Dead Men's Harvest

Chapter 25

Tubal Cain was also high in the sky.

The Challenger 604 jet had taken him as far as Newark, New Jersey, where, posing as a crew member, he’d boarded a second airplane for the international flight over the Atlantic. For the last twenty minutes or so, the plane had been in descent, huge billowing clouds obscuring the approach to Manchester International Airport in the north of England. In his previous life as a member of the US Secret Service Cain had had occasion to visit the British Isles, but this was his first time this far north. The plane circled for its final descent. When the aircraft touched down, Cain was waiting by the cargo hold doors until the baggage handlers arrived to offload the passengers’ suitcases, then blended with them as they transported the bags to the waiting carousels. With that done, it was a simple task for Cain to make himself scarce. Within twenty-five minutes of touching down, he was in the back of a car driven by one of Hendrickson’s UK contacts.

It had always been a possibility that he’d be approached by security, and although his papers would have passed scrutiny, his weapons would not. Therefore, he opened the case on the back seat of the car and studied its contents. The replacement weapons were exactly as he’d requested.

There were three knives — the main tools of his trade.

Each was a different size and weight. The first was similar to a box-cutter but with a fixed blade. The next was a Recon Tanto like the one he’d employed against the marshal’s back in Montana when his wild goose chase had led him to Jeffrey Taylor. The final one, the most unwieldy, but terror-invoking, was a Bowie knife with a blade more than a foot long and as broad as his palm.

He smiled in satisfaction, then turned his attention to the gun. It was a Walther P99, with polymer frame and steel slide, and internal striker as opposed to a hammer. The gun was the modified model designed to take a box magazine of 15?. 40 Smith and Wesson rounds. There were four magazines in total. Sixty bullets: enough to start a small war if need be. He slapped one of the magazines into the gun, racked the slide, noted the chamber loaded indicator on the side registering that the gun was good to go. As was he.

The driver knew enough to keep his eyes forward, happy to have as little to do with Cain as possible. Cain only conversed with the man enough to get to where he wanted to go; everything else he needed was in a folding leather wallet he found beneath the spare ammunition. While he’d been flying over the Atlantic, Hendrickson’s people had been busy gathering the necessary information. He could have done it himself, but anything that speeded up the process was good by him.

The driver took the car out along the M60 northern ring road, past the Trafford Centre shopping mall, before picking up the M602 through the Greater Manchester city limits, past Eccles and Salford and into the town centre. Joining the A6, the driver passed through the district of Ardwick towards Longsight. Taking a left, he nosed into a housing estate, a mix of council houses and private rented flats. At the end of the road was waste ground and beyond that the main railway line into Piccadilly Station.

The driver brought the car to a halt. ‘There’s a left turn up there, takes you back into the estate. You want me to drive in, mate?’

‘Here will do nicely, driver,’ Cain said, distributing his newly acquired weapons about his body. He checked the wallet, saw some sterling cash inside, but didn’t deem it appropriate to tip the man. He shoved the wallet into an inside pocket of his jacket.

‘Take this.’ The driver handed back a mobile phone. ‘It’s pre-programmed. Give me a call when you need to arrange collection.’

Cain dropped the phone in an outer pocket.

‘Take it easy,’ said the driver. ‘Rough neighbourhood, this.’

Cain didn’t know if the man was being sarcastic or not. English wit was lost on him sometimes. He got out of the car and closed the door behind him. He stood on the pavement — it wasn’t called a sidewalk over here — and watched as the driver spun the car in the road and headed off. Cain wore a waterproof jacket and pulled on a cap: not so much as a disguise, but more against the damp chill that swept down the street. He couldn’t remember being in the UK when it wasn’t damp and chilly.

It was a school day, he was sure, but there were still a couple of kids hanging about on old bicycles, dressed in a uniform of tracksuit bottoms and hooded sweatshirts. They couldn’t have been older than ten or eleven years old, yet they stared at him with eyes as hard as those of the patrons of Fort Conchar. They’d made him as a stranger within seconds. Cain didn’t bother about that: as long as the local police weren’t as perceptive.

Ignoring the young hoods, he strode along the street and took the left Hendrickson’s man had indicated. Here he found old-style tenement flats. Alleyways ran between the buildings. He checked numbers on plaques on the walls; saw the building he was looking for. Good enough, he thought, and angled over to an alleyway on the opposite side. This one dead-ended at a corrugated sheet metal wall to dissuade pedestrians from crossing the rail tracks. It was the home of discarded junk, broken bottles and human waste judging by the smell. Standing in the mouth of the alley, he surveyed the tenement opposite him, allowed his gaze to climb a couple of storeys and saw a window with the drapes closed. Didn’t look like anyone was home. Good enough again. He would come back later, as he’d always planned.