Ryan Kaine: On the Money: (Ryan Kaine's 83 series Book 5)

by Kerry J Donovan

  “No use to me, Sean. Can’t remember the last time I needed a fountain pen. It’s all keyboards and ballpoints these days.”

  “What about your good lady?”

  Kaine tried to imagine how Lara might react to anyone having the temerity to call her a “good lady” and managed not to grimace. “No thanks, that’s a man’s pen. A little big for her, and it wouldn’t feel right to give her stolen property.”

  “Good point. Highly laudable, in fact. However, I don’t mind liberating this beautiful writing implement and giving it a good home.” He slid the pen into his jacket’s inside pocket. “Don’t mind at all.”

  “So,” Kaine said, standing and taking a deep breath. “Can I leave you to it? Don’t really fancy being here when the boys from the NCA arrive to take this place apart. You don’t really need me for anything, do you?”

  “Nope, I’ll be fine here on my own, thanks.” He thrust out a hand and they shook firmly, both adding a forearm grip to the shake.

  “Thanks for disabling the Glock,” Freeman said. “Might have had a little more trouble from Demarcus if you hadn’t locked the hammer.”

  Kaine frowned. “Sorry?”

  Freeman tilted his head and pulled in his chin. “When you hit the floor and started fumbling with the gun. You engaged the safety catch, right?”

  “Like I said in the Hub, Glocks don’t have an external safety catch. They have three internal safeties. There is no lever, as such.”

  Freeman blanched and dropped his backside onto the desk.

  “Blimey, I thought you disabled the chuffing thing. Why did you fiddle with the bloody gun for so long?”

  “Wanted to make it look good before Williams disarmed me.”

  “You took a hell of a risk, though. What if Williams shot you?”

  “A calculated risk. I didn’t think TM would let him shoot me until after you’d spoken. Reckoned you’d be able to schmoose your way into a face-to-face meeting before that happened.”

  “You are a dangerous man, Ryan Kaine.”

  “So they tell me. Changing the subject, you don’t know much about firearms, do you, Sean?”

  “Not a whole heck of lot. Clearly.”

  “Think about enrolling yourself in a weapons training course next time you’re in the US. There’s plenty about if you can pay the fees.”

  “Good idea. I’ll think about doing just that,” Freeman said, puffing out his cheeks.

  “Begs the question, though,” Kaine said. “How did you manage to take down Williams?”

  “You’re not going to believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  Some colour returned to Freeman’s face. “When TM arrived and I finally learned who he was, I punched the little ratbag in the face. Laid him out cold.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Freeman started rubbing his face, probably trying to bring some feeling back, but winced when he touched the bruises and pulled his hands away.

  “What did Williams do?”

  “The bloke went apeshit. Started screaming and threatening me with the Glock. I just laughed at him. Must have sounded hysterical. Williams probably thought I’d lost it completely. He closed on me, pointed the gun in my face, and then I told him how you’d activated the safety. When he turned the gun to check it out, I jumped him. Started pounding and didn’t let up until he stopped moving. Didn’t even resort to this.”

  He dropped a hand to his belt and broke open the buckle to reveal a neat little ceramic blade.

  “Nice gadget,” Kaine said, “I’ve used something similar in the past.”

  Kaine turned his gaze from the knife to the bloody, crumpled mess on the floor near the false fireplace and shook his head.

  “You did all that damage with your bare hands?”

  Freeman scratched the crown of his head.

  “Well, he had been smacking me around most of the evening and threatening to shoot off my kneecaps. I’m embarrassed to say, I did rather lose my rag a little, and …”

  “And?”

  “This helped.”

  He strolled over to the corpse and, with the toe of his shoe, lifted the dead man’s shoulder. Beneath it lay the small bronze statue of a horse.

  “Grabbed that little beauty from the side table after I thumped our little Napoleon here. Hadn’t completely lost my mind.”

  The horse was missing its head and a foreleg.

  Kaine didn’t want to know the current location of either body part. No doubt the post mortem would turn them up, buried somewhere deep inside the head of the corpse.

  “Remind me never to make you angry, Sean.”

  “Normally,” he said, “I’m a placid individual. I’m an artist. Abhor violence, me.”

  “Could have fooled me. Sure you don’t want me to stay and help you clean up?”

  “No thanks, I’ll be right. Actually, I’m used to tidying my own mess, and there’s plenty of time.”

  “What about the Glock. Do I need to make it safe? Where is it, by the way?”

  Freeman smiled again, this one was as sheepish as any Kaine had ever seen. Not even Danny could have matched it.

  “Under the body. Williams is still holding it.”

  “Okay. Mind if I give you some advice for the future?”

  “Don’t attack a man who’s pointing a gun at me?”

  “Yep, that’s part of it. The rest is, if you see a gun lying around the place, assume it’s loaded, don’t pick it up, don’t pull the trigger, get the hell away from it. After that, everything’s cool.”

  “Sounds reasonable. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Righto, then,” he said, rubbing his gloved hands together, “I’d better be off. There’s a hospital patient I need to visit, and a ‘wife’ I need to placate. Take care, Sean. Give my regards to the little man in the loud Hawaiian shirts.”

  “Will do, on both counts. By the way, Corky’s never set foot in Hawaii.”

  “Yeah, thought as much. I’d be willing to bet he’s never even left the UK.”

  Freeman winked. “Now, that would be telling.”

  Kaine threw him a brief wave, spun away, and hurried through the security door without casting a backwards glance.

  Chapter 46

  Monday 20th February – Barcode

  Walthamstow, NE London

  03:41.

  Barcode’s ears picked up the sounds quickly—the multiple light splashes of someone running through deep puddles. Light, fast tread. A small runner. Travelling quick, making good ground, almost sprinting, but not breathing hard. Barcode couldn’t hear no panting.

  A jogger at this time of the morning? What a plonker.

  The noise came from the junction where Boothe Avenue joined Palmerston Road. About a hundred metres away.

  Holding his breath, Barcode waited.

  The footsteps slowed, faltered, and stopped.

  Movement. A shadow, lit by one of the few working streetlights in this part of the hood, approached the junction.

  The movement solidified into a figure. It stopped at the junction, holding close to a set of rusty and broken railings. It crouched low, appearing to spy on the school.

  What the fuck’s this, now?

  A raid?

  Nah, no way.

  The Po-Po wouldn’t arrive on foot. They’d charge in, blue lights flashing, sirens screaming. TV news crews in tow.

  Nah, this were something else. Musta had something to do with the crew what broke into the school and prob’ly got their asses handed to them, stupid fucks. Maybe one of them Parksiders coming to find out what happened to their buddies.

  Too bad, fucker. Your peeps are toast.

  The crouching man looked around him, head swivelling left and right like Delinquent had done, in search mode. Fucker couldn’t have seen nothing scary, ’cause he stood up straighter, stepped out from behind the railings, and started across the road.

  He wore dark trousers and a grey, knee-length coat. Bare headed.
No hat in this weather? The fucker must be desperate, or mad. Something familiar about the way he moved made Barcode’s heart flip.

  Jesus H Christ.

  The newcomer weren’t no man, it were a white woman. The fuckin’ betty who’d flipped him on his butt the other day.

  The Griffin fucker’s woman!

  Bloody hell, that meant one of them break-in merchants had to be Griffin.

  Gold. Pure fuckin’ gold.

  This were his chance to get his own back on the be-atch. Fuckin’ hell, what a twenty-four hours. Revenge against Weasel, turning over the Parksiders—twice—and pulling vengeance on the be-atch.

  There is a God!

  With his heart racing, Barcode grabbed the steering wheel, grinning like it were his birthday.

  Having loved the way he’d dealt with Beanie Boy, the crushed Parksider, cars were fast becoming one of his weapons of choice. They wouldn’t never replace a knife for being up close and personal but, in a pinch, they’d do nicely.

  Very nicely.

  Barcode twisted the screwdriver in the ignition, and the engine fired. It caught first time. He slipped the stick into first gear, stamped on the throttle pedal, and released the clutch.

  The shitty little Renault shot forward like a cat booted in the butt.

  Chapter 47

  Monday 20th February – The Last Rites

  Walthamstow, NE London

  03:37.

  Kaine hurried through the empty Hub, avoiding the various pools of blood, stepping over the baseball bat and a couple of knives—the debris of another battle he’d somehow managed to survive relatively unscathed.

  To stop his hands shaking from the aftereffects of the adrenaline surge, he clenched them into tight fists. Then he opened his fingers, shook them out, and relaxed his hands, all the while taking deep, slow breaths to purge his system. Cooling down after battle was almost as important as the warmup before one.

  In his head, he worked through the post-action debrief. Not that he needed to. It was simply one part of the end game process, his way to detox, wind down. A way to cope with the aftermath of a life-threatening encounter.

  What had he and Lara achieved from their few days in London?

  They’d identified Glenmore Davits’ killer. Kaine didn’t believe Darwin’s “accident” story. Not for a moment.

  With the help of a techie freak and his strangely charismatic thief of a buddy, he and Lara had cleared up a death, destroyed a drug gang, and made some of the streets in Walthamstow a little safer. At least for a few days.

  He grinned to himself.

  The whole episode made them sound like a pair of comic-strip superheroes. So, why didn’t he feel heroic?

  One of the families he’d vowed to protect—one of The 83—no longer existed. Darwin Moore was the last in the family line, destined to spend most of the rest of his life in prison. Kaine had been, in part, responsible for the death of the mother, and he also bore at least some responsibility for Glenmore Davits’ death. If he’d reacted sooner, visited the old man earlier, upgraded Glenmore’s home, maybe even fitted a stairlift, maybe … maybe the old man would still be alive.

  Pack it in, Ryan. That won’t help.

  Kaine shook his head and carried on at a jog through the school.

  No way should he think like that. What was done was done. If he could change the past, Flight BE1555 would never have crashed, the people wouldn’t have died, and he wouldn’t have to live with the nightmares. Wouldn’t have to carry the guilt of so many deaths, either. On the plus side of the accounting ledger, if Kaine hadn’t vowed to help The 83 and, as a result, investigate Glenmore Davits’ death, Darwin would still be running the Tribe. At least he would, until Sean Freeman worked out a way of stopping him.

  Yes, all in all, they’d done a good thing that day. The only thing missing was to punish the thug who laid his hands on Lara, Byron “Barcode” Codell.

  Still, Kaine could live with that.

  He wasn’t about to go searching the streets of Walthamstow to find the thug and deliver vengeance. Such an act was beneath him. Besides, he needed to check in on Damian and Ariel, and he wanted to thank Connor for looking after them all.

  As for Lara Orchard, the beautiful, wonderful, brave but vulnerable vet, he needed to find a way to return her to her old life, or at least a replica of it. Although it would kill him to let her go, he had to do what was best for her in the long run.

  After a rapid detour to collect the baby-Bergen from the mini-landing, Kaine reached the lobby leading to the once-grand school entrance.

  In their hurry to escape, Alphonse and the other two clowns hadn’t even bothered to close the double doors fully. Kaine poked his head through the gap between the doors and peeked out into the dark night.

  Off to his right, a car’s starter motor chugged, the engine coughed, caught, and the high-pitched revving smashed the silence of the night.

  Noisy bugger.

  The car, a small grey Renault, looked familiar. A memory surfaced. The image of a driver lighting a cigarette rose from Kaine’s tired brain. The smoker, still there from what, two, three hours ago?

  Why?

  Headlights snapped on, illuminating wet tarmac, broken paving slabs, and a pedestrian in a light grey raincoat crossing the road stealthily. A woman, medium-length hair plastered to her head and face. Familiar gait. A recognisable sway to the hips.

  Lara!

  The Renault’s engine whined, front wheels spun, caught traction on the slick tarmac. The car lurched forwards, fishtailed. Gathered speed.

  “Lara! Look out!”

  Kaine barged open the heavy oak door, raced through the opening, and took the outside steps in one bound. He hit the pavement, shot forwards, angling his run to place himself between Lara and the fast-closing car.

  Ten metres away, in the middle of the road, Lara looked up, her eyes wide, mouth open in shock.

  Legs and arms pumping, feet pounding pavement, Kaine reached the road.

  Five metres. Less.

  Too far, too late.

  The engine screamed louder and the lights grew brighter as the car approached.

  Kaine dived, arms outstretched, caught her in the side, the hip.

  Lara folded around him, flew away.

  “Ryan!”

  The impact.

  Sudden and immense. Agonising.

  The car struck, high. Shoulder, ribs, and hip. The sharp crack of breaking bones. Searing, excruciating pain in arms and legs. The world tumbled around him. A spinning, jumbled confusion.

  Light grey clothing flew, landed, and rolled away. Safe?

  Buildings spun around his head, up, down, sideways.

  Something hard hit him.

  It stopped his crumpled flying-roll. Cracked his head. Bricks. A wall. A garden wall. Wet pavement, puddle … blood.

  #

  Everything hurt. Mind fogged … Kaine closed his eyes to the pain … to the thumping, crushing headache. His arm throbbed. His side …

  Someone needed him. Who?

  Lara!

  What happened?

  The car, the Renault.

  Metal crashed into metal. A crump. The racing engine died. A whoosh of air from tyres. Steam hissed from a cracked radiator. A car horn blared, didn’t stop. Continuous blaring. Screaming.

  Kaine opened his eyes, turned towards the noise, vision blurred. The headlights still shone. The horn still blared.

  Lara. Oh God. Lara.

  Where …

  Stand. Help her.

  Kaine pushed against the wall. Bone ground against damaged bone. His arm crumpled. He fell back, slumped against the brickwork, the garden wall.

  He tried to sit up, roll himself onto his back, but something stopped him, held him pinned.

  Kaine blinked hard. Vision cleared a little, not much.

  The Renault, fifteen, twenty metres away. It had climbed the pavement, hit the metal upright of a signpost. Its front end was up in the air, the wheels free of t
he ground, the one near Kaine still spinning.

  Inside the car, behind the steering wheel, something moved. The driver. His head lifted and the horn cut out.

  Eerie silence filled the air.

  Pounding. The one in Kaine’s head grew louder, deafening. His vision blurred again, faded.

  In the Renault, renewed activity. The head turned, and the driver’s door screeched open. A foot wearing a black trainer pushed out from beneath the door, and with it, a leg clad in black.

  Another screech and the door opened wider. A man stepped clear, a gash on his forehead poured blood down one side of his face, but he was smiling.

  “Hey, honkey. How ya doing?”

  Kaine shook his head, forced his vision to focus.

  The man from the crashed Renault dug a hand into the pocket of his parka and pulled out a knife, its blade at least eight centimetres long.

  Barcode!

  Kaine tried moving again. Tried rolling upright. Nothing happened but blinding, grinding pain in his arm and his side.

  The driver swaggered away from the car, waving the blade in front of his bloodied face. His eyes shone in victory. He opened his mouth in a sneer. One of his front teeth was missing, but he didn’t seem to notice, or if he did notice, didn’t care.

  “I’s gonna gut you open like a fish, fucker.”

  The big black man took one slow, swaggering pace forwards, then another. The sneer grew.

  “I’s gonna kill you slow, then I’s gonna have some fun with your ho of a wife.”

  Barcode turned to look at the place where Kaine had last seen the grey raincoat.

  He stopped dead. His head snapped to one side. Blood exploded in a bright red mist.

  Barcode’s eyes rolled up in his head.

  His head snapped the other way. More crimson flew, and with it some hair attached to scalp.

  Barcode’s shoulders sagged. Slowly, his knees buckled, his skeleton seemed to turn to jelly, and he collapsed in on himself, flopping into a messy pile in the middle of Palmerston Road.

  Behind him, Lara stood in her light-grey raincoat, arms down in front of her, hands gripping a piece of bent iron—a wheel brace. Panting, and panting hard, she stared at the mess by her feet, surveying the damage, waiting for movement, guarding herself against reprisals that would never come. At least not from Barcode.