Circle of Death - Strike Back Series 05 (2020)

by Ryan, Chris

  He had been given many nicknames over the years, but the one that had stuck was Tyson. He had once been an accomplished amateur boxer, demolishing rivals with ruthless efficiency. He had been in some hard fights, too; had the busted nose and the puffy ears to prove it.

  Then he had failed a drugs test. His hopes of turning pro had been wrecked.

  In another life, Ty would have been sparring with the likes of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, raking in millions, headlining fight nights at the MGM Grand. Living the big life.

  Instead, his life had taken a very different turn. For ten years he had served in the military, where his brute strength, stamina and aggression had helped him to reach the summit of his profession. Then he had done a stint on the private circuit, working for mediocre pay in shithole countries in Africa and the Middle East. Places most people had never heard of. Now, after fifteen years of fighting other people’s wars, he was about to take part in his own.

  Ty had moved into position first. He’d arrived two hours ago, parking the van in an empty space at the side of the road, next to a dingy-looking pub. Some sort of local hang-out, with net curtains drawn like cobwebs across the windows and a chalkboard sign fixed to the wall outside promising Cold beer and warm food. Which was setting the bar pretty low, in Ty’s opinion. Surely that was the very least any respectable drinking establishment should aspire to?

  The Ford Transit was facing north down the one-way road. A hundred and fifty metres away, he saw the other guy, the jogger, warming up near the other end of the street. He had been browsing the goods in a nearby sports store until he got the call to move forward. Which they both felt was a necessary precaution. The van wouldn’t arouse suspicion. Whereas a jogger hanging around the same street for too long would draw unwanted attention.

  Once they were in position, they had settled down to wait.

  They were both patient men. They had been shadowing the journalist for the past three days, establishing his routine. Close observation of the target had confirmed that he lived alone, had few friends, didn’t own a car, rarely used taxis and either walked or used public transport on the few occasions he left his flat. Such a guy would be unlikely to take a minicab from Crouch End to a meeting in central London, they had concluded. They had planned their operation accordingly, studying the roads around the offices of Cantwell Consulting Group. Checking for security cameras. Looking for the best spot for their attack.

  Their boss had insisted that it be made to look like an accident. He had been very keen to emphasise that point. Make sure they can’t link this to us.

  If they fucked up, they had been warned, there would be consequences. They both knew their boss’s reputation. The things he was capable of. He wasn’t someone they wanted to piss off.

  Thirty seconds ago, the message had come through.

  At which point the jogger had hurried forward to his starting point close to Cantwell’s building and Ty had cranked the ignition on the Transit. Then he had sat and waited, engine rumbling, observing the entrance to Kimberly House a hundred metres away.

  Thirty seconds later, the target stepped outside the building. He paused briefly while he scanned the street.

  Then he turned left and took off, heading south.

  Towards the Transit.

  Ty felt a nervous tic in his throat. This was it.

  He released the parking brake, shifted into first gear, pumped the accelerator and gently steered out of the parking space. Pointing the wagon north down the one-way street.

  Heading directly for the target.

  A hundred and fifty metres to the north, the jogger in the purple baseball cap broke into a gentle trot.

  He was ready.

  He was one of the newer recruits to the team, and he looked it. He was five-seven and about as wide, with the squat, muscular frame of an Olympic powerlifter. He had short dark hair, a swarthy complexion and a trimmed black goatee. His name was Vecchio, but the veterans on the team called him Caesar, on account of his Italian ancestry. It was a way of belittling Vecchio, of putting him in his place. Letting him know that they were the ones calling the shots.

  Which was partly why the vets had chosen him for the operation, Vecchio knew. It was a way of testing him. Seeing if he had what it took to be a part of the team. So when they had told him he was going to London, Vecchio knew what was at stake.

  He just had to hope that Tyson didn’t fuck it up.

  Vecchio had been with the gang long enough to know that Tyson was a loose cannon, totally unpredictable. There was no telling what the guy might do.

  He crossed the road, passing the bald-headed guy unlocking his bicycle, and came up behind the target. The journalist was twenty-five metres downstream from Vecchio and moving briskly down the street. He had the quick, impatient walk of city dwellers the world over.

  A hundred metres further to the south, the Transit slithered out of the parking bay and began slow-crawling down the road. Tyson was keeping the speed very low, moving along at maybe ten or fifteen miles per hour.

  They were closing in on the target from opposite ends of the street.

  Vecchio was approaching from the north with Tyson, in the Transit van, further to the south. The journalist was thirty metres down the street from Cantwell’s office. He didn’t look back at Vecchio at his six o’clock. Didn’t seem to be worried about being followed. He just continued heading on a southerly bearing towards the cafe at the end of the street.

  Vecchio was fifteen metres behind the target now. He kept moving at a steady canter, not wanting to draw too close and risk startling the guy. Up ahead, the van was sixty metres from the journalist and closing fast.

  In the periphery of his vision Vecchio caught sight of an old man walking his dog. At the end of the street a woman in a pencil skirt and dark jacket sat outside the Greek cafe, tapping away on her laptop. A few metres further along, a balding guy in a pinstripe suit was marching down the street, phone glued to his ear.

  No one was paying any attention to what was happening on the street.

  Good.

  Vecchio looked ahead. He was ten metres behind the target, with the wagon forty metres further ahead. Engine growling, tyres hissing as they rolled over the rain-slicked blacktop. The journalist was still looking down at his phone, totally unaware of what was about to happen.

  Vecchio quickened his stride. Arms and legs chopping as he surged forward, like an athlete sprinting down the home straight. An athlete who had lifted too many weights in the gym.

  Eight metres to the target. Six metres.

  Four.

  In the next beat he drew up alongside the journalist and thrust out with both hands, shoving the guy aside. The impact caught the target by surprise and knocked him off his feet. He stumbled and then fell away with a pained cry, landing in a heap in the road, a metre or so from the kerb.

  ‘Hey!’ the journalist cried.

  Fifteen metres ahead, the van suddenly accelerated.

  There was no time for the man to scramble clear of the wagon.

  Vecchio ran on. Head down, the baseball cap concealing his face from any CCTV cameras on the street. Behind him, the target screamed in terror.

  Which was the last sound that ever left his mouth. Because the next thing that Vecchio heard was a sickening crunch as the Transit smashed bumper-first into the journalist’s sprawled body, three thousand kilograms of metal hitting him at around twenty miles an hour. He heard the thump and shudder of the body going under the tyres.

  When he was twenty metres away, Vecchio risked a glance over his shoulder. He saw the Transit jolting as it raced on for several metres with the journalist trapped beneath it, his limbs scraping against the blacktop. Then the driver gunned the engine and the Transit shot forward, and there was a final judder as the target’s ragged body tumbled out from beneath the back of the van and rolled over a couple of times before flopping to a rest. The van picked up speed as it arrowed north, leaving the bloodied body in its wake, hurtling to
wards the far end of the street.

  Which is when Vecchio saw the cyclist.

  He was shaven-headed, wearing a distinctive orange jacket and riding in the middle of the road. The same guy he had seen unlocking his bike a few moments ago, Vecchio realised. At some point between the target leaving the building and the attack, the guy had set off down the street. He was trundling along, unaware of the collision behind him, his earbuds cutting out the background noise.

  The Transit was twelve metres away from the cyclist and hurtling forward.

  No time for the guy to dive out of the way.

  Vecchio looked on in surprise and horror as the van ploughed into the back of the cyclist. There was a dull thump as the impact knocked the man from his saddle and in the next instant he went under the wagon, the wheels crushing the frame of his bicycle and mangling the rider’s body, grinding organs and snapping bones.

  Further to the south, outside the Greek café, someone screamed.

  The Transit didn’t stop. The rear wheels bounced up and then the van sped away, leaving a tangle of limbs and twisted bike parts in its wake. Vecchio saw it race north for another eighty metres before it hit the corner at the other end of the street. Then the wagon swerved to the right, tyres screeching as it took the turn at speed. A moment later, it disappeared from view.

  Vecchio paused for a cold beat.

  Then he turned away and started running south.

  He crossed the junction, hit the other side of the road and sprinted past a barber’s shop and a curry house with rubbish bags piled up outside. After another twenty metres he stopped and glanced over his shoulder. He saw the woman in the pencil skirt rushing over from the cafe, dropping to a knee beside the journalist.

  At the same time the balding guy in the pinstripe suit was pacing up and down, jabbering on his phone. Calling for an ambulance, presumably. Two more customers bolted out of the cafe and raced over to the cyclist, a portly guy in a Liverpool shirt and a younger man in red cords and a tweed jacket.

  Both victims looked to be in a bad way. The journalist lay slumped on the blacktop, leg twitching. The cyclist wasn’t moving at all. He was just lying there, next to the mangled frame of his bicycle. Hard to tell from a distance, and Vecchio wasn’t a doctor, but he didn’t give either of them much of a chance.

  No one paid any attention to the jogger seventy metres to the south. Everyone was completely focused on the two victims sprawled in the road.

  Vecchio turned and ran on again.

  He shuttled on for another fifty metres down the side street, passing whitewashed terraced houses and art studios and boutique fashion shops. As he neared the corner he looked back again at the scene to the north. More people were crowding in the street now, rubbernecking the scene or filming it on their phones.

  No one was chasing after Vecchio.

  He looked ahead, hit the corner in a few more strides and hooked a left, running east down a busier main road for a couple of hundred metres. He dropped his speed to a light jog, not moving too fast or too slow, doing nothing to draw attention to himself. Just a regular guy, out for an afternoon run in the streets. After two hundred metres he hooked another left and chopped his way north down a narrow side street. Row of decrepit townhouses on his left, a construction site on his right flank. At his one o’clock, the BT Tower loomed over the surrounding buildings like some giant radio antenna.

  He carried on for another hundred metres, passing a dirty-looking launderette and a dim-windowed Turkish restaurant. He made a left and then a quick right, heading down the east-facing side of a seventies-style office block. There was an underground car park built below the offices, with a ramp leading down from street level to the lower floors. The place was poorly maintained, overpriced and somewhat hidden away. Which made it perfect for Vecchio and Tyson.

  He walked past the ramp until he hit the pedestrian entrance thirty metres further along the street. Exactly four minutes after the attack, he yanked open the rusted metal door and ducked into the concrete stairwell.

  A stench of urine so thick you could practically hack through it with a machete. The steps were sprinkled with a confetti of cigarette butts and foil wrappers. He hurried down one flight of stairs, burst through the door to the lower-level parking area and looked around.

  The place was half-empty. A handful of motors were scattered around the white-marked spaces. Nobody on foot, as far as he could tell.

  He spotted the Transit parked up in a far corner and hustled over. Tyson was clambering out of the wagon, dressed in his bike leathers. The guy would have taken a circuitous route to the car park, Vecchio knew, screaming down a maze of side streets in case anyone tried to pursue him. They had gone through the route late last night, studying the maps in detail, looking at possible chokepoints or dead ends where they might get blocked in or cut off.

  Tyson cocked his head at the younger man. ‘Anyone see you come in here?’

  Vecchio shook his head. ‘I wasn’t followed.’

  ‘You better hope that’s fucking true.’

  Vecchio paused a beat to catch his breath. He was sweating freely, in spite of the chill in the air. ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘Fuck was what?’

  Vecchio swallowed. Tyson staring at you was an uncomfortable experience. The guy was seven inches taller than him and maybe forty pounds heavier. His balled fists were as big as wrecking balls.

  ‘The guy on the bike,’ Vecchio said. ‘Jesus, Ty. I think you killed him. What the hell?’

  Tyson shrugged. ‘He was in the way.’

  ‘That wasn’t part of the plan.’

  ‘You would have preferred it if I stopped, got out, politely asked the guy to get out of my way?’ Tyson rubbed his jaw. ‘Cyclist would have seen my face, anyway. Through the window. He might have been able to make an ID. Hell, he might have even chased after us. Concerned citizen. Tailed us all the way here. It had to be done.’

  ‘He was innocent.’

  Tyler frowned. ‘So fucking what? Collateral damage. Happens. Or maybe you haven’t got the guts to do this stuff? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

  ‘I’ve got what it takes.’

  Tyson snorted. ‘Some fucking mope on a bicycle gets in my way, that’s on him. No reason for you to get all cut up about it. Or maybe you want to go back to robbing liquor stores, or whatever the fuck you were doing in New Jersey.’

  Vecchio said nothing.

  Tyson snarled. ‘That’s what I thought.’

  He stepped closer to Vecchio, prodding him in the chest. ‘You’re not in charge round here. You ought to remember that. Far as me and the boys are concerned, you’re just some Italian sack of shit who’s been on the team for five fucking minutes.’

  Vecchio stared at Ty for a beat, then decided to drop it. The clock was ticking. They couldn’t afford to stay in the general vicinity for a moment longer than necessary. By now the ambulances would be on their way to the scene of the accident. The police would probably also have been alerted. They would soon be scouring the area for a grey Transit van.

  Besides, he didn’t want to jeopardise his place on the team. He had been promised crazy money for his part in carrying out the mission. The opportunity of a lifetime. No way was he going to mess that up.

  ‘It’s cool,’ he said. ‘We’re good.’

  Tyson nodded. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’

  He swung round to the rear of the wagon and popped the doors. Inside the cargo space stood a BMW R1200 GS Adventure motorcycle, all sleek angles and scarlet-red bodywork. A beast of a bike.

  The van was hot, they knew. If Tyson and Vecchio tried to escape in the Transit, they would quickly get snarled up in London traffic. They wouldn’t stand a chance of losing the cops. A motorbike was better.They could mount pavements, weave through traffic jams and go the wrong way down one-way streets.

  The perfect getaway ride.

  A pair of ratchet straps were wrapped around the BMW’s chrome fork legs, with t
he other ends fastened taut to anchor points on the floor. The front wheel was set into a solid steel chock, securing the bike in place. A waterproof helmet bag was tethered to the rear of the bike, with a cable lock threaded through the wheel.

  Tyson stepped back from the doors, padded around to the front of the wagon and snatched up a shopping bag from the front passenger seat footwell. He circled back around to the rear of the van, chucked the bag at Vecchio.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Get changed. Hurry.’

  Vecchio fished out a black Gore-Tex jacket and a pair of waterproof trousers from the shopping bag. While he slipped them on over his sweat-drenched clothes, Tyson reached into the back of the Transit and untied a folded aluminium loading ramp. He extended the ramp, lowering it at an angle to the ground. Then he hopped into the van, untied the straps from either side of the BMW and pulled the bike backwards, releasing the front wheel from the chock. Carefully rolled the bike down the loading ramp.

  As soon as Tyson had eased the machine down to the ground he kicked out the side stand, rested the BMW upright and padded round to the front passenger side of the wagon. Hurried back a few moments later gripping a black full-face helmet with a clear visor.

  He thrust the helmet at Vecchio, quickly folded the aluminium ramp back up inside the Transit and slammed the doors shut. Then he retrieved a second motorcycle helmet from the waterproof bag tied to the back of the BMW and slipped it over his head.

  Tyson paced back round to the front of the Transit. He reached inside the passenger seat. Grabbed a plastic bag filled with human hair.

  The evening prior to the attack, they had stolen a bag of hair clippings dumped in the street outside a less-than-reputable barber’s shop a few miles away. Vecchio and Tyson had taken the cuttings and stashed the hair in a sealed sterile bag. Now Tyson unzipped the bag and emptied the contents inside the van. The hair would corrupt any DNA samples taken later on by police scene-of-crime teams. With all that extra DNA swimming about inside the van, there was no way the police would be able to identify the person driving it at the time of the hit-and-run. Not for a while, at least.