The Ninth Step - John Milton #8 (John Milton Thrillers)

by Mark Dawson

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  THE NINTH STEP

  by Mark Dawson

  “Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

  Step Nine

  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

  Part One: The Feather Men

  Chapter One

  LONDON IN NOVEMBER was cold and damp. A heavy bank of grey cloud had settled over the city the day before, and it showed no sign of moving. It had rained without pause for six hours. At first it was the icy-cold drizzle that often afflicted the city at this time of year, but it had very quickly intensified, becoming a deluge that drummed against the roofs of the buildings and rattled the windows and hissed as it crashed down onto the tarmac. Run-off sluiced into the gutters and bubbled out of swamped drains that were already overflowing. Corporal Alex Hicks had seen the forecasts. This was how it was going to be for a week.

  Hicks was on the roof of a jeweller’s on the corner of Green Lanes and Umfreville Road. It was a three-storey building, and he had gained access to the roof by climbing a corroded fire escape that had barely borne his weight. He had been on the roof for three hours, and although he was wearing a Gore-Tex jacket, he was soaked to the skin and freezing cold. The building was a modern construction, facing Victorian terraces on all sides. The ground level of the terrace that was adjacent to Hicks had been given over to a series of shops and businesses: a Turkish restaurant, a solicitor’s office, a pub. Umfreville Road was part of the Ladder, a grid of twenty streets that connected Green Lanes and Wightman Road. It became residential once you had travelled fifty feet, with two complementary rows of terraced accommodation housing reasonably affluent families who couldn’t afford the more expensive properties of Finsbury Park or Islington. Before the first house, and adjacent to Hicks, was a whitewashed one-storey back extension that abutted a shop that labelled itself as Turkish Food Market, a crude TFM logo above the childish drawings of tomatoes, peppers and other fruit that covered the windows. There were two doors. The first, offering access to the property before the extension, was guarded by a metal cage. The second, at the end of the extension, was made from a solid slab of three-inch-thick steel and set back within a recess that made it impossible to see inside unless the observer was directly in line with it.

  Hicks’s ear bud buzzed and he heard the voice of Joseph Gillan over the troop radio. “Eyes open, lads. We’re two minutes away.”

  Gillan and Rafe Connolly had followed the target in separate cars after he had left his property earlier that evening. He had stopped at a café in Dalston for his dinner where, over a plate of diced lamb’s liver, he had given counsel to two of his most senior lieutenants. Hicks and the others knew that the target had an important appointment after dinner, and they had continued the surveillance as he had been driven away. Hicks had been in position atop the roof for three wet hours, waiting to put their plan into action.

  “We’re here,” Gillan said.

  “Copy that.”

  Hicks was shielded from the street below both by the height of his vantage point and by the short parapet that marked the edge of the roof. He raised himself onto his elbows and glanced over the edge, looking to the south towards the wide green space of Finsbury Park. He saw a car slow and indicate a left turn. Gillan’s Ford was three cars behind it and, rather than follow the target into Umfreville Road, he continued on. The next road to the north was one way only, so Gillan would continue to Cavendish Road, follow that to Wightman Road, and then approach the target on foot from the west.

  “Unit, report.”

  Hicks heard Alistair Woodward’s voice: “In place.”

  “This is Gillan. Going around.”

  “Connolly here. In position.”

  Hicks squeezed the wireless pressel that he had fixed to the stock of his rifle, opening the channel. “This is Hicks. Ready.”

  “Weapons free. Take them out.”

  Hicks shuffled down the roof until he was in line with the second door. He glanced to the left, toward Wightman Road, and saw Woodward. He was wearing a long jacket and a beanie that was pulled down to just above the line of his brow. The coat was loose enough to obscure the Heckler and Koch 416 A5 that was supported by a length of cord that had been looped over his shoulder. The carbine was the D10RS sub-compact variation with the shorter 10.4-inch barrel. It was chambered for 5.56×45mm NATO rounds and was the assault weapon favoured by the Regiment. It was lightweight, easy to fire and reliable. Perfect for what they had in mind.

  The target was a man named Mustafa Öztürk. He stepped out of the car. A second man hurried alongside and raised an umbrella to shelter him from the teeming deluge. Öztürk hobbled ahead, the man with the umbrella ignoring the fact that he was being soaked so that he could ensure that his boss remained dry.

  Hicks touched the pressel and spoke into the throat mic. “Ajax is in play. Repeat, Ajax is in play.”

  “Copy that.”

  Öztürk limped ahead on his prosthetic leg. The police around here called him the Godfather of Green Lanes. He had been the leader of one of the most brutal crime syndicates in London for the last twenty years. Despite the fact that he was lame after losing a leg in a car accident in Turkey five years earlier, he had relied upon a mixture of fear and intimidation to rule the north-eastern stretches of the city. There were rumours in the cafés and bars around and about that his terraced house was equipped with a torture chamber behind a soundproof door, with meat hooks fitted to the ceiling and wired into the mains. The stories had it that Öztürk’s victims would be strung up from the hooks and shocked between the frenzied beatings that he and his henchmen doled out. The police had tried for years to bring him to justice, but the man—known locally as “Uncle”—was too clever for them and had swatted their best efforts away. His impunity just added to his mystique. Uncle was quickly assuming the status of a local legend.

  Hicks and Gillan had parked two stolen cars in the street adjacent to the second door. It meant that Öztürk would have to park fifteen feet away and then walk to get inside. They had timed it, taking his limp into account, and reckoned it would give them another ten seconds. It didn’t seem like much, but when you were planning an operation of this nature, each additional second was a gift.

  Hicks slid around just a little so that he could bring his own HK417 to bear. He had the version with a Leupold Mark 4 scope. He cradled the forestock in his left hand, pressed the butt into the cleft between his shoulder and cheek, and reached around with his right hand so that he could slide his finger through the trigger guard. He felt the cold touch of the trigger against the pad of his index finger and squeezed until he felt the resistance.

  The general had wanted to get to Öztürk for months, but planning the operation had been difficult. They had scouted his property, wondering if they might take him there, but they had quickly discounted it. The front door was so well fortified that they would have had to use explosives to breach it. They had considered knocking a hole in the rear wall of the property so that they could get in, but that, too, had been discounted. Too noisy. Too slow. They would wait until he ventured out onto the street.

  Öztürk was guarded by another two men. Both were shaven-headed and muscular. Both would be armed. They flanked him on either side as he hobbled down the pavement to the second door. One of the guards, the one ne
arest to the wall and on the other side of Öztürk to Hicks, went ahead and knocked on the door. Hicks pressed his eye to the scope and tracked him, placing the guard squarely within the centre of the targeting reticule. There was a pause, the man looking up at a CCTV camera that had been fixed above the door and then leaning forward and speaking into an intercom. Words were exchanged with someone inside the building, and then, the careful security measures satisfied, the door opened. A third man appeared from inside, stepping out into the recessed doorway.

  Öztürk stepped inside the building. His men followed him, and the door was closed behind them.

  Hicks reported: “They’re inside.”

  He waited, aiming at the door. Öztürk visited this building several times a week. It was where he collected and stored the money he made from the sales of his product. He was careful, never following a routine, and they had kept him under surveillance for the last few days so that they could be sure of his plans. Hicks had camped out on the roof for several hours every night, just waiting for him to visit.

  The door to the building opened.

  “Stand ready,” Hicks said into the mic.

  He was aware of the lights of a car in his peripheral vision as it drew to a stop fifty feet along Umfreville Road. He glanced at it: an Audi. Alistair Woodward’s car.

  One of Öztürk’s bodyguards stepped outside.

  Öztürk was next.

  The second bodyguard followed him, this one carrying a large sports bag.

  Hicks changed his aim and spoke one word into his mic. “Firing.”

  He started to count.

  One, two, three.

  He pulled the trigger on four.

  The gun recoiled into his shoulder, but he had anticipated it and was able to accommodate it easily. His 417 was chambered in 7.62mm, a heavier round that was generally used for sniping or when more muzzle velocity and penetration was needed. The man in the doorway fell, clutching his gut. Hicks had not attempted a head shot; he was confident that he would have been able to make it, even with the poor visibility in these awful conditions, but there was no need to risk a miss. That might have meant that the door would have been closed and their chance gone. Far better to plan it out this way: the man had fallen in the doorway, blocking the access point and making it impossible to shut the door.

  Five, six.

  Öztürk shouted in panic.

  Seven, eight.

  Hicks shortened his aim, placed the reticule between Öztürk’s shoulder blades, and pulled the trigger. Uncle staggered against the wall as if he had been shoved in the back. He fell to his knees, one hand reaching down to prevent himself from falling flat on his face.

  Eight, nine, ten.

  The remaining guard was good. He realised that they were being sniped from above and immediately fell into cover behind the parked cars. Hicks held his aim, waiting for him to risk a glance up at his position, but he knew that he wouldn’t be needed. Alistair Woodward was on the same side of the road as Öztürk and his men. He had been twenty feet away when Hicks had opened fire and, in the seconds that had elapsed, he had allowed his coat to part so that he could bring his own HK to bear. The man was directly in front of him; the car that he had chosen to shelter him from Hicks now prevented any possibility of him evading Woodward. He fired in two short volleys. The man was hit, and Hicks watched as he fell out of cover into the gap between two cars, toppling over onto his back, his arms splayed out wide and a pistol falling from his fingers.

  Eleven, twelve, thirteen.

  “Clear.”

  Woodward turned into the doorway, his HK raised and ready, and went inside.

  The Audi raced forward. It skidded to a stop, the passenger door opened, and the general stepped out into the rain. Higgins was a man of normal height and build, unremarkable in the way that most special forces soldiers were unremarkable. He was in his mid-sixties, but he was as fit and active as a man twenty years younger. He bore the years well. He passed between the two parked cars and approached Öztürk. The Turk was on his side now, his legs lethargically scraping against the paving slabs as he tried to crawl away.

  Higgins took a pistol from inside his jacket, pushed the muzzle against the top of the man’s head and fired. Öztürk dropped flat to the ground and lay there, unmoving.

  Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one.

  Woodward appeared in the doorway again. He was carrying another bag, similar to the one that the bodyguard had been carrying. That bag was on the pavement, and the general went over to collect it. Both he and Woodward went around the parked cars and into the waiting Audi. Gillan was behind the wheel and he put the engine into first and fed in the revs. The car leapt forward, taking a sharp left into Green Lanes and disappearing quickly from view.

  Thirty seconds from start to finish. Very efficient. The general would be pleased with that.

  Hicks collected the two spent shell casings from the roof and put them in his pocket. He removed the rifle’s bipod and barrel, put the component parts into the bag he used to carry it, and zipped it closed. Hicks crossed the roof to the ladder and descended into the empty yard below.

  Chapter Two

  THEY SPLIT UP and travelled back to Hereford separately. Hicks had parked his Range Rover a short walk away from Green Lanes. He put his equipment into the back and was underway as the sound of sirens could be heard from the grid of streets behind him. Hereford was one hundred and forty miles to the north-west of London, and the journey passed without incident. The M4 motorway was clear and he made excellent time, shaving fifteen minutes off the usual three-hour duration.

  He was on the outskirts of the city, in sight of the illuminated spire of the cathedral, when he heard the first reports of the London shootings on the radio. The newsreader said that three men had been murdered in what the police were describing as an eruption of the violence between the Turkish and Eastern European gangs that ruled the heroin and cocaine trade in that part of north London. There was no suggestion that the police had anything useful to investigate, and Hicks was not concerned. He knew that they had been thorough in their planning, meticulous in the performance of the plan, and conscientious in the clean-up and exfiltration. The general had bestowed a sobriquet on the unit that had proven to be resilient. He called them the Feather Men, on account of their light touch during operations and the fact that they never left evidence that might later betray them.

  The unit always met at the Cock of Tupsley. It was a pub to the north-west of Hereford, just off the A438 and a mile before the village of Lugwardine. It was a large white building surrounded by a broad asphalt parking area and a wide lawn. It was owned by a brewery, and, next to a sign that advertised special deals for those who booked their Christmas meals now, they had made a feature of a dray that was loaded with barrels bearing the brewer’s corporate logo. Hicks would not normally have chosen that kind of pub for a social event, but this was not social, and the proprietor was an old friend of the general from the Regiment who guaranteed them privacy and discretion in return for a very small shaving of their profits.

  It was just before eleven, and there were two taxis parked next to the main entrance of the pub to collect customers who had enjoyed the hospitality too much to drive. Others headed for their cars and drove back to the city. Hicks parked next to Joseph Gillan’s Maserati, collected his equipment from the back, and walked around to the separate staff entrance at the back of the building. There was a flight of stairs immediately inside, and he ascended these to the first floor. There was a set of toilets up here, together with two function rooms. The unit had the exclusive use of the second of these rooms. It was the smaller of the two, with three six-person tables and chairs, a large fireplace, three armchairs and a window that looked down onto the children’s play area and the pub’s beer garden.

  Gillan, Rafe Connolly and Sebastian Shepherd were already there, half-finished pints on the table before them. Their bulky equipment bags were on the floor next to the fireplace. Hicks placed his b
ag next to theirs.

  “Any issues?” Connolly asked.

  “None.”

  “You see the police?”

  “Heard them as I was driving away. I left it clean.”

  “Sweet.”

  “It was on the news,” Hicks said.

  “When?”

  “Five minutes ago. They’re saying it was gang related.”

  “Suits us,” Gillan said.

  “It was clean,” Shepherd reiterated. “They’ll be wasting their time.”

  The others indicated their agreement. Hicks slumped down in one of the vacant armchairs. It had been a long day and he realised that he was tired.

  “What was it like to lose your cherry?” Gillan asked.

  “I have done that before,” Hicks said.

  “In the Regiment, maybe. But not with us.”

  “It was fine,” Hicks said. “The plan was good. You follow the plan, you don’t get problems. We followed the plan.”

  “Listen to him,” Gillan said. “Sounds like a veteran already.”

  “You want a beer?” Connolly asked.

  Hicks was thirsty. “I’d love one.”

  “Bar’s downstairs,” he responded with a grin. “Same again for us, too.”

  “Come on,” Hicks protested feebly. “I’m done in.”

  “New boy gets the drinks. Chop-chop.”

  There was no point in putting up a fight. He was the newest member of the unit, and, because of that, he had come to expect a little ribbing. That had certainly been the case. The Americans he had worked with when he was in the Regiment had called it hazing. It was the same the world over. No sense in letting it bother him. He levered himself out of the chair, took his wallet out of his pocket and went downstairs.

  #

  GENERAL RICHARD HIGGINS had arrived by the time Hicks returned with the drinks. Higgins had been driven north by Alistair Woodward, and now they had taken two of the armchairs by the fire. Hicks closed the door with his foot and brought his tray of beers to the table. He had bought six pints and distributed them to the men. No one thanked him; instead, Shepherd suggested that he had forgotten the crisps and should go back to the bar to get them. Hicks told him to piss off and get them for himself. Shepherd glared at him, daring him to repeat the suggestion, before he fell back in his chair with a chuckle and told him he was just yanking his chain. Hicks shook his head and sat down with his drink. The men were all experienced soldiers and none of them was younger than forty, but there was still an undercurrent of juvenile humour that was occasionally exposed. The operation had been stressful, and Hicks knew that it would presage a night of boozing. He thought of his wife and kids, miles away in Cambridge, and wondered how quickly he would be able to excuse himself without drawing down more of their abuse for not getting involved.