by Blake Banner
“First they’ll have to assemble it, then there’ll be a briefing. You can be sure they’re scrambling, sir. Scotland Yard will be shitting bricks. We’ve asked for the help of a New York copper and now he’s a hostage, and being flown to fucking Saudi!”
Caulfield gazed at me. “If he’s lucky.”
“So what now, Caulfield? Your life’s dream is ashes. What will you do? Go and live in a cave in Afghanistan? Your SAS boys will hunt you down, you know? There is nowhere for you to hide.”
He smiled and it was frightening how complacent he was. “Don’t worry about me, Stone. I’ll survive, and, like Arny, I’ll be back. Britain has a destiny. It will be Marxist, and more than that, it will be Muslim, and it will submit to Sharia Law.”
I shrugged. “You may be right, Caulfield, but you know what? Your pal Marx once said that history repeats itself, and when I look at the history of Britain, I see a tough, smart people who have a lot of common sense, who are slow to anger, but fearsome when roused. And I see a people who over and over again have taken their tyrants and their despots and kicked their asses. I don’t see their destiny as one of submission. I think these crazy, island people are going to take your vision of destiny and they are going to shove it right up your ass. What do you think, Dehan?”
I had seen her step out from behind the crate with her small, black dress and her sinfully long legs, her hair tied in a knot behind her neck and the AK-47 in her hands. Let me tell you, it was one of the most indecent sights I have ever seen, and I doubt I will ever be lucky enough to see anything like it again, except in my recurring dreams.
Caulfield frowned. To distract him, I looked over at the door. He followed my line of sight, still frowning, wondering where Dehan was. Her voice came from behind him, low and steady and calm. “I think that’s exactly what they’re going to do, but by the time I’ve finished with him they may have to tear him a new…”
Before she could finish, he was spinning, panicking. He turned to face her with the automatic held out in front of him. In that same moment, I roared and charged at him, head first. It wasn’t smart, but I wasn’t going to let him shoot a woman who looked that good holding an AK-47. In that same moment, the doors burst open behind us and Harry’s Alpha Two team came storming in, bellowing and wielding bits of broken wooden pallet over their heads, like a band of raiding Vikings.
My head thundered home into Caulfield’s belly just as his automatic barked, and at the same instant, his head rocked as Dehan’s shot slammed home right between his eyes.
We crashed to the floor. I heard her scream, “Stone!” and I looked up, sick with terror for a moment that she’d been hit. She was rushing at me with fear in her eyes, shouting, “Are you OK? Are you hit? Did I hit you?”
I smiled at her. “How many rounds did you fire?”
“One!”
I grinned. “How’s Caulfield doing?”
She glanced at him. “Not so good.” Then she scowled. “But I was aiming for his arm, you asshole! I had to shift when you charged, you great lummox! I could have killed you!”
I couldn’t stop smiling. “Oh… It’s just, you look so…”
The Alpha Two team had put down their wooden swords and were now slowly establishing order. The huge sergeant Lewis hoisted me to my feet and Harry undid my cuffs. Lewis said, “I heard your little speech, sir. Very inspiring. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
Dehan held up her cell and handed it to Harry. “You have the whole exchange here.”
He smiled and took it. “You are a marvel, Carmen. This silly sod doesn’t deserve you.”
She winked at me and, ever loyal, she said, “Yeah, he does.”
He laughed. “If you say so.” Then he was on his radio again, telling Alpha One to set up a perimeter, and calling for a meat wagon, a SOCO team, which is the Brits’ version of a Crime Scene team, and a forensic IT team, because they had found Katie Ellison’s laptop, her pen drives and her notebooks.
The proverbial was about to hit the fan, and it was going to be the shitstorm of the century.
EPILOGUE
We were sitting in the VIP lounge at Heathrow Airport, waiting for our flight to be called. We were there courtesy of Lord Chiddester, who had also upgraded our flights, seeing as we had refused to take payment for helping to solve his daughter’s murder. Our luggage was all checked in and we had an hour to kill, so we figured we might as well drown it in martini as shoot it with an AK-47.
Dehan, now dressed in jeans and a demure blouse, was bobbing her olive up and down in her drink, looking pensive.
“It’s hard to believe,” she said at last, “that something like that could happen in a country like Britain today.”
I nodded and ate my olive instead of bobbing it. “The world is changing. I don’t know if there ever were certainties. I guess after World War II, everybody thought there were certainties, until Kennedy and Vietnam, and Watergate… It was only a very short time when we felt more or less sure about who we were, in the West, and what we were about.”
She gave a short laugh that was more like a snort. “I read once that every new century actually starts one or two decades in. You know, the twentieth started in 1916, the eighteenth in 1812. I wonder if we are getting a first taste of what the new century is bringing us.”
“That’s a kind of scary thought.”
She nodded. “On a happier note, Stone, I have decided that in this new and uncertain world, I have acquired a taste for the good life. So we are going to become international consulting detectives to the Crowned Heads of Europe and world governments, uncovering coups and conspiracies and charging exorbitant fees for it.”
I frowned at my glass and signaled the barman to refill it. “Stone & Stone, Consulting Detectives, no fee too great, most jobs too small. I like it. However, Dehan, I insist that in all of our investigations, you wear a minute black dress and carry an AK-47.”
She shrugged. “I can do that.”
We were quiet for a while as the clock hands moved on toward departure time. After a bit, Dehan voiced my own thoughts. “I wonder what’s next in the box?”
The box was our collection of cold cases back at the 43rd Precinct.
“I seem to remember it was the Vince Wolowitz case. They found him tied to his bed in his house on St. Lawrence Avenue.”
“Oh yeah, Clason Point, near the Catholic church. His dog had got busy on his foot.”
“That’s the one. Neighbors said he had a hundred grand in a cardboard box under the bed.”
“But it was never found.”
“What was that, ’97?”
“August ’97. I remember it. You know? I wondered at the time about his family…”
“Yeah, I wondered that too…”
And the hands of clock moved on, toward departure.
WHAT'D YOU THINK?
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ALSO BY BLAKE BANNER
Up to date books can be found on my website: www.blakebanner.com
DEAD COLD MYSTERY SERIES
An Ace and a Pair (Book 1)
Two Bare Arms (Book 2)
Garden of the Damned (Book 3)
Let Us Prey (Book 4)
The Sins of the Father (Book 5)
Strange and Sinister Path (Book 6)
The Heart to Kill (Book 7)
Unnatural Murder (Book 8)
Fire from Heaven (Book 9)
To Kill Upon A Kiss (Book 10)
Murder Most Scottish (Book 11)
The Butcher of Whitechapel (Book 12)
THE OMEGA SERIES
Dawn of the Hunter (Book 1)
Double Edged Blade (Book 2)
The Storm (Book 3)
The Hand of War (Book 4)
A Harvest of Blood (Book 5)
To Rule in Hell (Book 6)
Kill: One (Book 7)
Powder Burn (Book 8)
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[1] See Murder Most Scottish
[2] See The Heart to Kill
[3] See An Ace and a Pair
BOOK 11
MURDER MOST SCOTTISH