The Dead Lie Down (Adam Lennox Thrillers: Book One)

by G I Tulloch

  "Tell Tweedledee and Tweedledum to back off. I don't like being threatened."

  "You should have thought of that before you got involved," retorted O'Rourke as he got out of his chair.

  Adam shook his head. "It was you that got me involved. I don't remember making the choice."

  O'Rourke stood thoughtfully for a moment. Adam half expected him to stroke his chin. He was disappointed as O'Rourke turned to Anna.

  "Where's Bel Trent at the moment?"

  In a movement that would have required some careful film editing to bring it to the big screen, Adam lunged at O'Rourke but was brought down by Holt before he made any ground. Despite his face being ground into the carpet he still managed some feeling into his words.

  "Touch her and you'll think that the heavens had dropped on you." He paused. "No, correction. Touch her and you'll wish that it was only the heavens that had dropped on you."

  He was dragged to his feet and unceremoniously dumped back into his chair, but this time he could feel the gun barrel against the nape of his neck.

  O'Rourke having taken a swift step back, now advanced towards Adam with a menacing step but stopped just out of reach.

  "You are a fool. Do you really think I am going to be threatened by you?"

  Anna, having been very much a bystander now entered the floor show.

  "We don't need to involve the girl. Come to that we don't need Lennox either. If the package hasn't arrived yet then we can intercept it."

  O'Rourke paused. "You're confident?"

  She nodded. "I'm sure. Customs & Excise can 'arrange' it."

  Even to Adam's optimistic nature this didn't look terribly promising. He began to regret not taking out a higher life insurance, or having Mitch behind him, which came to much the same thing. At best he was going to miss Match of the Day, again.

  The thought that had been nagging him on and off came back to him once again. He tried a last throw of the dice.

  "So, I'm intrigued. You're going to kill me just like you killed my wife? How you going to make it look like an accident this time."

  O'Rourke frowned and shook his head in puzzlement. "Kill your wife? I had nothing to do with killing your wife. They tell me it was an accident."

  Adam's brain jumped around a bit trying to think clearly. Something bothered him but it wouldn't come, so he played for time. "So you believe everything your henchmen tell you?"

  O'Rourke appeared to ignore the question and something between a smile and a grimace crossed his face. Adam checked for broken mirrors and drew a blank.

  "I agree with Anna," declared O'Rourke. "You are too much of a risk." He turned to Brent. "Take him to the farm. I don't want any risk of his body being found."

  That cheered Adam up.

  Chapter 36

  Brent and Anna were joined by another hoodlum who wasn't worthy of introduction apparently, and Holt disappeared. Needless to say they left through the tradesman's entrance, or in this case, exit. They came out into the yard at the back of the house and Brent pinged the remote on a two-year-old Mercedes parked by the old coal house.

  The hired help get paid pretty well considering, thought Adam. He turned to Anna.

  "I don't get this double-triple agent bit. It's too much for my small bear's brain. Do you actually work for the Customs or not?"

  Anna shook her head in pity. "Don't worry yourself about it kiddo."

  "But I do," bleated Adam. "I may lie awake at night tossing and turning about it."

  A gun in his back reminded him that others were present.

  "Knock it off," growled Brent. "This is going to be the last night you see, so tossing and turning won't be a problem. Get in the car."

  "But Mother always used to tell me not to get into cars with strangers," protested Adam. "I specifically remember. She said to be particularly wary of men with guns. Of course she didn't use the word 'wary' because I was only six at the time and didn't understand the meaning of the word..."

  He stopped abruptly because the gun had dug him in the ribs again and he decided he might push too far.

  "Get in the car," growled Brent for the second time.

  "Your friend's manners leave a great deal to be desired my dear," Adam remarked to Anna before he was bundled into the back seat and settled himself in the leather upholstery. All the same, he thought he'd caught a half smile from her.

  She got in behind the wheel and they took off through a rear access gate that led to the farm track. They wound slowly out of the dell where the house stood. The surface deteriorated as the track followed the edge of a field of oilseed rape. Once Adam's head hit the roof of the car as it negotiated a particularly vicious pothole and Adam decided it wouldn't take much to bottom it on the ridge in the centre of the track. Explain that to the insurance company.

  They rounded a bend and the car hit some deep ruts, which bounced them around like marionettes. Adam took the opportunity, while Brent was intent on his own safety, to reach out and in one swift movement he opened the door and rolled out onto the verge.

  How hard could it be? Bruce Willis did it dozens of times in Die Hard and came up smiling. Indiana Jones did it several times before breakfast for goodness sake.

  Adam cracked his head on a boulder as he attempted to roll to a stop. Dazed but in one piece he took off across an open field, running down the furrows. He could feel blood trickling down his face and as he leapt from one furrow to the next the horizon started to sway and lurch in front of him. He risked turning to measure the pursuit and, horrified to find them so close, he missed his footing and collapsed into a rolling heap on the ground.

  Desperately aware of the need to keep moving he rose again just in time to aim a karate punch that doubled up his pursuer on the ground. Unfortunately Adam's equilibrium couldn't keep up and he went down again.

  Seconds later he found himself kneeling on the damp earth, hands tie-wrapped behind him. Brent took the opportunity to get in a swift kick that was fortunately devoid of strength. Butlering obviously didn't do anything for the fitness.

  With some difficulty they regained the car and this time Adam found himself on the floor with a size ten boot on his neck. Adam had a terrible sense of Deja Vu.

  "Move an inch and I'll wring yer bloody neck like a chicken," threatened Brent. It sounded like he might enjoy it as well.

  They moved, or more accurately stumbled, from the watery sunshine of late afternoon, into the dark shadow of the disused farmhouse. The dust, cobwebs and scurrying rats made testimony to its status. Not an auspicious stage on which to end one's career Adam decided, but the vision of a sand dune came to him, and the heat, and the smell of spent explosive, and the body parts of those who had been his friends. Suddenly things didn't seem so bad, in fact he almost seemed light hearted. Perhaps this is what you feel like when certain death faces you, and not just an outside possibility. He felt an irrepressible desire to laugh.

  Anna picked up on it as they moved from room to room.

  "What's funny?" she demanded.

  Adam smiled, if a little crookedly. "You wouldn't understand. Come to that I'm not sure I understand." He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. "So what's in it for you on this little deal? What makes you play with the bad boys?"

  She stopped and turned to him. "I'm in it for me, and I don't have to justify anything to you, believe me."

  Something in her tone of voice didn't quite sound right to Adam. He couldn't put his finger on it but it was as if she was reading from a script.

  The group of four stopped in what had once been the large farmhouse kitchen, devoid of the large table that would have dominated the space. Adam noticed that the floor had been well scrubbed, and not that long ago either by the looks of it. Relic of a hygiene conscious farmer's wife, or the scene of recent killings? Was this their execution ground? The hired help seemed to think so.

  "No, not here," said Anna, "Through in the next room."

  "A more aesthetically fitting place to die is it?" enquired
Adam, with a nonchalance that didn't necessarily match his mood.

  Brent raised an eyebrow to Anna, who seemed to be getting edgily frustrated.

  "Just do it," she commanded, as if ambushing any dissent.

  Whatever her relationship with O'Rourke, it was sufficient to carry enough clout to achieve obedience, and they moved through to the next room.

  Here there was potential. Furniture, dark corners, a large lead-paned window, things to throw if he could get his hands free. Adam Lennox, optimist extraordinaire.

  Here, the hired help seemed to grow confidence, and a voice.

  "On your knees," barked Brent's mate.

  "On your bike," declared Adam.

  Adam was disappointed after the event that he hadn't seen the kick coming, but the back of legs caved in nevertheless and he found himself unwillingly on his knees, his eyes smarting with the pain.

  Finding himself running out of conventional options Adam decided on plan B, not that he had had a plan A particularly but it made it sound better.

  He straightened his back and turned to Anna.

  "I seem to recall on a previous occasion you were keen to indulge in some recreation time," he recalled. "I doubt whether there's a bed here but I'm sure we could improvise." He lifted his eyebrows to underline the suggestion.

  "Shutup," interjected butler, silence having obviously been too much of a strain for so long.

  Adam turned to him. "I don't remember including you in the conversation."

  This time he did see it coming and swayed backwards, but the boot still connected with his right hand rib cage, sufficient to cause a sharp pain that indicated damage. He was picked up off the floor and dumped once again on his knees. He coughed, and it hurt.

  Anna moved around and dropped to her knees to face him. She leant forward, and taking his head in both hands she enclosed his lips on hers in a kiss that would have meant a lot more in different circumstances. She let go and in a momentary and improbable movement dropped one eyelid in a wink.

  What was that supposed to mean? Was it a signal? Was it a come on? Was it her idea of a joke?

  "You just don't know how to die, do you?" she said finally.

  She moved away to one side of the room and turned to the hired help. There was a tiredness in her voice that Adam couldn't place.

  "Do it," she ordered.

  Adam's thoughts ran wild. This wasn't meant to end this way. There were things he wanted to do. Bel's message came back to him. He was going to die without her. He mentally apologised. Iraq flashed back to him again and the fear of war on the front line. He saw his parents, and the house.

  He felt the muzzle of the gun on the back of his head. He remembered news footage of hostage executions in the Middle East and in Korea. He closed his eyes and in his mind stepped outside himself, watching his own execution.

  The gun moved slightly.

  There was the sound of a shot, a searing pain and bright light went through his head, then darkness engulfed everything and his body toppled to the ground.

  Chapter 37

  The room lay in complete darkness. No light pollution entered through the broken window to illuminate the ghostly scene. Eyes accustomed to the dark would perceive three motionless shapes on the floor. In time one of the shapes moved imperceptibly.

  So this is hell, thought Adam. He could see little but what he could see was through a red haze that covered his eyes. Pain echoed through his head as he tried to move slowly off the floor. He recalled vaguely what had happened and questions flit through his mind. If he wasn't dead then why not? If he could move his hands, how come they were untied? He wiped away the blood from his eyes and to some degree normal vision was resumed. Carefully he rose to a sitting position, aware that any sudden movement brought sickening pain to his head. He sat there for ten minutes regaining some normality. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out his mobile phone, which inexplicably hadn't been removed from him earlier. By the subdued light of its display he endeavoured to make some sense of the scene around him.

  Crawling slowly round the room he identified the two further bodies over by the sink. They lay where they had fallen. The hired help wouldn't cost anyone anything any more, both with bullet wounds to the head, there was no pulse from either. He sat with his back against a dresser whilst the hammer drill in his head eased off a fraction and he could gather his wits. He couldn't understand how he seemed to have suffered a flesh wound when the guys with the guns were both dead. He began to feel that he was in an action thriller, where the impossible happens only because the scriptwriter writes it that way.

  After a few minutes he slowly scouted further around the deep shadows but there was no sign of Anna anywhere, alive or dead. He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or disappointed but for the moment put it to the back of his mind.

  He was ably assisted in this by the whine of a car engine approaching, and wavering headlights lighting up the farm like flashes of lightning. Car doors were followed by swift footsteps across the farmyard to the front door.

  Adam decided this was not a safe place to hang around. Stopping only to pick up a discarded automatic he negotiated his way to the kitchen door, figuring that if anyone was expecting him to leave it would be by the front door, with or without the benefit of a pine box or concrete overshoes.

  He stopped in the deep shadows of the kitchen garden. Assessing the situation he was interrupted by an unknown voice from inside the kitchen.

  "It's Fergus and Davey, Lennox has taken both of them. Search the place, he can't have got far, there's plenty of his blood on the floor." A pause. "I want him taken out, and I want it now."

  A second unknown voice responded in like frame of mind. "Any sign of the American woman?"

  "No. Either she's helped him or he's got her hostage somewhere."

  Adam risked moving out of his hiding place and crossed what was left of a vegetable patch. The noise of breaking glass as he collided with the remains of a cold frame brought cries from indoors. He scrambled through a hedge and made his way around the edge of a spinney. He tried to recall the map they had studied before leaving London and tossed up whether to lie low or make a run for it. As luck would have it, the coin landed on its edge and he moved further through the trees to the edge of the next field before dropping into a ditch filled with drain-water. The cold seeped through him and he was glad they weren't doing this in the middle of winter.

  His pursuers briefly abandoned the softly-softly approach and crashed through undergrowth before thinking better of it, and all went quiet. Adam could hear himself breathing. Not a good sign. If he could hear it he was damn sure others could too. Five minutes went past without disturbance, ten minutes went past. He was becoming more confident now, and was on the verge of moving out when he heard it. The lightest of snuffled breath and the breaking of a twig, ten, maybe fifteen feet away. Movement, very quiet, very deliberate, very slow. Then he could see the vague shape, moving towards him. He waited until the last possible moment. He stood up to get a better shot, and was nearly decapitated by the hooves of the full grown deer as it soared out of the tree line, across the ditch at head-height and continued out into the field.

  Now he was committed, and running as low as he could, he skirted the field edge, trying to stay in shadow, straining for the sounds of pursuit, ready to throw himself to the ground.

  Three fields later he began to feel he might be in the clear and risked approaching a lane which snaked across the side of the hill, rising in and out of the moorland dips of the Forest. He stumbled down onto the tarmac and paused by a gatepost to regain his breath. Scanning the country for signs of habitation he noticed the car only by its headlights reflecting from hedgerows. With the automatic at the ready he rose away from the gate as the car approached. Some risks were worth taking. The car pulled to a halt beside him and the window scrolled smoothly down.

  "Well if this isn't role reversal I don't know what is," declared Anna.

  Without stopping to exchange
pleasantries, Adam dived in to the passengers seat, stuck the automatic in her ribs and hissed in her ear.

  "Don't try anything, just drive. Give me an excuse and I'll blow your head off." He briefly reminded himself to book into a risk assessment refresher course.

  To give her credit, she just turned and smiled before calmly putting the car into gear and moving off.

  "Where to?"

  "London."

  She turned again and smiled. Adam found it strangely disconcerting but couldn't work out why.

  "I don't know if it's got enough gas, I stole it from the farmhouse, but we can try."

  Adam raised an eyebrow in the dark before she continued.

  "You can put the firearm away, we really are on the same side."

  For some reason Adam didn't trust her, something to do with her having given the order for his execution less than six hours previously, or was he being over sensitive? The gun stayed where it was.

  "So what happened to the plan?" he asked.

  He could see her grin in the moonlight which had just broken through the light cloud.

  "The plan was overtaken by events."

  "Events being that you are working for O'Rourke?" suggested Adam sardonically.

  "I'm not working for O'Rourke. Oh shit, it's blown to the wind now. I was working undercover on the fringes of his organisation, trying to get a line on his plans."

  Adam considered it for a moment before spotting the flaw.

  "So that caused you to pull the gun on me?"

  "I had to gain the upper hand over you." She sighed with exasperation at having to explain it all, like a mother to a child. "I needed to get O'Rourke to give the order to kill you, but on my terms. I was wearing a wire. I've got it all on disc. You were great, you reacted beautifully. I couldn't have got the right reaction if I'd told you before."

  Adam didn't buy it. It was stretching plausibility far too much. He'd heard better fairy tales on his mother's knee for crying out loud. He said as much.