Deep Black

96

Jerry had been listening; he seemed to lose his footing, and fell with a shout.

I tapped Hairy and waved my hands urgently. ‘Go help him! Go help him!’

Jerry wasn’t going to get any Oscars for the moaning, but at least he kept doing it. Hairy muttered a curse or two, but opened his door anyway. As he climbed out, he put the G3 back in the footwell, resting it against the seat.

My eyes focused on the barrel. I wouldn’t get a second chance at this.

I grabbed the muzzle with my right hand, yanked it back between the seats towards me and simultaneously pushed back, opened the door with my left and rolled out on to the tarmac.

I felt the butt bounce across the rear seat, and crash on to my chest as I landed.

My left hand grabbed the plastic stock, my right slid down on to the pistol grip. The road surface was hard against my back as I pushed away from the door.

Ignoring the shouts from the front of the wagon, I concentrated on getting my left hand on to the cocking piece, flicking it so it stuck out at right angles to the barrel, then racking it back. A brass round spun out of the ejection chamber as I let the working parts go forward and pick up another. I knew now that the weapon was made ready. The shouts continued as I got to my feet.

Butt in the shoulder, I aimed at Hairy, both eyes wide, needing to see everything.

Jerry lay stock-still on the grass. ‘Jerry, on your feet – get him down, get him down!’

I kicked the driver’s door and moved back at least three arm widths. ‘Out! Out! Out!’ If he didn’t understand English, he got the drift. He came out of the car at warp speed, hands in the air, then sank to his knees and put them behind his head.

By now Hairy was on the floor too. I leaned into the weapon, safety catch off, first pad of the finger on the trigger. ‘Jerry, get them together in the light.’

Jerry did as he was told and they soon lay together face down on the grass verge. I moved round so I faced the tops of their heads. I could get clear shots into them if they started fucking about. ‘Search them. Make sure they’ve got no radios, no weapons.’

Long shadows were cast by the headlights as Jerry patted them down and rummaged in their pockets. Hairy had nothing on him apart from a wallet and cigarettes.

He moved over to the driver. ‘What we going to do with them, Nick?’

‘They stay here. Soon as you’ve finished, get them crawling into the treeline.’

We both followed as they shuffled to the edge of the canopy, their breath snorting out of them like racehorses’. The first line of trees blocked the Vitara’s headlights, casting weird shadows into the first few metres of forest.

‘Tie them up. Use their belts, shoelaces, whatever you can find.’

I kept them both covered as Jerry got them to sit against a tree. Then he had an idea, ran back to the Vitara and returned with the empty bumbags and a set of jump leads. He tied their hands with the leads, then clipped the bumbags round their necks and a tree. They didn’t resist: they wanted to live.

I rested the G3 on the ground and pulled my boots and socks off. The frost-covered grass was freezing, but it was worth it. Fuck knows who might be within earshot, but I didn’t want them spending the night screaming their heads off.

I put the damp boots back on and jammed a sock into each mouth. Then we shoved as much as possible of the bumbags into their mouths and tightened the straps around the tree-trunks so they were holding their heads and gagging them. If you don’t fill the whole mouth void, sound can be produced and projected. With the void filled with a stinking sock, they’d be more worried about breathing and avoiding gagging than making noise.

Now they were sorted, we had to get back to the house. We ran to the Vitara and I grabbed the Thuraya.

‘Do these things have silent alert or vibrate or what?’

Jerry shrugged as he shoved his passport and wallet into his parka.

I laid the G3 on the bonnet and powered it up while I retrieved my own docs. ‘We can’t risk using the wagon.’ I kept my eyes on the phone LED. ‘It’s going to make too much noise on the approach and it might be compromised before we get back to the house. Go and park it in the treeline, take out the rotor arm and we’ll keep it with us. We’ll use it to get the fuck out. Don’t forget the keys.’

I got the Thuraya on to vibrate. There were five bars on the sat signal and five for power. I scrolled down numbers called as Jerry jumped into the wagon. ‘Right, that long fucker, that George’s number?’

I took a couple of deep breaths and pressed Send as he headed towards the trees.

No answer. The phone just kept ringing. I gave it another twenty seconds before cancelling. That left only Ezra. I called the emergency number. Baby-G said 00:11. DC was six hours behind. Maybe he was still there, talking about trust to another of George’s suckers.

I got the answering-machine. I talked slowly and clearly. ‘It’s Nick, Nick Stone. I need to speak to George, urgently. Tell him I know what’s happening – tell him I will finish the job, but I must talk to him first. He must call me on the Thuraya. It’s life and death, Ezra – don’t think about it, just do it. Call him, go to him, whatever.’

Jerry had the Vitara in the trees, two long tracks gouged in the frozen grass behind it. The bonnet clicked open and Jerry climbed out. I went over to him as he bent over the engine. ‘You get him?’

I put the phone and G3 on the passenger seat, took off the mag and pushed down on the rounds. It was full, apart from the round in the chamber and the one I’d ejected. I put it back on the weapon and removed my parka, keeping an eye out for the ejected round in the back of the wagon. ‘Just a message.’

No luck with the round. I wrapped the parka sleeves round my waist. Jerry followed suit. ‘That was one fucking amazing meeting. What you make of him?’

‘Faith, my arse. He’s just as fucked up as any suicide bomber, bin Laden without a beard.’ There was a whole lot more I could have said, but it would have to wait. G3 in my left hand and the Thuraya in my right, I was ready to go.

I didn’t give a shit about what he’d done to Coke sales, fucking about with the West’s interest in dysfunctionality, or that he didn’t paint his toenails red, white and blue. I had my own reasons for wanting him dead.