Bombproof

by Michael Robotham

  In his mind’s eye, he twists and swings his left fist, fighting for his life, but he doesn’t have the opportunity. A second blow strikes him high across the chest and ribs break with a crack. His knees collapse. Nadia sobs.

  Lying face down, Sami turns his cheek and sees someone standing next to Nadia. Wrapping her hair in his fist. Jerking her head. Telling her to be quiet. It’s a face he recognises, but not the person he expects.

  It’s the kid from the cell next door on Sami’s last night in prison. The one who couldn’t stop talking; the one who blathered and big-noted himself saying his old man was going to post bail for him and how he’d be eating dinner at the Ivy by the next night.

  He’s looping a belt around Nadia’s forearm. Pulling it tight. He taps the end of the needle and pinches skin on her forearm, looking for a vein.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ groans Sami, through clenched teeth. ‘You remember me.’

  Ray Jnr pauses. Recognition comes with a twisted smile as though they’re sharing a joke.

  ‘Well, fuck me!’ He raises a revolver and scratches an itch on his cheek. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Sami glances at Nadia whose face tells a story of confusion.

  ‘I’m here to get my sister.’

  Ray Jnr jerks Nadia’s head back; looks at her face and then back at Sami. He can’t see the family resemblance.

  ‘Are you sure you got the right girl?’

  Sami nods, sucking in a breath.

  Nadia looks at the needle almost lovingly. Her cheeks are hollow and her eyes look huge. Sweating and trembling through withdrawal, she wants another hit.

  ‘Well, this is a turn up for the books,’ says Ray Jnr, pulling up a chair and straddling it backwards. ‘Why are you trying to blackmail my father?’

  ‘I’m not. He sent me here.’

  Ray gives one of those prissy little laughs like there’s nobody in the world who’s going to believe a story like that.

  ‘It’s true. He’s outside somewhere.’

  ‘You’re trying to get money out of him.’

  Sami shakes his head and drags his body up. Every breath lights a fire in his chest. He closes his eyes and tries to do a re-cut on what’s happened. Imagines a different outcome where he’s not in pain, not in trouble, not going to die. Opening them again, he seeks out Nadia.

  ‘How are you, Princess? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. ’

  Her mouth opens. She can’t find any words. Instead she falls to her knees and wraps her arms around him. Sami can feel the furnace heat of her cheeks, the dampness of her hands. Her pupils are like pinpricks.

  ‘I missed you,’ she whispers.

  ‘I’m here now.’

  Ray Jnr is spinning the pistol around his finger. ‘Why did you steal the shooter?’

  ‘Murphy told me to do it. He had Nadia.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘He needed the gun back.’

  Ray Jnr blinks slowly. His thin lips seemed rouged against the paleness of his face. He begins to speak in soft insinuating tones.

  ‘You remember that night in prison? You let me talk. I didn’t want to close my eyes. I wasn’t scared.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You think I was scared?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve never done this before, but I’m ready, you know.’

  ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘I’ve made some mistakes but this is going to fix them. I’m going to clean up my act. I’m not going to prison. Not without the gun or the drugs.’

  ‘We won’t say anything,’ says Sami.

  Ray straightens his arm, aiming the pistol at Sami’s head. ‘Don’t fucking interrupt me. Let me give you a news flash, mate, your sister is a junkie, you’re a loser and I’m the shit who has to kill you both.’

  ‘You don’t have to kill us.’

  ‘What else do you expect me to do?’

  ‘Let us go. I had a deal with Murphy - the gun for my sister.’

  Ray Jnr laughs. Still aiming the pistol at Sami, he collects the Beretta from the floor and tucks it into his belt. Then he folds an old blanket around his own pistol, holding both ends together with his left hand to muffle the sound. Ray Jnr places the pistol to Sami’s head. Nadia’s mouth opens to scream. Ray Jnr hesitates, lowers the pistol. Raises it again. Walks to the window. Turns.

  Sami doesn’t hear what he’s saying. He’s too busy looking down the barrel of the gun. It’s huge. Gaping.

  Sami closes his eyes. The hammer falls. An explosion detonates within his head.

  ‘Don’t do it. Please,’ he hears himself say, but maybe the words don’t come out.

  61

  Bones McGee has been lying prone in bushes on the eastern side of the hospital for twenty minutes, not far from where Sami Macbeth disappeared inside.

  He couldn’t get a clean shot on the bridge and followed Macbeth for more than a mile after the kid took off. Now he’s cornered in the hospital and has to come out sooner or later.

  The breeze dislodges droplets from the branches, pattering on Bones’ oilskin jacket. The ground is wet, but the trees and undergrowth offer him plenty of cover. He has a different rifle tonight, his favourite - the L96 - the British Army’s sniper rifle of choice.

  This time Macbeth isn’t getting away. And Tony Murphy’s name is also pencilled on the dance card. Murphy has blackmailed Bones for the last time. No more jumping through hoops. No more belittling calls. Two clean shots and the fat lady can sing a requiem.

  Murphy said he was meeting Macbeth to do the exchange. They’re probably inside now. Murphy will have brought some muscle - dumb-as-dogshit ex-cons bulked up in prison weight rooms - but they won’t see Bones until it’s too late.

  Right now he’s feeling pretty relaxed, but the old excitement is growing. It’s almost no challenge to take someone down from this range, but this isn’t a contest, he tells himself, still smarting over last night when he took out the wrong target. The image of the dead van driver has been playing on his mind. He has to squeeze his eyes shut, willing the picture to change.

  Opening them again, he sees a flash of torchlight cross a window and a silhouette against a broken pane. Someone is waving a gun around, either Murphy or Macbeth. One shot to the neck and they feel nothing again.

  Bones tugs the hood of his rain jacket further over his head to block out any distractions. He gathers up the rifle, lowers the bipod, and tucks the high impact plastic stock against his shoulder. His bottom lip brushes the smoothness of the stock as though lingering over a kiss.

  He exhales slowly, holds his breath. Smoothly tightens his finger in the trigger guard.

  62

  A cab drops Ruiz on the northern approach to Putney Bridge. He hangs back for a few minutes, surveying the scene, looking for anything untoward or out of place. Then he sets off along the footpath looking for Kate Tierney.

  He calls her mobile.

  ‘I’ve lost Sami,’ she says, urgently. ‘He was on the bridge and then he started running. It was like he was chasing someone.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘I don’t know the name of the road. You have to cross the bridge and turn right.’

  ‘Lower Richmond Road.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Ruiz follows her directions and finds her waiting outside a service station, her hands deep in her coat pockets and wet hair plastered to her forehead.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She nods, bracing her shoulders against the cold. Her high heels make clicking sounds on the concrete. She describes Sami’s sudden appearance at the Savoy. He was with someone; a man in black, who kept his left hand in his pocket.

  ‘How did Sami look?’

  ‘Scared. Trapped.’

  ‘He didn’t say anything?’

  Kate shakes her head.

  ‘Why would Sami come back to the hotel?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She glances along the road in the direction that he disappeared. ‘Wha
t was he running from?’

  Ruiz wants to answer her, but his mind is churning in a kind of underwater panic like a fish caught in a net. Puffa and Toby Streak are dead. Somebody is cleaning up, removing witnesses, tying up loose ends. Sami and his sister could well be next.

  Murphy or Garza - it doesn’t matter any more. When Ruiz was married to Miranda, she used to argue that the workings of the world were all connected and everything happened for a reason.

  Ruiz would try to reason with her, talking himself into a spluttering, head-shaking tirade of frustration, but Miranda wouldn’t concede an inch or lose her temper or change her mood. She lived in Laura Ashley-land, he told her, while never admitting that he wanted to live there too. Her world was nicer; gentler. And the sex could still be dirty.

  His phone vibrates in a pocket full of coins.

  DI Fiona Taylor has her hand cupped over the mouthpiece, trying not to be overheard. Ruiz is listening to her distractedly. Ballistics has tested the shell casing and the computer threw up a match.

  ‘It set off some sort of internal alarm at Vauxhall Cross.’ She’s talking about MI6. ‘Two carloads of spooks arrived at the lab and seized the shell casing. Now they’re here. They want to talk to you.’

  ‘Why is MI6 interested?’

  ‘The shell matches one used to murder a journalist in Belfast nine years ago.’

  ‘The same gun?’

  ‘The weapon was supposed to be decommissioned eighteen months ago by the IRA. The destruction was independently verified. The witnesses are beyond reproach.’

  ‘How then …?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Are they listening to this call?’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Tell them they can wipe their feet on me tomorrow.’

  Ruiz is about to hang up when in the distance beyond the houses there is a bright flash in the darkness of Putney Common, too low for lightning. The sound of a shot reaches him a fraction of a second later. He’s already moving.

  ‘What was that?’ asks Fiona Taylor, still on the phone.

  A second flash lights up the darkness.

  ‘Shots fired,’ says Ruiz. ‘Lower Richmond Road - near the Common, I need back-up.’

  In the same breath he turns and yells to Kate. ‘You stay here. Don’t move. The police are coming.’

  63

  The hole in Ray Jnr’s throat is no bigger than a cigarette burn, but the matching one at the back of his skull is the size of a fist. His shirt is soaked with blood, which leaks across the linoleum in a black pool that has reached the toe of Sami’s left shoe.

  Ray had hesitated, trying to decide if he was going to shoot Sami. Then he lowered the gun and started talking again, saying that Sami should get Nadia out and he’d try to square it with Murphy. Arrange a deal. Do his best. He was in mid-sentence, looking out the window when the high velocity bullet took out his throat.

  Sami crouches next to the body, feeling for a pulse. Ray’s mouth relaxes and his tongue peeks out as though he wants to say something.

  Nadia is still sitting on the chair. One hand is clamped across her mouth as though trying to muffle a scream. The other kneads the front of her dress into a ball in her fist. Her body seems to spasm.

  Sami scampers to the window, peers out a corner of the watery glass. A bullet punches into the frame beside his head. He pulls away. Stays low. Crawls to the body and pulls the semi-automatic from Ray’s belt. He and Nadia crouch together, breathing the same air.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he asks.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Can you walk?’

  She nods.

  ‘We have to get out of here.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You got nothing to be sorry about.’

  She pulls at his arm, wanting him to listen. ‘They did things to me.’

  ‘I know. It’s not important any more.’

  Sami doesn’t want to listen. He wants to pretend it never happened.

  Nadia pulls away from him and crawls across the linoleum towards Ray Jnr. His hair is too short to grab in her fists. She needs both hands to lift his head and smash it on the floor. She does it again and again.

  Sami has to unhook her fingers and hold her arms down. He can smell her snot and tears.

  ‘He raped me,’ Nadia sobs.

  Sami sees her eyes soften from a woman to a girl’s and shine with tears. He’s too scared to touch her but can feel his own tears coming - the ones he didn’t shed for his mother or his father. Images flood his mind of Ray Jnr with his pants down, between her thighs, pounding her flesh, ignoring her pain.

  ‘It’s over now,’ he says. ‘We have to get out of here.’

  ‘Can you make it go away?’ she asks, trembling. Flecks of charcoal seem to float in the brown of her eyes.

  Ignoring his broken ribs, Sami crushes himself against her, feeling her heart beating. It is like a clock counting the seconds for both of them.

  Someone is coming along the corridor. Sami holds his finger to his lips. He motions Nadia to hide. Crouching in the shadows behind the door, he waits for it to swing open. He sees forearms and a rifle before launching his shoulder against the wood, smashing it closed. Grabbing a plank of wood, he swings it hard across the fallen figure. Sends him down, legs quivering, a strip of wood embedded in his spine with rusty nails.

  Sami takes Nadia’s hand and they zigzag along the main corridor to the central staircase. Descend. As he reaches the ground floor, something makes him stop.

  The main entrance is to the right. Two, three, four men are moving along the passage, spreading out, sheltering in doorways. Keeping each other covered.

  Shotgun pellets spray the brickwork near Sami’s right arm. He hears another shell ratchet into the chamber.

  A second bullet from a different angle slams into the hospital sign above Nadia’s head, punctuating the name of the specialist oncologist. Suddenly gunfire is coming in bursts and rounds, dancing off the walls and floor. Murphy’s men and Garza’s men are shooting at each other from opposite ends of the corridor.

  Sami climbs the stairs, retracing his steps, urging Nadia on. He has to wrap his arm around her waist to stop her falling. Sulphur and cordite float upwards through the stairwell. She stops. Vomits.

  Maybe Sami could outrun them without Nadia, but he’s not losing her again. One way or another, they’re getting out of here. Heading along a different corridor, he passes the occupational therapy rooms. Opening doors, he goes to the windows, looking for a way out. Smashing glass and running the Beretta around the jagged edges, he leans out looking for a fire escape or some other way down.

  Sami stops. Listens.

  ‘What is it?’ she asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘There’s someone coming.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘We can’t outrun them.’

  ‘We have to go.’

  ‘Can’t we hide here?’

  ‘They’ll find us.’

  ‘You go,’ says Nadia, leaning against a wall. Her legs are giving way.

  ‘Not without you.’

  Back in the corridor, they pass through swinging doors and Sami shoves a plank of wood between the handles to buy them more time.

  There is some sort of gas or fuel tank lying on the floor. He pushes it against the door and they keep running.

  A bullet gouges a white streak across the top of the wall above his head. Someone is firing through the barricaded door and trying to shoulder it open. The hinges give way. Sami pushes Nadia ahead of him. He turns, pivoting onto one knee, resting one buttock on his heel and holding the Beretta with both hands. He aims at the tank and squeezes the trigger. In a matter of seconds he empties the clip in a deafening roar. His hands are numb from the recoil.

  The explosion is a burst of white blue flames that billows outwards as if the air itself were on fire. Men are screaming. One of them staggers through the flames, silhouetted against
the fireball. His clothes are smoking. He sways from side to side, drops to one knee, falls.

  Sami keeps trying doors, looking for an exit. They’re locked in. Trapped. Turning left, he runs the length of another corridor, pulling Nadia with him. They reach a new flight of stairs. The gunfire is becoming more sporadic downstairs.

  Sami has no plan. He isn’t headed for a particular exit or gate. He’s only running.

  A large window fills with a flash of lightning and goes dark again. Sami looks down. The ground is clear. Beyond he can see open ground and trees with headlights winking between them. If he could get there, he could flag down a car. Get Nadia to hospital.

  She has slumped on the stairs, resting her head against the handrail.

  Sami gathers a mattress in both his arms.

  ‘Come on, we’re going to jump.’

  ‘I can’t, Sami, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  ‘No.’

  Sami screams at her, ‘Listen, Princess, suck it in. I know they did terrible things. I know you’re hurting. But we’re not giving up.’ He does a fireman’s lift, hoisting her over his shoulder, ignoring the pain in his chest.

  Holding the mattress in both arms he runs at the window, breaking glass. Falling. They land together and roll from the mattress onto their backs on muddy turf. Winded. Disorientated.

  There’s no time to take an inventory. Sami grabs Nadia again and drags her into thorn bushes. Turning, he catches a glimpse of someone watching from the broken window. They’ll have to come down the stairs and find a door.

  Nadia’s body has gone limp. A flash of lightning reveals blood on her lips and beyond her a wire fence and a gate.

  64

  Ruiz climbs the stairs two at a time, kicking bottles and debris aside. The gunfire has stopped but he can hear shouts from distant corners of the hospital.

  There were two bodies downstairs, one near the main entrance and a second further along the corridor. Both were dressed in black. Armed. He took a pistol from one of them, who was in no position to argue.