by David Archer
* * * * *
Halfway across the city, a young boy decided to take a shortcut through an alley. He had cut through it many times, but this time he noticed something he had never seen before: there was a big splotch of nearly dried blood, and the sight of it bothered him for some reason he couldn’t comprehend. He stepped carefully around it and went on home.
“Ma,” he said to his mother, who was putting soup into a bowl for his lunch, “why d’ye reckon there’d be a puddle of blood over in the next alley?”
“Blood? And where did you see blood?” she asked him.
“Next alley back,” he said. “Right behind the flats, where Miss Judy lives.”
Judy Woodbridge was well known in the neighborhood. She had been a nurse at hospital until a few years back, when she had been caught stealing drugs from the hospital pharmacy and selling them on the street. She’d been arrested and gone to jail for a year, and she lost her nursing license and found herself tending bar just to make rent.
Still, she had the knowing and the skills. It was no secret that she offered black-market medical care, and many of the neighbors had taken advantage of her abilities. Unfortunately, so did much of the riffraff around the area, and a lot of the neighbors were sick of the unsavory characters that came in and out of her back door. They had told her so on more than one occasion, and she had promised to stop the traffic, but obviously she was starting up again.
The boy’s mother said nothing as her son ate his lunch, but when he finished and rushed off to see his mates again, she went to her phone. No one would know it was her, she reasoned, so there was no cause to worry about any sort of retaliation. She told the inspector she was transferred to that she was sure there was something illegal going on in flat D over at number 321 Dibble St. After all, what possible lawful reason could there be for big puddles of blood in the alley behind where the outlaw nurse lived?
The inspector filed a report on the call, but he didn’t have time to go and take a look for himself. It probably wasn’t anything important, anyway.
The report of blood in a suspicious location, however, triggered a program in the computers. Sam Little received a notice only a few minutes later, and decided it was worth checking out. The rest of the team was working its own leads, but Catherine was in her office. He poked his head in and asked her to join him for a ride, and she agreed instantly.
“Coppers got a report of a lot of blood in an alley,” he said. “There was blood all around where the rifle was found, too, and this alley happens to be right behind a flat where lives a former nurse who tends to the misfortunes and injuries of those who prefer not to go to hospital. I thought it’s worth taking a look.”
“Certainly,” Catherine said. “Might be nothing, but you never know.”
They pulled up in the alley a short time later and found the blood with no problem. There wasn’t quite as much as the caller had indicated, but still enough to make Sam think somebody had suffered quite an injury. He started toward the back door of the building and spotted several more drops of blood along the way. “Look there,” he said. “That’s good and dry, could easily be old enough to match with the blood we found on the roof, by the rifle.” Catherine only nodded, so Sam knocked on the back door of the building. When one of the tenants came to open it, he flashed his ID and sent the man scurrying back to his own flat. Sam and Catherine went up the stairs and found flat D. Sam knocked, and a female voice from inside demanded to know who was there.
“MI6,” Sam said. “Got a few questions for you.”
The door opened ten seconds later and a tired-looking woman stared out at them. “MI6?”
Sam and Catherine both showed their IDs, and the woman opened the door and allowed them inside. “I’ve got some tea on,” she said, “if you’d like a cup?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Sam said. “We wanted to ask you about all the blood in the alley, leading right up to the back door. I noticed a couple of little drops on the stairs coming up, as well.”
The woman looked at him for a moment, and then shrugged. “Why should I know?”
Sam started to speak, but Catherine cut him off. “Judy—your name is Judy, right? Judy, we know who you are and we know what you do. We are not here to cause you any problems, we just want to know about the man who came to you with a bullet wound night before last.” She stared pointedly into Judy’s eyes, and after a moment the woman looked down at the floor.
“He’s a real bad one, ain’t he?” Judy asked. “Only I thought he was just like the others, but I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
Catherine felt adrenaline building up, and nodded. Sam kept his mouth shut and watched.
“Yes, he’s a bad one. He’s a very dangerous man, and sooner or later he’s going to decide you know too much. We need to find him, and we need to find him soon, or he’s going to do something terrible. When he does, he may start to worry that we might find you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Judy raised her eyes to Catherine’s face and nodded slowly. “You’re saying he might decide to kill me. Right?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Judy, if you know anything that can help us find him, please tell us now. If we can get to him, we can put him away so that he can’t ever start to worry about how much you know.”
Judy stared at her for a moment, but then the little bit of defiance she was trying to display seemed to wash away. She sank into a chair at the table, and Catherine sat in the one opposite. Sam continued to stand where he was, trying to be invisible so as not to interfere in what Catherine was accomplishing.
“I fancied him for a while,” Judy said. “Tried over and over to make him notice, but he never would. Always said he had to go, wouldn’t ever stay any longer than he had to. I always thought it was just me, you know, like maybe I wasn’t pretty enough or something. I mean, he never said he had a wife, so how was I to know, right?”
“Of course,” Catherine said. “Did he tell you this time?”
Judy shook her head. “No, he didn’t say nothin’. Only I got nosy, you know? He’d been shot, and the bullet broke the bone in his left forearm. I had to set it and stitch it, so I gave him a cup of tea with codeine, to put him to sleep, you know? Worked right good it did, too. He was out like a light in two shakes. I patched up his arm and set the bone, wrapped it up real good and put it in a sling, then I got curious. He had his jacket laying on the table, here, and I took a peek through his wallet, you know?”
Catherine was nodding. “And what did you find?”
Judy’s face clouded over. “He’d always said his name was Arthur,” she said. “His driving license, though, I saw it, his name is William, William Hensley. And then I found the picture, picture of him and his wife.” The anger suddenly faded, and a tear started to leak out of her right eye. “Pretty thing, she is. Lot prettier than me. Guess that’s why he never wanted to stay the night, right?”
Catherine reached out and put a hand on Judy’s arm. “You’re pretty enough,” she said. “Maybe for all he’s bad, there’s a tiny spot of good in him that wants to be faithful to his wife. But Judy, that doesn’t change the facts. He does some bad things, Judy, very bad things. We need to put a stop to him. You said you saw his driving license. Did you see an address?”
Judy nodded. “Over in Harrow,” she said. “891 Westridge, flat 12.” She looked up at Catherine. “Do you know, I toyed with the idea of going there? Just wanted to meet her, see what she’s like. Probably would’ve been a bad idea, right?”
“I think it would have been a very bad idea,” Catherine said.
* * * * *
Sam called the rest of the team and told them to meet him and Catherine at the address Judy had given them, then headed for it as quickly as he could. It took almost an hour to get across the city, so the others had arrived and were waiting by the time they showed up.
“Okay, there’s a good possibility this is our boy,” Sam said. “If it is, this could get pretty dangerous pre
tty quickly. Terry, you and Nick and I are going to the front door. Harry, I want you and Lloyd to go up the fire escape. The flat’s on the third floor, east side of the building to the back. Keep out of sight, just in case he’s in and decides to bolt out the window. We want him alive if we can, but don’t take any chances. Everybody set?”
“Now, wait a minute,” Catherine said. “And what about me, Sam Little?”
“You’re the watch,” Sam said. “You stay out of sight by the car, in case we need you to call in backup.”
She stared at him for a moment. “You’re a bloody chauvinist, you know that, Sam?”
“No doubt, but I’m also the case officer. Do as you’re told, right?”
“Fine,” she said. Sam and the others split up and started toward the building from two different directions.
Sam and the two with him made it up the stairs with no problem, and Sam knocked on the door. There was no answer, so he knocked again, more loudly this time. When there was still no response a moment later, he looked at Nick and nodded. “Do it,” he said.
Nick reached into a pocket and pulled out a little leather case, and a moment later he had picked the lock on the door. He, Sam and Terry slipped inside, and after quickly checking to be sure no one was present, Sam went to the window and opened it so the others could come in.
“All right, let’s search quickly, but be careful. We’re dealing with an assassin, you never know what sort of booby-traps he might’ve hidden around.” The others nodded, and began looking through the apartment.
Nothing jumped out at them at first, but then Lloyd discovered a loose floorboard and pried it out. Underneath, he found a number of wallets and passports. “Sam,” he called, “you’ll be wanting to see this.”
The photos in the passports and IDs showed Adrian in various disguises. Sam was ecstatic, for there was now no doubt they had found his London base of operations.
“Keep looking,” he said. “God only knows what else he might have stashed around here.”
Down at the car, parked a half block away, Catherine was still fuming about being left out of the action. She had come up with a number of rude and witty things that she would say to Sam when she got him alone. He’d bloody well think twice before he ever pulled this sort of thing on her again, he would.
A car pulled up across the street from the building, and a lone man got out of it. Catherine glanced at him, but he seemed shorter than the description she’d been given of Adrian. She leaned her head back and began thinking of more things she might say to Sam, but then something about the man suddenly made her look again.
He wasn’t short; he was simply bent over, slightly stooped as he walked. He looked like an older gentleman, but there was something in the way he was holding his left arm that threw it off. That arm was stiff, she could tell, and she instantly realized she was looking at Adrian in disguise.
He was already at the door by the time she realized it, and there was no way she could get to him in time. She grabbed her phone and dialed Sam’s number, praying that he would answer before Adrian got to the door of the flat.
Sam felt the phone vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out. It was Catherine calling, so he answered immediately. “Sam,” he said.
“He’s here,” Catherine said. “He’s coming up the stairs now. He’s made up like a little old man, but I’m telling you it’s him.”
“Thanks, luv,” Sam said and he instantly ended the call. He hissed to get the attention of the others and whispered that they were about to be joined by their prey.
Lloyd and Terry were closest to the front door, so they hurried to get behind it. In doing so, they bumped into each other, and Terry lost his balance for just a second. His arm bumped into a lamp and it crashed to the floor.
They all froze. There was a very small chance Adrian had not heard the lamp breaking, so they held position.
In the hallway outside, Adrian had frozen. A noise from inside the flat could mean only one thing: his hideaway had been discovered. He breathed a sigh of regret, then stepped up to the door. He reached up over the woodwork around it and felt until his fingers found the button he had hidden there years earlier. He pressed it, and then turned and started back toward the stairs and down.
Every one of his operational bases had a similar button. It started a timer hidden in the wall that was wired to explosives under the floors. There were other buttons hidden inside, so that he could always set the timer and escape out the window or through the hidden hatch in the closet ceiling. The timer would count down two minutes, by which time he would need to be out of the building.
He stepped out the front door and walked with his stooped gait back toward his car, but Catherine spotted him instantly. She leaped out of her own car, drawing her pistol and aiming at him.
“Adrian!” she screamed, and he turned his head instinctively. “Freeze where you are!”
Without being able to see who was shouting at him, Adrian froze. He slowly raised his hand and turned to face the voice. A lone woman stood in the street, a small automatic in her hand.
“Do not move,” she commanded. “Keep your hands up where I can see them, or I will fire.”
“What is this about?” Adrian asked, trying to look confused. “I’m only going out for a drive, luv.”
Catherine kept her pistol trained on him with her right hand, while taking her phone out again with her left. She tried twice to hit the redial key, but her left hand wasn’t as agile as her right, and she missed. Without lowering her gun, she glanced down at the device for a split second to press it with her thumb, but that was all Adrian needed.
* * * * *
Sam and the others were crouched in the flat, guns trained on the door, but Adrian hadn’t appeared. He glanced at Terry and started to rise to his feet, but then, faintly, he heard Catherine’s voice from down in the street.
“He’s got out,” Sam yelled, and they all started toward the door…
* * * * *
As soon as her eyes left him, he dropped to the ground, rolling and snatching his own pistol out of its holster. He came up onto one knee and aimed the pistol in a single fluid motion, then squeezed the trigger once. His bullet struck her just over her left breast, and she fell.
Adrian rose and started toward her, his gun extended for a second shot, but just then the explosives went off. Debris came flying down at him, so he turned and ran for his car. He got in and started it quickly, then jammed it into gear and floored the accelerator. By the time people came running out of the surrounding buildings, he was out of sight. The apartment building he had used as a safe haven for so long was collapsing from the top down, and no one inside escaped.
Catherine lay in the street, staring at the destruction. She’d been shot, but all that mattered to her at that moment was that Sam and the rest had been inside when the bombs went off.
People were running and screaming, and several came to see if she was all right. She could hear them talking to her, but couldn’t make out what they were saying because she couldn’t get past her own thoughts. She shoved away those who tried to help her and grabbed for her phone in her jacket pocket. Her left hand wouldn’t work, so she used her right thumb to scroll through the call history and punched redial on the number she wanted.
It was answered almost immediately. “He killed them,” she said, “Adrian, he killed them all, Sam and everyone. I don’t care what it takes, Colson, find him. Find him and kill him!”
Her head swam suddenly, and she let her eyes glance down at her chest. Blood was pulsing out of where the bullet had struck her, and she knew that an artery had been hit. Weakness started to set in, and the phone fell out of her hand as everything went dark.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Catherine? Catherine, are you there?” Noah called into the phone, but there was no answer. He could hear people talking, as if milling about, but Catherine seemed to be gone.
“Hello?” A male voice came onto the line.
“
Hello, can you hear me?” Noah asked. “What happened to the woman I was talking to?”
“She’s laying here bleeding, mate,” the man said. “Whole bloody building blew up, don’t know what hit her, but she’s got a bloody hole in her chest. Blood squirtin’ out all over the place.”
“Hang up and call 999,” Noah said. “Do you hear me? Call for help, right now.”
He ended the call and looked at the others, gathered around him at the table. “That was Catherine Potts,” he said. “I’m not sure what just happened, but she said Adrian killed her entire team, and a passerby said she’s laying in the street, bleeding badly. She wants me to find Adrian and kill him.”
“Oh, God, Noah,” Sarah said. “Is she…”
“The man I spoke to said blood was squirting out. That’s not good, but it means she’s alive at the moment. I don’t know if she’s going to make it, but I told him to call for an ambulance immediately. Hopefully he’ll do it.”
“So what we do now?” Moose asked.
“We figure out how to find Adrian, and do exactly what she asked. Everybody think, there’s got to be something we’ve missed. Something that will tell us when he’s planning to strike.”
“I don’t know what it would be,” Neil said. “I’ve gone over everything possible about Charles. I know his movements for the next week, everywhere he’s going to be, everything. We know Adrian’s supposed to strike tomorrow, so it’s bound to be one of the schools, but which one? Could we possibly cover them all?”
“Tell me about them again,” Noah said. “Maybe there’s something that will give us a clue as to which one he’s planning to strike at.”
Neil rolled his eyes, but turned to the computer again. He called up the itinerary he’d looked at before and began reading it off. “Thursday, he goes to Royal Academy at eight AM to hear their choir sing. Ten-thirty, he’ll be at Albemarle Primary to speak to the students about the British Constitutional Monarchy form of government—the Prime Minister is also going to be there, by the way—and then at three, he’s supposed to be at Hempstead…”
