave the victim with a speck of doubt. This would usually keep them from running, through a risk of feeling stupid if they were wrong.
Of all the years he had been doing this, there had only been one runner–he was a young man who owed a lot of favours and even more money. He had been made well aware of the consequences if he failed to deliver and, as soon as he realised his payments would fall short, he bottled it and tried running to the police. The poor kid had no idea that eighty percent of the police force were dirty, and the other twenty percent weren't important enough to do anything about it.
'She's looking right at us,' the driver informed him.
Pimms peered over the seat. The driver was right; she looked full of fear, like a puppy when pitted against a bigger dog. But still, she wouldn't run. He drew his firearm, a Glock 42 with a suppressor to muffle the gunshot. 'Go!' he called to the driver. The limo shot forward, its engine roared in the way that modern cars do. The woman was right outside the door, and Pimms flung it open. 'Get in.'
The woman, whose name had been given to them as Rachel, gaze a puzzled look; one that said should I run? Her knee even lifted a little as if ready to make a bolt for it. She hesitated, put it back down, and then climbed into the limo, her eyes trained on the gun.
'If you're trying to steal some money, I could use some too,' she said as if she had done this before. Not a wisp of fear, but the paranoia lingered in her eyes. She sat across from him.
'Please. Does it look like we need your money?' Pimms closed the door and they were driven off in a seemingly random direction. 'Miss Lawrence, I'm going to lower this gun and we're going to talk. If you try to run, you will not get very far. Do you understand?'
Rachel nodded, every muscle in her body clearly tensed.
Pimms rested the gun across his lap, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and lowered his voice to a whisper. 'We need to get in contact with Mister Blake Salinger. Do you know where we might find him?'
Her eyes suddenly widened. She opened her mouth as if to speak, closed it and paused for consideration. When she tried again: 'He was arrested only yesterday. We haven't heard from him since.'
'We?'
'The work force. You knew my acquaintances and where I live. I wouldn't dither to believe that you're aware that Blake is my colleague. If we're going to talk, please don't insult my intelligence.'
Pimms laughed and sat back in the seat, slapping his knee with amusement. 'I like this girl,' he called to the driver, who made pig-like noises from the front seat. 'She's got balls.'
'Well, one of us has to,' she said, antagonising him.
His smiled dropped, just like that. It was like a wave of anger wiped it clean off his face. 'Miss Lawrence, I can only be nice for as long as you are behaving yourself. Now, you must have heard about Mister Salinger's escape from custody. In the very least, news of the trouble he caused through London came your way?'
Rachel's mouth hung open, but her eyes read different from the rest of her face. 'I…' It was difficult to determine how much of this was show and how much was a part of her performance. She was, after all, a salesperson, so her acting skills must have been on par.
'Well?'
'I didn't know–'
Pimms lifted the gun, squeezed the trigger. A whimpering sound flew from the barrel and a loud pop went through the woman's handbag, startling her and making her lip tremble.
'You're his colleague, his best friend, and his next of kin. The police would have come straight to you even without our say-so.' He lurched forward and crossed the limo to sit next to her. He put a hand on her knee and then quickly retracted it. He didn't want her to think this was personal.
'I'm sorry,' she said, realising his position of power.
'That's a start. The sooner you stop playing games, the sooner we can let you go. Now, tell me, how is your mother doing?' The worry in her eyes made him feel all the more in control. He had read about the old bag's condition at the hospital, just as he knew that Rachel paid a visit to her every other day. With that information, she was putty in his hands.
'You wouldn't–'
'You have no idea what I would do. But I can assure you this: if you cooperate with us, no harm will come to you or her.' He looked at her legs; shaking like leaves in the breeze.
'What do you want me to do?' she asked, a cry threatening to ripple through her voice.
'It's really simple. At some point soon, Salinger is going to contact you. As soon as he does…' He removed a business card from his jacket pocket and forced it into her hand. 'Do we have an understanding?'
Pimms watched her as she stared down at it. His hand tightened around the gun. The woman turned her head to face him, and nodded.
'Good girl. Now get out of here.' He half-stood and held the door open for her, grinning like a Cheshire cat. 'Bye-bye now. We'll speak soon…'
Rachel hurried out of the car and headed down the street, keeping an eye over her shoulder as she rushed back to the building she had come out of not long before.
'How about that, huh?' Pimms closed the door and sat back down. It was moments like these that made him love his job.
Chapter 13
Getting Marcy down the steps was the hardest thing Blake had ever had to do, and it scared him just how easily it seemed to come to Greg.
'You grab her feet,' he'd said as if it was nothing, no problem at all. 'You head backwards down the stairs so as the weight isn't on you.'
When they got her to the bottom, they placed her on a workbench with wheels, her short and skinny frame small enough to fit on top with only her feet dangling slightly off the edge. Blake draped a blanket over her that he had found upstairs. He cried his way through mopping the blood up off the floor, and then said his goodbyes.
When it was finally over, he showed Greg where the phone was and took a seat next to it. He didn't necessarily like the idea of making a call to The Agency–he didn't understand how they would benefit from it. Greg had told him that they would send someone, but was he able to handle that?
'Before I dial the number, I need to know that you're on the team,' Greg said to him.
'What?' His eyes were raw with residual tears.
'If the worst of things happen, I need to know that we're both in this together.'
Blake hadn't thought about that. What if the worst did happen? He wasn't as confident as this silver-haired man; he had little courage and certainly wasn't a trained hand-to-hand combatant like this man clearly was. 'I'll try to be.'
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'Kid,' he crouched, resting his elbows across his knees, 'trying to be and aspiring to be could be the difference between death and survival. I'll help you where I can - you know that - but I can't have you running off like a pussy every time someone fires a weapon.'
It made him smile a little, despite the circumstances. He had been afraid of guns but, with all the recent events; breaking out of the police station, the high-speed chase through London, and seeing Marcy's lifeless body, he wondered if a gunshot would disturb him in the slightest anymore. And with how painfully tired he was, he could probably sleep soundly through a nuclear apocalypse.
'I'm on the team,' he said. 'I'm on the team.' Again for his own reassurance.
Greg took the phone in one hand, placed a small circular device against it and it stuck like a magnet. 'Anti-tracer,' he said to Blake and then dialled a number.
Blake couldn't stop shaking.
The loudspeaker made a screech of the dialling tone. It rang twice, and then a male voice answered. 'Pimms,' it said. 'Identify yourself.'
Blake looked up to Greg, saw his eyes shining with a familiarity. He must have known this man, whether he liked him or not. It hit him then–he was up against his colleagues. This man was turning on his friends and life-long co-workers to help him and his father. Blake admired that, was thankful for it, but when he looked at Greg he couldn't shake the image of Marcy's blood on his hands.
'You know who this is.'
There was a pause on the phone with only one noise in the background. Was it a car door closing? Finally, the man on the other end cleared his throat and spoke. 'You're in a lot of trouble, Adrian. You need to come in.'
Blake looked at him. Adrian? Really? He didn't believe it. This man was coming to be Greg, and nothing else. Nobody else.
'So you can kill me? I don't think so.'
'It's not you we want. You know that. Bring us the boy and you can get back to work.'
'That… is something we will need to talk about. Alone,' said Greg or Adrian or whatever his bloody name was.
Blake didn't like this. It was beginning to come into perspective now; first he had been pulled away from the police, then his stepmother was murdered in cold blood, and now this man was here, still not revealing his true identity while on the phone to the very people who wanted them both dead. He wondered if he would be better off alone. Alone and far, far away from this place. But then again, it could have been a bluff. There was no telling with this guy.
'Then what do you–'
Without warning, Greg slammed the phone down into its cradle.
'What are you doing?'
'This anti-tracer only does so much.' He pointed to a device stuck to the side of the phone like a magnet. 'I don't want them knowing where we are until I know what we will get out of it. This means I need to sever the trace before it's completed, which is about every thirty seconds or so.'
'And then what?'
'And then it has to start all over again.' Blake could tell the man wanted to smile before he picked the phone back up and dialled the number again.
Only one ring this time, and the voice sounded a little more desperate, if not pissed off. 'Don't hang up. We will figure something out. What is it we can do for you, Mister–'
'I want to see an Agent.'
The man on the other end made a noise like he was punched in the belly. Small wonder–it probably struck him as a surprise. 'An Agent? Okay, I'll send you Richards. But where would I send him? We'll need your location sooner or–'
'I want Matthews.'
There was a pause again, probably stalling to complete the trace. Finally, it was Greg who spoke. 'I want Matthews,' he repeated.
'Ah, Matthews. Okay. Anything–'
The phone came crashing down, cutting the connection once again. It startled Blake, who felt a bit like a child overseeing a father's work with both unbroken concentration and intimidated curiosity. He pictured the face of the man on the other end, and how agitated he must be. He couldn't help but smirk.
Greg picked up the phone once more and Blake almost didn't hear it ring.
'Matthews,' the voice butted in early, presumably so as not to miss its opportunity. 'No problem at all. Question is, what will you do for us?'
'This is the deal,' he stood unwavering, 'you send me Matthews. He comes alone, he comes unarmed, and he comes no farther than the front gate. I want to talk to him. If what he says works for me, I will give you the Salinger kid.'
'You–' Blake spat but was cut off by Greg holding out a finger to him. He had known he couldn't trust this son of a bitch. Everything about him had spelled trouble since the get-go.
The man's laugh cackled through the loudspeaker. 'Just like that?'
'Just like that,' Greg confirmed, grinning at Blake.
What is he up to now?
'And what do you expect of Matthews?'
'That's between me and him.'
The voice took a second before coming back. 'Fair enough. But where are you?'
'Val's house. You'll have the details within a few seconds, once your tracer has worked its magic.'
The man laughed again. Harder this time. 'That's fucking poetic! Holed up in the home of the partner you stabbed in the back.'
Blake's ears pricked. What was that he said? He wondered if this was something buried long in the past, or if it was something more recent, something connected to all this. Greg shot him a look that said cool your horses, and he did. For now, at least.
'You have my terms. Break them, it's your head.' For the last time, he dropped the phone onto its cradle and turned to Blake. 'He knows you're here. He said that for your benefit, hoping to turn you against me.'
'What if I don't believe you?' Blake continued to shake. He had never been good at confrontation, but wasn't especially confident around spies.
'I don't care what you believe. Fact is, an old pal is on his way and he is going to give us everything he knows about where your old man is. He's a spiller. Always has been. He hands out secrets like they're leaflets.'
'And if he betrays you?'
'Oh, he will. I'm absolutely counting on it.' He rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, obviously exhausted but not letting it affect his performance. 'Now go get the bag. I said I would teach you how to shoot, and I want you ready.'
Chapter 14
Blake had never held a gun before, and the very idea of it threatened him. They were outside, in the cool October air where the greenery extended for miles and birds squawked around in the blue skies. If the gunshot wouldn't frighten them, then what would?
'How loud is this going to be?' he asked, trying to postpone his imminent training.
'It won't be.' Greg nodded at the silencer on the end of the gun. 'What–you never watched an action movie before? It suppresses the gunshot.'
He pretended he understood and even paused to put on his what's-that-noise-face but, sooner or later, he would run out of ways to stall. 'It's heavy.'
Greg grunted, marched up close and lifted the gun with his finger, guiding Blake's arms upwards. 'There you go,' he said, moving Blake's arms and legs to where they should be. 'Now put your weight into that leg. Dig your heel in. Lock your shoulder to take the kick.'
His mind was elsewhere and he didn't truly understand. How could he? In the house behind him, his stepmother was laid on a workshop table in his spy dad's secret basement, and the man who had killed her was stood here teaching him to fire a weapon.
'Take a deep breath,' he went on, snapping Blake out of his thoughts, 'and as you exhale, gently squeeze the trigger. Now strengthen your shoulder. More. More.'
'Yes, alright! I get it! Shoulder! Dammit…' His words carried off with his confidence when he saw the offended look that Greg was giving him. He felt his face flash a scarlet red and urgently played on. 'Aim for the bottle, right?'
Greg gave a short, sharp nod of his head, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
Blake turned, aimed down the barrel of the pistol.
He wasn't fond of this whole idea. Didn't see any need to learn. Nonetheless, he closed his eyes tight, counted to three for confidence, opened them and then drew a deep breath. Like he had been told, he exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The gun made a pop and flung back, collapsing his arms and smashing his nose with the hot metal.
'Ow! Son of a–ow!' He dropped the gun and cupped his bloody nose, irritated by the sound of Greg's laughter. 'It's not funny!'
'It actually is.' He snorted. 'I told you to lock your shoulder.'
'I did!'
'No, you didn't. If you did, that wouldn't have happened.' He pointed to the bloody patch upon his face, still beaming wide. 'Go clean that up and get back here real fast.'
Blake ran inside the house, his head tilted back. Thank God I know where I'm stepping. He headed straight to the kitchen sink, ran the tap and drowned a tea towel under it before pressing it to his nose. Nothing had ever stung quite like it. To him, this was a clarification that he wasn't cut out for this business. Still, Greg was pushing him on and he wanted nothing other than to run home to Rachel and curl up on the sofa with her.
But that was a dream for another day.
When he was all cleaned up he went back outside. although the blood was gone, his nose and the skin surrounding it stung like hell. This, though, was nothing compared to the damage done to his pride.
'You done fart-arsing around?' Greg said with no hint of a warm welcome.
'Thanks. Thanks a lot. Let's just do this and go find my dad.'
Greg stood up and approached Blake. He had a look in his eye that read shame, pity and unimportance. 'You think this is a game?'
'I didn't–'
'This isn't something you can just do or get on with. Your heart needs to be in this, and so does your head, so clear up that noggin and pull your finger out of your arse.' He turned and stepped away, moving back to where they were supposed to be shooting.
'Why though?' Blake felt his own defiance as soon as his tutor stopped dead in his tracks. When he turned, Blake braved up and continued. 'You're the hitman-spy-assassin, whatever you are.' It came out in one desperate breath that sounded like a moan. 'I'm just a bloody salesman. I make presentations. I make coffee for my boss and go home in the evening hoping to read my book before I go to bed. I'm not cut out for this!' As he said the words, he was beginning to realise it for himself. His voice cracked under the threat of tears. 'I just want to go home and see my friend, return to my job. Dad can do whatever he wants.'
Keeping with Killers (The Salingers Book 1) Page 7