Ultimatum

Sixty-nine

21.23

‘Right,’ said Cecil, ‘they’ve just left the B158 heading east in the direction of a village called Epping Green.’

He was sitting with a Macbook Air on his lap watching the progress of Fox’s GPS unit, while Cain drove at a steady fifty miles an hour along the B157, three miles to the south of them.

Cain nodded, pleased with the way things were going. ‘Good. Then they’re definitely taking him to a safehouse, and it can’t be too far away.’

Cecil gave him a sideways glance. ‘How the hell are we going to do this, sir? Now that there are only two of us?’

‘The same way we’d have done it if there’d been three. By stealth. We get the location, we scope it out, and we move in. We’ll have the element of surprise on our side. They won’t be expecting a thing. If they were they’d never have taken him to a safehouse. And it’s not like we’re dealing with the SAS here. None of these coppers will have ever fired a gun in anger, I can guarantee you that.’

‘It’s still dangerous.’

Cain turned and glared at him. ‘This whole damn thing’s dangerous, Cecil. But that’s the way it has to be. We’re soldiers. It’s how we operate.’

Cecil sighed. ‘What if we haven’t killed him? Jones, I mean. He can testify against us.’

He can testify against you, you mean, thought Cain. ‘We shot him at least twice, and it’s freezing cold out there tonight. He won’t survive.’

‘We never saw his body, and he’s a tough bastard.’

‘Then we’ll take him out later if we have to. Accidents can be arranged, you know that.’

As he spoke, while still watching the road ahead, Cain could see that Cecil was looking at him suspiciously. Cecil had been in a difficult mood ever since he’d found out that Jones had to die, and Cain knew he had to keep his morale up while he still needed him.

‘Look, even if Jones survives, the good thing is that he’s in no position to talk to the police. He shot Dav in cold blood, remember? There’s no way he can spin himself out of that one. His best bet’s to keep his mouth shut, and he knows it.’

‘But that’s the thing,’ said Cecil, and Cain could hear the pain in his voice. ‘He shot the Albanian. He did the robbery this morning. He did everything asked of him. So I don’t understand why he’d betray us.’

‘Because he weakened, Cecil. Most men do. They take the easy option. We haven’t.’

‘Aye, and what good’s it done us?’

Cain glared at him. ‘Don’t give me that. You know why we’re doing this. And think of the money you’re going to make when we break out Fox.’

Cecil quietened a moment at the thought of the reward on offer. Like most of the people Cain had ever met, he was greedy.

‘And you reckon Fox has definitely got the money to pay us?’ he asked eventually.

Course he hasn’t, thought Cain. And if he did have it, he wouldn’t pay us anyway. But he didn’t say that. ‘I know for a fact that Fox has got two million dollars stashed away in various foreign bank accounts. We’re going to hold him until he pays us half of it. Us, Cecil. Me and you.’

In truth, Cain had already been paid by the man he reported directly to, Garth Crossman, to silence Fox once and for all. Cecil wasn’t going to make it out either. Like Fox, he knew too much. Tonight, Cain and Crossman were going to make a clean break from their previous strategy of launching violent terrorist attacks. The attacks had served their purpose. They’d wreaked havoc, harmed community relations, and made the government look weak. Now it was time for Crossman to go political.

Cecil stared at the screen. ‘OK. Targets have now turned right on to an unmarked road. The road leads down to a farm about half a mile north of us. It’s the only building on that road.’

Cain felt his adrenalin kicking in. ‘It’s the safehouse.’

‘OK, take the next right turn,’ said Cecil. ‘If we move fast enough we might be able to cut them off before they get there.’