by Chris Ryan
Matt clenched his fist. 'So we're not fighting the whole government? Just three men.'
Ivan glanced suspiciously around the restaurant. 'You know what you have to do, then?'
Matt nodded, folding some bacon into a piece of toast and stuffing it into his mouth. 'Hit back at them.'
Ivan smiled, tapping the side of his head. 'I might have said this to you before, Matt, but one of these days a little light bulb is going to go off in your head, and you'll start seeing things clearly.'
'Like how?'
'Like this,' said Ivan. He took a sip on the refill of coffee the 'waitress had just put down on the table. 'There was always something odd about Orlena's involvement. Remember when we were going into the factory? We met a lot more resistance than we expected. Then when we burst into the last room, that boy lying wounded on the floor, he recognised her.'
'He cried out, Orlena, Orlena,' interrupted Matt. 'I remember.'
'That's right,' replied Ivan grimly. 'He said something else as well.'
'Some nonsense in Russian or Ukrainian,' said Matt. 'Begging for mercy.'
Ivan shook his head. 'I've been researching this. Orlena used a word back to him. Likuvannia.' He stopped, glancing up at the ceiling. 'Likuvannia,' he repeated. 'Then the man replied, Pishov, pishov, and she shot him.'
'Meaning?'
'Likuvannia is Ukrainian. It means cure. Or antidote.'
Matt pushed his plate across the table. 'An antidote? For XP22. You think that's what she was looking for?'
Ivan shrugged. 'I don't know. She was asking the man about that, and he was saying pishov, pishov. Meaning it's not here. Then she shot him. That tells me she was looking for something.' Ivan paused. 'And if she was looking for it, you probably should be as well.'
Matt nodded, looking back at Ivan. 'If there was an antidote, then we could save all the men on the list. The men XP22 was tested on . . .'
Ivan grinned.
'We have to go and get it,' continued Matt. 'If the antidote exists, we have to find it.'
Matt looked at Eleanor. He could see the strain in her eyes. Her skin was taut across her face, as if it had been stretched, and her high, solid cheekbones were growing more prominent by the day.
It was morning now, and the light was starting to filter through the window. Matt had glanced up at the sun as he awoke, with the same sensation he remembered from his days out on the battlefield.
You look at the sunrise differently when you keep thinking each day might be your last.
During the night, he'd slept fitfully. After leaving Ivan, he'd come back to the hotel, checking he wasn't being followed, and slipped into the bed next to Eleanor.
Eleanor chewed on one of the croissants that Ivan had just brought them. She was dressed just in a long white T-shirt, her hair pushed out of her face by a clip. Ivan was cradling a cup of coffee in his hands. 'What can we do?' she said, her voice cracking.
'We take the fight to them,' said Matt. 'Tonight, Friday. We close this thing right now. The one lesson I learnt from the regiment was that you always take the fight to the enemy. I tried to take the fight to Lacrierre before, but I didn't have the back-up.'
'And you hadn't thought it through,' said Ivan. 'Lacrierre's going to be at his most vulnerable on the train. His house is no good. The office is no good. Both will be crawling with security. A train is much more difficult to defend. On the train we can nail the bastard.'
'It leaves at eight-forty every Friday night,' said Matt. 'I'll speak to Damien and organise some ammo. Ivan, you get home, make sure the family are all right, then help us out with some bombs.'
'And what do we do once we get him on the train?' asked Eleanor.
'We get the antidote,' said Ivan.
'Then we kill him,' said Matt, pronouncing the words with brutal simplicity.
Eleanor winced. 'And me?' she said.
'Stay here,' said Matt. 'You'll be OK. This is work for trained fighters.'
Eleanor was about to speak.
'He's right,' said Ivan. 'I'm usually a big supporter of the sisterhood, but women just get in the way when a battle starts.'
'No,' said Eleanor. 'I need to be there.'
'It's too dangerous,' snapped Matt.
Eleanor's cheeks reddened. 'And which one of you scientific geniuses is going to recognise whether Lacrierre has given you the right antidote?'
A half-smile started to spread across Ivan's face. He glanced across at Matt. 'I'm afraid she's right.'
'Damn it,' muttered Matt. 'We should be doing this by ourselves.'
'You know the trouble with you, Matt?' said Eleanor. 'You're suffering from a hero complex.'
'No,' he replied. 'I'm suffering from a staying-alive-until-the-end-of-the-bloody-day complex.'
A street market was occupying the central square of Sherbourne, a pretty, quiet town of just a few thousand people in Dorset. It was almost midday and the air was filled with the smell of flowers and fresh bread. Matram stopped at a stand, bought himself an ice cream to help cool down, then carried on walking down the high street.
What is it our al-Qaeda pals say to themselves? he asked himself. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, them Muhammad must come to the mountain.
The house was towards the end of the high street. The Happy Times playgroup was scheduled to end at twelve, and from what the local police had told him, Ivan Rowe's son George was always there on Friday morning. His doting father always picked him up, according to the school. You could rely on it.
Matram checked his watch. Two minutes to twelve. The man would be within his grasp within a few seconds.
He signalled to Harton and Godsall waiting in a white van across the street: Be ready! The sound of the van's engine roaring to life briefly crossed the street before it dropped back down again.
Matram's eyes scanned up and down the street. There were a few people doing some browsing, but not many: the heat was keeping people indoors, and the shops seemed half empty. He could see a car approach, a three-year-old Audi A4 estate. It pulled up to the side of the street, a man stepped out. Against the mental picture he had filed away in his head, Matram did a quick check. There could be no doubt. It was him. Rowe.
Gripping his Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol close to his chest, Matram moved forward. There was one man across the street, but he wasn't looking at them. Matram was standing close to Ivan, their eyes locking on to one another. Swiftly, Matram thrust the pistol forward, jabbing its barrel into Ivan's ribcage, then turning it slighdy upwards. He knew enough about guns to know that any bullet fired from that position was going to travel straight up through the ribcage, smash open the heart, then lodge itself in the brain. Nobody could survive.
'There's a white van over there, Irishman,' growled Matram. 'I want you in the back in three seconds. Otherwise you're a nasty stain on the pavement.'
Silently, his head bowed, Ivan started to walk towards the back of the van.
Matt looked over the array of weaponry. The guns were stacked neatly in rows, an armoury that would earn their owner a life sentence if the police ever discovered it. The rifles were mostly Russian: Kalashnikov AK-47s, not the newer AN-49s Matt had been using out in the Ukraine. Next to them were six American-built Winchester X2s, long-range hunting rifles that were also excellent sniping weapons. The handguns were Clocks: two dozen of the small, pocket-sized PI 20569 semi-automatic pistols, and ten of the more powerful PI 35301.
Each gun had a dozen rounds of ammunition stocked next to it, filed away in boxes. Next to them were fifteen crates of Semtex explosives, complete with fuse wires, plus an assortment of flak jackets, and bulletproof vests.
Enough kit to declare war on a medium-sized country.
'So why is it called the North Bank?' Matt asked.
Damien grinned. 'You're spending too much time out of the country, pal. Losing your local knowledge.'
Matt nodded. 'Home supporters' end, Highbury? The North Bank.'
'Right, and this is our Arsen
al.'
They were meeting in the cellars of a disused railway arch just outside Chatham, east of London. It was here that Daniien kept weaponry that would later be distributed to the gangs of south London: free if you were one of his men, for a heavy charge if you weren't. The kit was shipped in from abroad, usually inside lorries doing the run across from Belgium or Holland. Both of those countries had a thriving trade in black-market weaponry, either coming across Germany from Eastern Europe, or up from the Middle East through the Balkans. Stick a pair of guns in the cargo of a twenty-two-ton articulated lorry and nobody was going to find it. All the driver had to do was pull up at one of the service stations on the M20, and hand the gear over in the car park. A couple of hundred quid in cash was very handy: Damien's network usually paid out in euros, so the truckers could use it to have some fun while they were abroad without having to tell their wives.
'I need a lot of stuff,' said Matt, pointing at the displays. 'A pair of those Kalashnikovs, plus four pistols. A flak jacket, that would be useful. And as much Semtex as you can spare.'
Damien nodded. 'You're going to go in for them.'
'If anyone's got any other suggestions, I'll take them,' said Matt, his lips creasing into a rough smile. 'But right now I can't think of any.'
Damien took the Kalashnikovs down from the rack, handing them across to Matt. It was the classic 1947 Soviet model, with the slim wooden handle and under-mounting, and the curved thirty-round magazine cartridge: half a century old, but still one of the best weapons ever designed, and one Matt felt comfortable with.
You couldn't rely on much in life, but your AK-47 never let you down.
He loaded up a stack of rounds, then took four of the Glock handguns plus thirty rounds of ammunition. From the cases, he took twenty pounds of Semtex, each one-pound block wrapped in plain greaseproof paper as if it were nothing more dangerous than a lump of lard. He placed them neatly in the plastic rucksack that Ivan had given him: it was going to be a heavy load but his back could handle it.
Get in there, blast them to hell, and get out faster than a rat on roller skates.
Matt hauled the rucksack on to his back. There must have been two hundred pounds of kit in there. Still, it was only two flights of stairs and a couple of hundred yards to his car. Compared with three days of yomping across the Brecon Beacons through the sleeting January rain during his training for the regiment, this was nothing.
As they reached the top of the thick metal staircase that led out of the cellar, Damien gripped Matt by the shoulder. 'What help do you need?' he said. 'I want to repay her blood as much as you do.'
Matt hesitated. He could see the strength and determination written into the man's face, and he could sense the longing for vengeance that was burning within him. 'I need to take out a train,' he replied. 'And I need men. By tonight.'
Damien nodded. 'Then I know just the man who can help you.'
The back of the van was hot and sticky. Matram had ordered all the windows tightly sealed. If Ivan started screaming – and he might – then he didn't want the sound escaping. Even though they were speeding through the countryside, that risked detection.
The van had no air conditioning, and with the midday temperatures getting close to thirty-five degrees outside, the air was pulsing with heat. Nobody could breathe. Harton was up front steering the van through the gentle Dorset countryside, and Godsall was sitting with Matram, guarding the back of the van from any attempt by Ivan to escape.
He's not fighting back yet, but he was a Provo back across the water in the old days. He'll know how to take a beating.
'Here,' said Matram.
The van drew up to a halt. From the window, Matram could see they were at the end of a country lane. About two hundred yards away there was a farmhouse, but a row of trees blocked this spot from its view. Only a few sheep grazing in the next field could see him from here.
'Put him on the ground,' said Matram.
Godsall opened the back of the van, pushing Ivan roughly on to the muddy surface of the lane. The mud was caked harder than concrete, and Ivan landed roughly on the side of his shoulder. He rolled over, deflecting the force of the impact, then lay still, his hands tucked in neatly to the side of his chest.
Smart, thought Matram, hopping out of the van and standing next to Ivan. He knows he's going to get a beating, and there's nothing he can do about it. He's just preparing himself to survive it the best he can.
'You know what, Irishman, I think you and I could get along just fine if we wanted to,' said Matram slowly.
Ivan remained completely still, his cheek lying flat against the mud.
'A bomb-maker, that's what I heard,' continued Matram, kneeling down next to Ivan. 'Always liked the fireworks boys, myself. Nice big bangs, some pretty lights and not many survivors. That's just the kind of expertise a soldier needs.' He paused. 'So if you and I wanted to be friends, I think we could work something out. Save a lot of unpleasantness.'
'You want a bomb made?' said Ivan. 'I can probably help you.'
Matram shook his head slowly from side to side. 'No, that's not it. I want to know where your friend Matt is.'
'Matt Browning? You've met him?'
'Our paths have crossed.'
'Then you'll know he's a mean fucker,' snapped Ivan, his tone hardening. 'Unless you've got some very fancy medical insurance, you should stay out of his way.'
A boot slammed into Ivan's chest, hitting him just above the heart. His body shuddered under the force of the blow, the pain rippling out from his chest into the centre of his body. He rolled backwards, coughing, as he struggled to refill his lungs with air.
'No jokes, bogtrotter,' snapped Matram. 'Like I said, if you tell me where he is, I can save you a lot of pain.'
'I don't know where he is,' said Ivan, struggling to pronounce the words.
Matram leant closer to his ear. 'We're the Increment,' he said softly. 'I'm sure you know us from the old days across the water. Best bloody fun of our lives, popping across on the BA shuttle and using some bogtrotters as target practice. It was even better when we got to rough them up a bit before we put them underground.' He paused, savouring the words, letting them roll around his tongue. 'Your lot weren't afraid of very much, but they were afraid of us. And so should you be.'
Ivan rolled his eyes upwards. He looked hard at Matram, scrutinising his clean, neatly shaven face, the squashed, flat nose and the narrow, pebble-like eyes that stared intently down. 'I'll take you to him,' he said, stretching out a hand. 'Just help me back up.'
To anyone who just wandered in for a drink, the Two Foxes off Camberwell Church Street looked just like one of a thousand south-London pubs. Faded Victorian coach lamps on the walls, thick stained wood around the bar, beer mats on every table, and the same old pair of geezers sitting in the corner every afternoon nursing their pints and rolling their own smokes. But to anyone in the know, it was an office – a place where the Walters family came to do business.
If we're safe anywhere, we're safe here, reflected Matt. The police won't come in here. They haven't got the guts.
Eleanor was staying back at the hotel for the rest of the day: Damien didn't think the people he was about to introduce Matt to would like the idea of bringing a woman on a job. They were old school: in their world, robbing was men's work.