Under Fire

19

Of Jack’s two latest requests of Gavin, the gun had been the easier, surprisingly so. Jack’s request for an NSA trace of what Jack hoped was Helen’s cell phone was a tougher task.

“The gun’s coming from some connection of Mr. Clark’s,” Gavin explained. “Some guy from Hereford, whatever that is.”

“Home of the 22 SAS Regiment,” Jack replied, referring to the Special Air Service, Britain’s elite Special Forces unit.

“Sure,” Gavin replied, and then gave him the details.

As promised, in locker 123 at Saint Andrews Street bus station Jack found the weapon inside a padded envelope. It was a noise-suppressed .32-caliber Walther inside a paddle holster with belt pouches containing three spare magazines, each full of what Jack knew would be subsonic rounds.

Jack was pulling back into his motel’s parking lot when his phone trilled. “It’s under way,” Gavin said. “Gerry didn’t look too happy about it, but you’ve got your trace. Providing the phone’s not off, we should have a location in a couple hours.”

“Good. I’m heading back to Kinghorn.”

The trace didn’t come in a couple hours, and it didn’t come four hours after that. Jack, who’d been sipping coffee and waiting in Kinghorn’s only twenty-four-hour coffee shop, left as the sun was coming up and checked into the Carousel Motel overlooking the ocean. Through his balcony windows the sun reflected yellow off the choppy water.

At noon, Gavin texted him a “still working on it” message.

At five, Gavin called. “I’m with Gerry and Mr. Clark.”

Clark said, “We’ve got a hit on the phone. It’s pinging somewhere east of the Pettycur coastal road, about a hundred-meter square between Abden Place and Long Craigs Terrace.”

“How many houses?”

Gavin said, “Twenty-two. We have no way of knowing which ones are occupied, though.”

“Helen paid cash for the garage in Edinburgh and I’m betting she paid cash for their van. Stands to reason she would have done the same here.”

“Good point,” said Clark. “Gavin, see what you can come up with. Check rental permits versus private ownership, landlords hauled into court for unfit lodgings, pensioners on a fixed income—”

“Why?”

“If you own the house you’re not as likely to hand the keys to a stranger with a wad of bills. And poor landlords who take cash under the table are often stingy with repairs and not fans of Her Majesty’s tax collectors.”

“Ah. Okay, I’m all over it.”

Gerry said, “John’s going to run the plan with you, Jack.”

“I can handle—”

Clark interrupted. “If you find the house you’ll probably be outnumbered. And whoever’s inside has done this kind of thing before. Fail to plan, plan to fail.”

He’s right, Jack thought. As much as he wanted to move right now, blindly crashing through whatever door he eventually found would probably get both him and Aminat Medzhid killed.

“Okay, let’s walk it through.”

Jack waited until nightfall, then parked his Fiesta in a pub parking lot on Nethergate Street, then started the five-minute walk to the target area. If Kinghorn’s streets were quiet during the day, they were almost deserted at night. He passed an equally vacant trailer park overlooking the shoreline to his right. When he drew even with Abden Place, which sat back twenty yards from the coastal road, he stepped off the shoulder and down a short grass slope to a paved trail bordered by hedges; through them he could hear the crash of waves. In the distance a buoy bell gonged rhythmically. Across the road sat the line of Abden Place. He counted five porch lights on, but none of the front windows were illuminated.

Jack stopped and texted, IN PLACE.

STAND BY, came the reply. This would be John Clark.

To his left he saw a pair of headlights coming down the road. He backed deeper into the hedge and crouched down. A few seconds later he saw the car pass; on its roof was a light bar.

POLICE. KEEP GOING…

The car’s engine faded.

Jack waited.

His phone vibrated.

SIX RENTAL COTTAGES, Clark texted. TWO ON LONG CRAIGS TERRACE, FOUR ON ABDEN PLACE; OF THESE, TWO BELONG TO PENSIONERS. HOUSE NUMBERS 5 AND 9.

Jack texted, MOVING.

STAY IN TOUCH.

Jack looked left and right down the road, then crossed. On the other side of a strip of grass he reached the sidewalk. The address placard on the cottage before him read ABDEN PLACE #2, the one to its right, #3. Both porch lights were dark.

Behind one of the cottages a dog yipped twice, then went silent.

Jack started walking, counting cottages as he went. When he drew even with number 5 he saw the porch light was on. He continued on and soon reached number 9, the last cottage on the block. This one’s porch light was also lit.

Were the kidnappers more or less likely to leave the lights on? he wondered. On, was his guess. If the group was clever — which Helen clearly was — they’d want to behave as naturally as possible. Occupied homes tended to leave the porch lights on. It was the friendly thing to do.

Jack passed number 9 and followed the sidewalk as it curved around and intersected with Long Craigs Terrace. To his right he could see the fenced backyards of the Abden cottages; running between each one was an alleyway. He walked south until he was back at number 5, then turned down the alleyway. At its end he found himself standing between the cottage and its garage. Gently, Jack opened the side gate and crept down the grass path to the garage’s half-glass door. He clicked on his penlight and shined it through the window. Inside was a white Škoda station wagon.

This wasn’t proof positive, of course. The kidnappers may have ditched the van they’d used to abduct Amy.

He retraced his path through the alley, then back down the sidewalk until he reached the second cottage’s yard, then again took the alley to the front of the house. To his right was the cottage’s side door. Through it he heard a soft metallic clink, like a utensil striking metal. The kitchen.

Jack crouched down. His heart was pounding.

He drew the Walther from its holster and then affixed the noise suppressor to the muzzle. Gun trained on the door, he stepped onto the driveway, then sidestepped to the gate. He pushed it open, went through, swung the gate shut, then stepped to the garage door. Hand cupped around the end of the flashlight, he shined the beam through the glass and saw a dark brown wheel well. He panned the flashlight upward.

It was the van.

Behind him the cottage door creaked open.

“I’m taking the garbage out,” a voice called.

Jack detected an accent. It sounded Russian.

He retreated down the path to the corner of the garage, circled it, pressed his back against the wall. He brought the Walther up across his body and aimed it at the corner.

The gate banged open against the fence.

Footsteps squished on the sodden grass.

Jack realized he was holding his breath; he let it out.

Come on, go away…

The garage door swung open and a moment later Jack heard the soft clunk of aluminum cans and glass on concrete.

The footsteps faded. The cottage door clicked shut.

Jack couldn’t tell if the lock had engaged.

He got out his phone and texted, FOUND IT. GOING IN.

He checked his watch: 10:04.

As arranged, if he didn’t reestablish contact within ten minutes Clark would push the panic button. This was false comfort, of course, and Jack assumed Clark knew it. Three thousand miles from home, ten minutes or ten hours made no difference.

MONITORING POLICE CHANNELS, Clark replied. WATCH YOUR SIX.

Having already decided kicking in the cottage’s front door was a no-go, Jack turned his focus to the side door. This was problematic, however. There was at least one man on the other side of it, in the kitchen. Beyond this, he had no idea of the cottage’s layout. He would have to clear the cottage blindly and on the fly.

You know this stuff, he told himself. Don’t hurry it. Watch your corners and your intersections — He stopped himself. Get on with it.

He shifted the Walther to his left hand, swiped his sweaty right palm across his chest, then regripped the gun.

On flat feet he walked back down the path and out the gate. He scanned the length of the driveway and the front corner of the house. Nothing moved.

Down the street the dog yipped again. A voice shouted, “Quiet, Numsy!”

Jack crept to the cottage door. Through it he heard running water, then the clink of a dish. He reached out with his left hand, turned the knob. It was unlocked. He pushed open the door a couple of feet; through it was a round dining table and an arched entryway, through which he saw the flickering light of television playing on the walls.

A loud buzzer went off and a voice said, “No, sorry, Annette. The answer is Dumfries.”

To the right of the dining table a wooden plank door was set into the wall. A basement door, Jack guessed.

Using the door as a screen, he stepped inside and peeked around it. A man was standing at the sink, doing dishes under the glow of a pendant lamp; its light reflected off a window above the sink. Careful, Jack. If he looks up—

Something on the beige linoleum floor caught his eye. In the floor’s indentations were slivers of a brown substance. Dried blood.

Jack crouched down and crab-walked into the kitchen until the man’s body was between him and the window, then stood up. A single shot at the base of the skull would do the trick. He’d never done that before. Then again, he told himself, these people had threatened to send Aminat back to Medzhid in pieces, and Jack had no doubt they meant it. They’d signed up for whatever they got.

Make a decision.

He crept toward the man, who suddenly shut off the water and reached for a towel on the counter beside him. Jack clamped his left hand over the man’s mouth, then rapped him behind the ear with the butt of the Walther. The man went limp. Jack caught him and lowered him the rest of the way to the floor, then turned the sink faucet back on.

He turned his attention to the entrance to the TV room. It was empty.

He paced to the basement door and waited for the game show’s buzzer to sound again. When it did, he opened the door, revealing a set of stairs. Leaving the door open a crack, he took the steps to the bottom, where he found a dimly lit basement.

Tucked against the far wall beneath some pipes lay an elongated shape beneath a gray woolen blanket.

“Please, no…” Jack murmured.

He walked over, took a breath, and jerked back the blanket. Lying on the concrete floor were two bodies. Bloody towels were packed around the edge of the corpses. One man was lying on his side with a bullet hole in his temple; the other, who was younger, lay on his back. His shirt was sodden with blood and his forearms were covered in slashes.

This had to be Steven, Jack thought, but who was the other one? Steven had gone down fighting, while the second man had been executed.

From upstairs came the creaking of floorboards.

Jack froze and listened, trying to gauge their path. In his mind’s eye he saw the TV watcher stepping into the kitchen. Jack braced himself for the shout of alarm. None came.

He crept back up the stairs and stopped at the door.

A shadow passed the gap.

“What the hell… Yegor—” a voice muttered.

Jack pushed open the door and raised the Walther.

The man in front of him was already turning around. In his left hand was a small semi-auto equipped with a noise suppressor. Jack shot him twice in the chest. Aside from the click-clack of the racking slide, the Walther’s report was almost silent. The man stumbled backward, eyes wide with surprise. His legs gave out and he dropped butt-first on the floor. He looked down at the seeping holes in his chest, then at the gun still clenched in his right hand. He started to raise it. Jack took a step forward and shot him in the forehead.

Upstairs, a door opened. A female voice called, “Everything okay?”

This would be Helen.

Shit. Jack didn’t give himself a chance to think. He put what he hoped was a Russian-like accent in his voice and said, “Dropped something.”

The woman didn’t reply.

Then: “Okay. Turn that down, will you?”

The door clicked shut.

Jack walked to the TV room’s entrance and peeked around the corner. Carpeted steps led upward to the darkened second-floor landing bordered by a wood balustrade.

Jack found the remote on the couch and lowered the TV’s volume.

Two down, but how many more upstairs?