by Michael Kerr
“He’ll use distraction, Matt. Expect him to consider every possible avenue, then to employ a means of getting to you that wouldn’t even be considered.”
“Such as?”
“I wish I knew. Put yourself in his place and think how he will try to develop a plan of attack based on the belief that you are ringed with protection. If you can figure how you would do it, then it could well be what he will attempt.”
“Thanks, Beth. I’ll give it some thought. I want this to be a done deal, so that we can get down to some serious exercise.”
“And I thought it was my mind you admired.”
“It’s the whole package. Mind, body and spirit. You know I want us to be together...Don’t you?”
“Yes, so keep that shot-up body out of harm’s way. You’re already damaged goods.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You do that, Matt. Take care.”
“I will. I’ll call you tonight.”
After hanging up, Matt went to the stairs and made his way up one step at a time, cursing his cast as he held the banister rail for support. As per usual, he showered with his able leg inside the bath and the encumbered limb outside it, ramrod straight. Just being able to mount the stairs and shower was progress, though. He could now sleep in his own bed, but had left the sofa bed made up in the lounge for daytime use.
Time was dragging like the hands of a watched clock. It was unnerving and made him jittery. He wanted the present predicament to be resolved, one way or the other. Having his life on hold was an unacceptable state of affairs. He was as much a prisoner as Dominic Santini. Gary Noon had got them both pinned down, with nothing to do but wait until he decided to make his move. It was a war of attrition; one which Matt found hard to come to terms with. In his job, which as with Lester Little sometimes involved the squad doing their own witness protection, he should have been well used to being keyed up, waiting, not knowing if or when a sudden onslaught might be made by an unknown assailant. But this was personal. He was not part of an organised team guarding a witness whose life was in danger. Being the actual subject at risk was a whole new experience. Noon had outwitted him once, almost killed him, and had shown that he was adept at taking out his intended targets and making his escape.
Back downstairs, Matt made fresh coffee and considered what Beth had said. He sat, mug cupped in hands, eyes closed as he reviewed every single scrap of information he had on Noon. He incorporated what he considered to be the other man’s personality with his own, clearing his mind of all else as he strove to find, to be Noon. It took a long time. Noon was a complex individual.
When it came, it was with a rush. Matt’s body actually jerked as though an electric current had been passed through it. With his eyes still tightly closed, he felt the anger, resentment and frustration that filled his enemy’s heart and mind. Gary Noon was unfulfilled. His formative years had been saturated in shame and broken dreams. His childhood experiences had patterned a pitiless, morose and bitter human being. The acts of self-mutilation and destroying other people’s lives – and in so doing denying them any future – pacified him and dampened the sense of...of what? The unworthiness he felt? To snuff out the spark of existence in others raised his self-esteem to the point where he considered himself godlike, totally in control and all-powerful. He was a man consumed by violence, venting his own torment in the only way he could find temporary respite and express himself. Thinking as he believed Noon did, Matt considered his options. He, had he been Noon, could wait, back-off, and know that with the passage of time the police and Santini would drop their guard and consider the threat lessened, or even nonexistent. No! Matt felt the psycho’s urgency; the deep need to act and respond to the challenge. Noon would watch the watchers, become au fait with the opposition’s methodology, and then use that knowledge and find a way through a crack in their defences. The killer was a consummate professional with an impressive c.v. He could adapt, use versatility, and had shown his ingenuity in taking out the safe house, then Penny Page, and most recently, Frank Santini and two of his men. He entered protected territory with frightening ease, and so far had a hundred percent success rate in his malefic endeavours.
Matt opened his eyes, raised the mug of coffee and took a mouthful, grimacing at the taste of the cold beverage. He had been lost in the role of Gary Noon for almost an hour. And yet he still had no definitive answers, only a certain knowledge that he was in great danger from a man who crossed all boundaries and who had survived and profited by being better than those he came up against. Matt had the feeling that holing-up was painting himself into a corner with no way out. Images of a C4 bomb being dropped from a light aircraft to demolish his house flashed through his mind. Nothing could be ruled out, however seemingly preposterous. There were no rules of engagement. Noon was a master of improvisation. The trap set for the man could quite easily work against Matt. Noon had the advantage of knowing where Matt was, and could plan his attack at leisure.
Checking the clip of his Beretta, Matt decided to not just have the pistol close at hand, but to keep it on his person. He donned his shoulder rig and slipped the gun into it. Just the weight against his side, high up under his left armpit, was both comforting and reassuring. Like a kid who had just left a Saturday morning matinee at the local cinema, he practised quick draws. He was fast, had no misgivings as to his accuracy, but did not feel the odds-on-favourite to survive a second encounter with Noon, who would not meet him face on, as the fictional gunfighters of the celluloid screen had done in a thousand hackneyed Western movies of yesteryear. Ambush was the preferred technique of this one-of-a-kind killer. It was simple, Matt thought. Noon would try to draw him out, to stage-manage him into a position of maximum vulnerability. His problem would be to recognise the subterfuge in time to avoid becoming another scalp on the bastard’s belt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
NICK could not help but cry out as he regained consciousness. The mind-jarring pain in his fractured jaw reminded him that Tiny had put his lights out. He was face down on cold concrete, and sensed that he was naked. His hands were bound behind him, and flex or rope bit deeply into his wrists, cutting off the circulation. He attempted to move his head, only to suffer a restriction of his airway, making him wheeze as he laboured for breath. He assessed the situation. His legs were bent up at right angles from the knees, tied at the ankles and connected to a noose around his neck, which left him hog-tied and in control of his own fate. The weight of his legs was pulling the noose ever tighter. Rolling onto his side, he found the solid support needed to keep from being the device of his own death by slow strangulation.
“Very good,” Dom said, stepping forward and kicking Nick in the stomach.
The sudden pain that flared in his solar plexus caused Nick to double up. His head snapped forward in a reflex action and he choked as the noose constricted. Red spots danced in front of his eyes, and his oxygen-starved brain produced exploding chrysanthemums of golden petals that glittered brightly then dissolved into blackness. Fireworks! Nick thought fleetingly. Somebody’s lighting fucking fireworks.
He came to, again, this time spluttering and retching as cold water was thrown on his face. His hands were still tied together behind him, but the noose was gone. He was no longer on the floor, but sitting upright on a straight-backed wooden chair, with duct tape pinioning him to it.
“Wake up, pig, it’s time to squeal,” Dom said as Nick’s eyes flickered open and fought to focus.
Dom was sat facing him, close up. Tiny was standing to one side, casually picking at his teeth with a wood toothpick that looked incongruous in the ham-sized hand wielding it. Dom’s right hand rested in his lap, a lock knife held loosely in his grasp; the serrated, stainless steel blade on show for Nick to see.
“What the fuck’s happening, boss? Why’re you doing this?” Nick asked in a hoarse voice, squeezing out the words against the pain, hardly moving his lips, conscious of the muscles in his neck bunching and twit
ching.
Dom’s hand came up in a blur. The tip of the knife’s blade entered Nick’s left nostril, to be drawn up and back, laying his nose open to just below the bridge. Nick instinctively pulled back, the front legs of the chair came up off the floor, and the back of his head struck the wall eighteen inches behind him before the chair dropped back down. Nick sucked in air as blood spurted down the lower half of his face and dripped off his chin.
“Give it up, cop,” Dom said, his voice cold and dispassionate. “Real name, now. And be aware that if I even think you’re lying to me, I’ll cut your fucking ears off. Am I making myself clear?”
Nick nodded as he licked at the salty tasting blood that ran down over his upper lip to lubricate his sand-dry mouth. “Nick Marino,” he said.
Dom smiled. “That’s better,” he said in a more conciliatory tone. “Now listen up good, Nick. This is shit or bust time. If you come clean and answer all my questions, Tiny here will end it quickly for you with a bullet. Fuck me around or hold out on me, and you’ll still talk before I’m done, but you’ll die hard and slow. It’s your choice.”
“Nothing’s ever that simple,” Nick said.
Dom raised the knife again, to pause with the point of the blade poised unwavering, a fraction of an inch from Nick’s left eyeball. “Explain,” he said.
“I’ve got to call in every twenty-four hours. If I don’t, the cavalry come over the hill. They know where I am. And if I go missing, like Joey did, you’ll have half the Met in your face.”
“When are you due to make contact?”
Nick focused on the bull’s eye of a dart board that hung on the wall facing him across the basement. He knew Dom well enough to discount the promise of a quick end if he talked. The bastard liked to see people suffer. He let his mind go back to Hereford, to the training that had served him so well for the six years he was in the SAS. He had been taught to absorb pain, to withdraw within himself and disassociate mind from body. He imagined a room, entered it, swung the heavy vault door closed behind him and isolated himself from his physical surroundings. He became apart from the reality of his circumstances.
Dom could not contain his temper as his questions were met with what he considered to be dumb insolence. He used the knife, and then employed a cordless power drill to bore holes through the back of Nick’s hands and then his kneecaps. Over an hour later, he took a break. Nick was unconscious, but not mortally wounded. He had not uttered another word, but had been unable to quash the screams that were an instinctive by-product of such suffering.
“He ain’t no ordinary cop, boss,” Tiny said, feeling a certain admiration and respect for the naked, blood-coated man, who had somehow turned off an internal switch and resolutely refrained from answering any of Santini’s questions.
Dom leaned back, dripping with sweat and spattered with the undercover cop’s blood.
“Stop him from bleeding to death, Tiny,” Dom said as he got up and walked over to the steps that led up to the ground floor of the house. “I’ll try again, later. We need to know what he’s told his keepers.”
“But how can you break him, boss? Pain doesn’t work.”
Dom paused on the stairs and smiled. “We try a different approach. I’ll be back in half an hour. I want him conscious, ready and waiting for round two.”
Nick had almost broken. Santini’s mistake had been to inflict too much pain too quickly. After most of his fingernails had been removed, Nick had been left with a reduced capacity to feel much of anything else. He had concentrated on the pulsating agony that travelled up through his hands, arms and shoulders from the raw, bleeding tips of his mutilated finger ends. Feeding off that pain, he found that what followed was no worse, and could be endured.
Now, conscious again, only Tiny was with him, pacing up and down, mopping his perspiring, shaven skull with a handkerchief.
Nick coughed, letting out a loud grunt as his pounding jaw jagged and caused fresh bolts of torment.
“Are you a fuckin’ idiot, man?” Tiny asked, wheeling to face him.
Nick raised his head to meet the giant hoodlum’s gaze, and shrugged. “No, Tiny,” he said, his voice enervated, hardly more than a whisper, yet possessing a quality of resolve. “I’m going to die, so I might as well do it with a little dignity. I wouldn’t be happy letting that greaseball force me to give him the right time of day.”
“But¯”
“Get out, Tiny, while you can,” Nick interrupted. “Santini is going down, and soon. There are divers looking for the bodies he’s had dumped. With what I’ve already passed on, he’s on borrowed time. It’s all closing in on him and everyone on his payroll. It’s a ring of fire, Tiny, and by the time he smells the smoke, it’ll be too late. Believe me. He’s already a cop killer. You don’t waste cops and walk away from it. Think of number one and don’t get blown to shit for a lost cause. When an Armed Response Unit hits this place, they won’t be talking, or be too worried about taking prisoners. Anything that moves will be fair game. And even if you did survive, which I doubt, you’d spend the rest of your days wishing you could go back to this moment in time and change what’s about to happen. You’re on a sinking ship, and I’m the only lifeboat left.”
“Meanin’?” Tiny asked. He believed the cop. Instinct told him that this wasn’t just a desperate man grabbing at straws to save his arse. If he didn’t make contact, then it figured that they would try to get him out, using whatever measures necessary, however extreme.
“That it’s decision time, big guy,” Nick replied. “When your numbnut boss comes back, put a bullet in his head. Then you get the chance of a new life. With Santini gone, you’re home free. The organisation falls apart without him.”
“You haven’t got the authority to cut me a deal, cop.”
“I’m all you’ve got, Tiny. Think about it. But don’t take too long. This offer dies with me.”
Tiny wasn’t dumb. His life was littered with what had been a catalogue of hard decisions. As a teenager, boxing had kept him off the streets and away from his peers who, in the main, were now inside, dead, or still back in the old hood, doing whatever had to be done to get the next fix and find a few hours’ peace from life’s woes. He had escaped by being handy with his fists, spotted by a youth club leader who ran a gym, and given a purpose and the encouragement to stay clean and earn an honest living. It had been Frank Santini who pressed him into throwing a fight, back when he was only two bouts away from coming up against Frank Bruno, who he knew he could take. He would have then got a crack at Tyson and made serious money. But Santini senior had put an arm and a leg on the underdog on that long ago night. Tiny’s choice had been simple: take a fat bribe and lay down in the ninth round, or expect to have an accident that would have left him drooling in a care home with yoghurt for brains. He had taken a sucker punch and made Frank a lot of money. The only upside had been that his physical presence and ability to use his fists better than most, got him noticed by the crime lord, who took him on the payroll.
“Nice try, man, but I’m not buyin’ it,” Tiny said to Nick. “If you think I’m dealin’ with a fuckin’ dead man, you’ve got your wires crossed.”
“Smarten up, Tiny. Dom hasn’t got his father’s brains. You’re working for a moron who everybody wants out of the way. Get real and pick the winning side. He’s history waiting to happen. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
With each and every second that passed, changing events were leading to an outcome that could not have been predicted.
Jack McClane pulled the plug on the stakeout at Marion Peterson’s house. His considered opinion was that she was at minimal risk from Noon. The killer had bigger fish to fry and no viable reason to target her. It was apparent that monitoring Dominic Santini’s and DI Barnes’s every move was his priority, if Noon had not had second thoughts and managed to skip the country and be lost to them.
The revelation was at once frightening, monumental and life-changing. Gary had un
intentionally allowed another person to matter, or to be more specific, had somehow been pervaded by Marion’s presence and personality, to the extent that he sensed a drastic modification to the separateness he had sustained for so many years. Marion had become an important element in his thoughts and plans, opening channels that until now had been blocked like furred arteries hardly able to feed blood to a diseased heart. She was the mother he had been denied; the lover who had led him down a fast-flowing river of desire to bathe in a shining sea, and maybe the true friend who he could not have previously imagined. She was the person he now dared to contemplate sharing a future with. He felt a strange blend of new and alien emotions, all overshadowed by a reticence; a fear of possessing something of such worth that its loss was beyond comprehension. Was it possible that he could actually need her?
They had spent the better part of a week together, talking, laughing, and making love until they were both sore, weak at the knees and drained of strength. From the second day, he had known that he would not kill her. She was besotted by him, and to be loved was gratifying and self-indulgent. Love was also power. He allowed her to leave the house, alone, to go shopping, which also kept the watchful plod content in the mistaken belief that all was well.
It was DCI Tom Bartlett that phoned Marion to tell her the police presence outside the house was now considered unnecessary.
“Are you sure I’ll be safe?” Marion asked with measured concern, fighting not to gasp as Gary gripped her sagging breasts from behind and teased her nipples to tumescence with his fingers and thumbs.
“His intentions are known to us, Ms. Peterson,” Tom said, hoping to Christ that Jack had made the right decision. “He has no reason to wish you any harm. Other people are at far greater risk. I suggest you try to put the episode behind you and get on with your life. If at any time you feel in danger, or if he should contact you, don’t hesitate to phone us immediately.”