Ultimatum

Thirty-five

17.37

The place we were meeting was as deserted as anywhere you were going to get in London. You reached it down a winding side road right at the end of the industrial estate, which finished at a pair of heavily padlocked high-mesh gates with a large CLOSED sign stuck on one of them. A light glowed dimly in a Portakabin just inside the entrance but that was the only sign of life.

We waited for a few seconds, and then a shifty-looking, unshaven guy smoking a cigarette appeared in the headlights on the other side of the gate as he checked out the car. He wore a heavy donkey jacket with bright green illumination strips that may or may not have concealed a gun.

‘Recognize him?’ I asked Cain.

‘Never seen him before. He’ll just be muscle.’ Cain got out and went to speak to the guy, leaving the engine running.

I knew this was my last chance. I could jump in the driver’s seat and drive off before either of them had a chance to react.

But I didn’t. I just sat there waiting as the guy silently unlocked the gates and Cain came back to the car.

We drove slowly inside and I watched in the wing mirror as the gates were shut and locked again, effectively trapping us inside. A potholed track led through a graveyard of burnt-out vehicles and huge tangled heaps of crushed metal, rising up on each side of us.

‘Have you been here before?’ I asked Cain, my words breaking the silence.

‘No,’ he answered, without looking at me, and I could see that, although he was trying to hide it, he was uneasy too.

The track stopped in front of a large single-storey building with its double doors open and light flooding out from inside. Cain parked next to a Ford Transit van, which looked to be the only driveable vehicle in the whole yard, and we got out. There was a strong odour of acetylene, engine oil, and something else too — similar to chip-shop fat — that made me want to gag. I looked around, searching for a glimpse of Cecil and his MP5 amid all the crap, but there was no sign of him. In fact there was no sign of anyone. Somewhere off in the distance I could hear the rhythmic rumble of a commuter train as it gathered speed, and once again I had this uneasy feeling that this could all be a trap, and that the whole point of bringing me here was to kill me.

I pulled my jacket down to conceal the gun, and joined Cain at the front of the car.

‘OK, let’s go,’ he said. ‘And remember, I do the talking. You just do the strong, silent routine.’

We walked side by side through the building’s double doors, moving carefully as if we were back on patrol in the wilds of Afghanistan, and stopped just inside. The room was big and window less, one side lined with floor-to-ceiling shelving containing everything from copper piping to car radios, the other side dotted with newly arrived cars, some up on raised platforms, and various bits of machinery. An ancient-looking desk and chairs sat at the far end of the room, beyond which was an open door; and it was through this door that two men now emerged, both dressed in leather jackets and jeans — one small, the other large and powerfully built.

‘Hey, Mr Cain, glad you could make it,’ the small one called out as he and his friend started towards us. His accent was eastern European.

‘Good to see you, Dav,’ said Cain. ‘Have you got what we’ve come for?’

‘I have,’ answered Dav. ‘Have you got our payment?’

Cain grinned. ‘Course I have. You know me. I’m a man of my word.’

The two men, both Albanians by the look of them, stopped in front of us. Dav was somewhere in his forties, with a pinched, heavily lined face and long, straggly hair that had been dyed black by someone who didn’t care much about the quality of his work. He was grinning, showing teeth that looked like they needed some serious investment, and there was the malevolent gleam of the sadist in his eyes. Straight away I was on my guard. The other man, who looked like he was about to burst out of his leather jacket, was a lot younger, and by the way he was standing back, he was Dav’s bodyguard.

Dav and Cain shook hands.

‘If you’re holding two hundred K, you’re hiding it well,’ said Dav, still grinning.

‘It’s near here. You can have it as soon as I’ve checked out the goods.’

Dav nodded. ‘Sure. Come this way then, guys.’

He motioned for us to follow him, and I’d just started to relax a little when a mobile phone started ringing. It was Dav’s, and he pulled it out of his leather jacket, frowning down at the screen. ‘Excuse me for a second, Mr Cain. I need to take this.’ He walked away from us, talking quietly on the phone in Albanian, while the rest of us stood in vaguely uncomfortable silence.

‘Everything all right?’ asked Cain when Dav had ended the call.

‘Sure,’ said Dav, but something in his tone didn’t ring true. ‘Business problems. I just need to make one more call.’

I exchanged glances with Cain as Dav walked further away, his back to us. Cain shrugged, as if there was nothing to worry about. And maybe there wasn’t, but I could feel a tingling in the base of my spine that reminded me of the feeling I used to get out on patrol in Helmand, where danger lurked round every corner.

Dav finished the call and replaced the phone in his leather jacket. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, coming back over. This time he was staring at me. ‘So who’s your friend, Mr Cain? I’ve never seen him before.’

‘He’s one of my people. He’s good.’

‘Yeah? Is that right? How long you known him?’

I saw that Cain was frowning, and the tingling in my spine suddenly got a whole lot worse. ‘Long enough. Why?’

‘Look, what the hell is this?’ I demanded. ‘If you’ve got a problem with me, you ask me about it. Not him.’

Dav’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yeah, I got a problem. A real problem.’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Cain, sounding confused.

But before Dav could answer, I heard movement to my left. I swung round, instinctively going for my gun, as a guy holding a pump-action shotgun appeared in the gap between two of the shelf units, while at the same time the guy who’d let us in at the gates appeared at the double doors behind us. He too was holding a shotgun.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Dav told me, taking a step back so he was out of the shotguns’ line of fire.

My fingers were touching the pistol in my waistband, but right away I knew I was never going to be able to hit both gunmen before one of them blew a very large hole in me. Even if they were crap shots, they’d be hard pushed to miss from the range they were at, and I couldn’t rely on Cain, a man I’d only known for a few hours. I moved my hand away from the gun.

‘What the hell’s going on, Dav?’ demanded Cain, who’d also made the sensible decision not to go for his own gun.

‘That call I just had was from a good friend of mine,’ said Dav, bringing out a pistol from under his jacket, which he pointed at us. ‘The man we deal with over here, a guy called Brozi, has been arrested. You know anything about that?’

Cain looked completely caught out by this revelation. ‘Of course not. We’re here to buy the merchandise we talked about.’

‘Brozi’s a careful guy. The only way he gets caught is if someone set him up.’

‘Look, I only ever deal with him by phone. I couldn’t even tell you what he looks like. And I only spoke to him to confirm this meeting a couple of hours ago.’ There was a long silence as both men sized each other up. Then Cain spoke again. ‘We’ve done business before. You know you can trust me.’

‘We have. But him.’ Dav flicked his head dismissively in my direction. ‘Him I don’t fucking trust.’

I felt the adrenalin building inside me, but I knew my best bet was to stay calm and go on the attack. ‘What are you accusing me of?’

I took a step towards Dav, who lowered his pistol and pointed it at my groin with a hand that was way too steady. ‘Don’t move, or I’ll blow your balls off.’ His eyes blazed with anger and his finger tightened on the trigger.

He barked something in Albanian to the big bodyguard who produced a thin-cord garrotte from under his jacket, and walked round behind me.

‘What the hell’s he doing?’ I snapped, my hand hovering over the gun, knowing I was already too late. At the same time, the shotgun-wielding thug who’d been hiding behind the shelves walked towards me until the end of his barrel was only a few feet from my gut. His face was blank and I knew he’d kill me without a second’s thought.

‘Don’t go for that gun,’ said Dav quietly. ‘You won’t make it.’

‘I’m not a cop,’ I answered, looking him right in the eye, working hard to keep my voice steady. I felt the gun being removed from the waistband of my jeans, leaving me completely unarmed.

‘Maybe you’re not. But we’re going to find out one way or another. And you, Mr Cain, get your gun out and drop it on the floor.’

‘Look, Dav,’ said Cain, raising his hands, palms outwards, in the universal gesture of reconciliation, ‘I can vouch for him. He’s definitely no cop.’

‘Drop your gun, or I get my friend to shoot you.’

‘This whole thing’s wrong,’ Cain called out, using the agreed code to tell Cecil we were in trouble.

‘Drop it. Now.’

Reluctantly, Cain pulled out his gun and laid it down on the floor. He was scared now too, but he glanced at me briefly, his expression saying: Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right. This is just a misunderstanding.

But it wasn’t. Someone, somewhere, had betrayed their contact, and the grim irony of it all was that it had absolutely nothing to do with me. I couldn’t see how Mike Bolt could be responsible, but if he was, then I’d tear him apart with my bare hands.

But right now that was the least of my problems, because if Dav searched me, then there was a good chance he’d find the GPS units in my wallet, and that would be as good as a death sentence.

And then suddenly I was being yanked backwards as the garrotte Dav’s bodyguard was carrying was whipped over my head and tightened round my neck. My breath was cut off like a light switch, and spots of light danced in front of my eyes as I was lifted up on to my toes. And all I could think was that this was it, the end, that I was about to die without saying goodbye to my daughter, and that they’d never find my body.

‘This whole thing’s wrong!’ shouted Cain, using the code for a second time, his voice echoing round the room. ‘This whole thing’s wrong! Let him go!’

Dav said something else in Albanian and the cord was loosened enough for me to breathe again, but I was still unable to move and panting wildly for breath. The big guy was patting me down now, looking for more weapons. He found the mobile phone and lobbed it over to Dav, who caught it with his free hand and inspected it. Seeing that it was switched off, he lost interest and lobbed it away, ignoring my gasps for mercy.

Next came the wallet, and Dav put his gun away so he could use both hands to check through it more carefully.

Jesus, I’d messed up. My whole life was in that wallet, not just the two GPS units Bolt had given me. My address.

My family.

‘This whole thing’s wrong!’ yelled Cain again.

But there was no movement outside the door. No Cecil. No nothing.

‘Shut the fuck up, Cain!’ snapped Dav.

He shouted something in Albanian and one of the other gunmen came forward and searched Cain from behind. Cain tensed, and for a moment I thought he might go for the gun on the floor, but he didn’t resist as it was kicked away, out of reach.

‘This isn’t the way we do business in this country,’ he said angrily. ‘You treat your customers properly.’

Dav’s expression was like stone. ‘Someone betrayed Brozi. It wasn’t any of us. So it has to be you, or someone close to you. How long have you known this guy for? Uh?’ He waved an arm at me. ‘How long?’

Cain hesitated. For just one second, but it was one second too long. ‘Long enough.’

Dav shook his head emphatically. ‘Not long enough.’ He pulled a crumpled photo from the wallet. It was an old one my mum had taken of Gina and Maddie, when Maddie was about a year old, and we’d still been a family. ‘Nice picture.’ He grinned, showing his nicotine-stained teeth. ‘This your wife and kid?’

I swallowed hard, which with the thin cord round my neck was no easy feat, the anger rising in me at the thought of this arsehole holding such a precious photo. I thought about elbowing the big guy in the ribs and making a break for it, grabbing Dav’s gun and shoving it against his head, but there was no way I’d make it.

‘Put it back,’ I hissed, as the big guy tightened the garrotte once again.

Jesus, I was scared now. More scared than I’d ever been. And angry with myself too for getting involved in this. I should have turned Bolt down flat. Instead, here I was, trapped with a bunch of madmen, with Cecil, the one man I trusted in this whole thing, nowhere to be seen.

Dav slipped the photo back in the wallet, then pulled out my driving licence. I stiffened. It had my old address on it. The family home where my wife and daughter still lived. I couldn’t believe I’d made such a basic error as to keep my real ID on my person. But I had.

Dav stared at the licence, then back at me. ‘So, Richard Burnham-Jones. How did you meet Mr Cain here?’

‘He’s part of our organization,’ Cain insisted, his voice steady. ‘And we really don’t like people treating us this way. So I’d advise you to let him go so we can continue our deal.’

‘Don’t advise me, Mr Cain,’ said Dav, putting my wallet in his back pocket. He barked something in Albanian and the shotgun-wielding thug who’d searched Cain lifted his weapon and pointed it at the back of his head.

For a single terrifying moment I thought he was going to pull the trigger and blow Cain’s brains all over the dirty floor, but nothing happened, and I was impressed at how calm Cain kept as he looked slowly over his left shoulder at the gunman.

‘Put your hands in the air, Mr Cain, and don’t say another word. Understand?’

Cain nodded once.

‘So, I ask you again, Richard Burnham-Jones. How did you meet Mr Cain?’

It wasn’t easy for me to talk with a garrotte round my neck, but I made the effort. ‘I did some work with one of his guys,’ I gasped. ‘I proved myself. And now I work for him.’

‘I don’t like you, Richard Burnham-Jones.’ Dav spat my name out like it was contagious. ‘There’s something about you that’s not quite right. I can smell it, you know. I’ve always been able to smell trouble.’ He came closer now, his face only inches from mine, and I could smell the stale smoke on his breath. ‘You know what we used to do back home to guys who fucked with us? We killed their whole fucking family. Wife, mother, father. Even their baby children. All of them.’

He turned away and walked over to one of the shelf units, bending down to pick something up. It was only when he turned back round that I saw what it was.

A bloodstained meat cleaver with a steel blade that gleamed in the light.

I started struggling again but I was powerless against the garrotte, and every time I moved it bit deeper into my neck. Jesus, where the hell was Cecil?

‘Where’s the money?’ Dav demanded, resting the cleaver against his shoulder, flat side up. The question was aimed at Cain.

‘I told you,’ said Cain. ‘Near here.’

Dav motioned towards the big guy holding me, and the next second my legs were kicked from under me and I was forced to the floor so I was lying back with my head resting in the big guy’s lap, the cord still biting into my neck. I started choking and it loosened just a little. At the same time, Dav came over and knelt on my legs just above the knees, holding them in place before putting the cleaver’s blade against my shin. I could feel the sharpness of the blade pushing hard on the skin.

‘Tell me where the money is or I’ll cut off his fucking leg! You think I’m bullshitting, yeah? You think I’m bullshitting?’

‘I didn’t take you for a thief,’ said Cain, still keeping his voice even. ‘I thought you were a businessman.’

Dav glared at him. ‘I am a businessman, but I’m no fucking sucker. Someone took down our middleman and now you turn up here without your money. I want to know what’s going on.’

‘So do I. This whole thing’s wrong!’ Cain shouted these last words so loudly that Cecil would have heard him if he’d been chewing popcorn at the top of the London Eye.

But where was he? For Christ’s sake, where was he?

‘The money, Cain. You tell me where it is, or I take his leg. Then yours.’ He raised the cleaver high above his head, his thin feral features alive with excitement.

And in that moment I knew he was going to do it.

Channelling all my strength, I flung myself upwards, ignoring the tightening of the cord, and knocked Dav off me.

He yelled out in anger and lashed out with the cleaver, slicing the material of my jeans. I felt a flash of sharp pain as the blade cut into my leg, and then he was back sitting on my legs again. I could no longer breathe, and my vision was blurring as he raised the cleaver for a second time.

And then the whole room erupted in a hail of gunfire, and suddenly the cord went slack.

Everything now happened incredibly fast. Dav was staring towards the door, and I went for him, fuelled by a potent mix of anger, adrenalin and fear, grabbing his cleaver arm in one hand as he scrabbled wildly for the gun in the holster beneath his leather jacket.

He wasn’t fast enough. With my free hand I punched him twice in the face, before swatting his other arm to one side and yanking out the gun as he rolled backwards across the floor, still holding the cleaver.

There was another burst of gunfire and I hit the deck, rolling across the floor before swinging round with the gun in my hand as bullets sprayed round the room, ricocheting in all directions.

Both the shotgun-wielding Albanians were on the floor. The one who’d been covering Cain lay sprawled out, not moving, while the other was down on his knees pointing his shotgun unsteadily at Cecil who was standing in the doorway, holding the MP5 in front of him. Cecil fired again, at exactly the same time that the Albanian pulled the trigger. The Albanian took a burst of fire to the chest but stayed upright, while Cecil was forced to dive out of the way to avoid the shotgun blast, which struck the wall behind him, puncturing a hole in the brickwork.

Meanwhile the big guy who’d had the garrotte round my neck fired a shot in Cecil’s direction, then swung round towards me, firing wildly as he went. The two of us were only ten feet apart and I took rapid aim at his torso and pulled the trigger.

But nothing happened. The safety was on.

I flicked at it with my forefinger but now the big guy was aiming right at me and I could smell the cordite from his weapon.

For a tenth of a second the whole world stopped. I was too late. I was going to die.

And then the side of my assailant’s head exploded in a shower of blood and brain matter as a bullet slammed into it, and he went down hard, firing off a last shot that flew up into the ceiling, before dropping the gun.

I turned and saw Cain kneeling in a firing position, holding the pistol he’d come here with, his face grimly determined as he continued firing, hitting the surviving guy with the shotgun who, though he’d been hit by Cecil, was still trying to get to his feet, and sending him sprawling into the shelf units.

Now that only left Dav. I jerked round just in time to see him running wildly for the door at the back of the building. I didn’t even hesitate. Holding the gun two-handed and finally flicking off the safety, I took aim and opened fire, missing with the first two bullets, but bringing him down with the third and the fourth.

He stumbled forward into the desk, dropping the cleaver in the process, before slipping on to his knees.

I stood up, still pretty unsteady on my feet after what had just happened, and walked towards him, gun outstretched.

Dav gave me a defiant look as I stopped and pointed the gun at his head.

‘Don’t shoot him,’ barked Cain, coming over with Cecil. ‘We need to know where the weapon is we’re buying.’

‘Fuck you,’ hissed Dav through gritted teeth. He was clutching at his stomach, blood oozing through the gaps in his fingers.

‘You’re not the only one who knows how to use a cleaver,’ said Cain, reaching down and picking it up from the floor. He grabbed the hand that Dav was using to stem the blood from his wound and slammed it down hard on the desk. ‘Tell me where the weapon is or I’ll start on your fingers and by the time I reach your head you’ll have told me every secret you’ve ever had.’

Dav looked up at him, saw the cold look in his pale eyes, and his expression weakened. ‘It’s out the back. We were always going to give it to you. I just didn’t trust this bastard. I still don’t.’

‘Cecil. Check it’s there.’

Cecil disappeared through the door.

‘You know I trust you, Cain,’ said Dav as they waited, trying unsuccessfully to hide the desperation in his voice. ‘I wouldn’t have fucked you up. You let me go, yeah, and no one’ll ever mention this again. I’ll get rid of the bodies of my friends.’

Cain didn’t say anything. He was still holding the cleaver above Dav’s hand.

Cecil came back into the room. ‘It’s there, and it’s still in the box.’

Cain nodded. ‘Good.’ He turned to me. ‘He’s all yours. Prove to him you’re no cop.’

Dav’s eyes widened. ‘I believe you! Please!’

I pushed the end of the barrel into his forehead, while he wriggled beneath it. It was only a minute since he’d been threatening to cripple me for life and yet my anger had dissipated. I almost felt sorry for him.

A bead of sweat rolled down my temple and suddenly I was back in Afghanistan on that single terrible day when I’d killed in cold blood for the only time in my life. Strength. I needed strength. Because if I didn’t shoot him, there was no way I was walking away from here.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cecil staring at me, his face taut with tension.

For a long, drawn-out second we all waited.

Then I pulled the trigger.