Betrayed

by Jake Cross

  He had the sub-nosed pistol liberated from Buzzcut, then liberated again from the living room of the Essex cottage, and he held it now in both hands. He was ready to use it – hopefully. But Puzzler would not come by bike, surely?

  The bikes approached fast. They entered the roofless tunnel created by the palisade fencing. They passed the Almera in single file. The first had a single rider, as did the third, but the middle bike carried a pillion. Nate nearly fired a shot right there inside the car as the second bike blew past. He had seen that bike before.

  He shook Toni awake, but he did it too fast, too much panic in his hissed words, and her hand grabbed his throat. He did not fight it, but waited. Three seconds, and then her sleepy eyes registered his face. Her hand fell away.

  ‘Lazar just went past,’ he said.

  She looked in the mirror, watching the bikes recede. Then she looked at the gun Nate clutched. Then she shook her head.

  ‘We could have had him right here.’

  He felt guilty, but defensive. ‘It was too late. He was past. It’s bloody dark and he had a helmet on. There’s only one way in or out, so we get him when he comes back.’

  ‘No. Now.’

  Now? Lazar was a big scalp for her, but surely she didn’t plan to enter the warehouse? That was the lion’s den, and entering a den of lions was a dangerous idea.

  She got out of the car.

  Many in the queue were already drunk. They laughed and shouted, fidgeted and wobbled. Most would have been turned away from a licenced nightclub, but these bouncers didn’t care. And they were not searching people for drugs or weapons. One guy had a bag of weed, but he was let in because he had a wallet stuffed with cash. Another guy couldn’t produce any money and was forcibly ejected from the queue. It seemed the organisers didn’t care if people took drugs, but were outraged by those who attempted to enter and didn’t have cash to spend.

  Nate and Toni were just ten feet from the loading dock now. Toni asked if he recognised either of the bouncers, who were Caucasian, not Turkish.

  ‘No, but I’m more bothered about them recognising me. And they’re searching people. I’ve got a damn gun and you’ve got a knife.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. They won’t be searching us. Hawaiian here will get us in nice and search-free.’ She pointed at the guy in front of them. He was short, young, and wore an outrageous blue shirt with palm trees all over it, like he thought he was on the beach.

  ‘How?’

  Two girls got let through and the crowd moved forward. They were six feet away now, eight or nine people ahead of them. Toni reached past Hawaiian deftly when he was looking elsewhere, pinched the back of the upper arm of the denim-clad guy in front of him, and jerked her hand back quickly. The guy yelped, turned, determined that only Hawaiian was within pinching range, and raised his fist and dropped it like a hammer onto the top of the shorter man’s head.

  All hell broke loose. The two guys grabbed each other and went down, intertwined like squabbling cats. The crowd bust apart as the bouncers stepped in. Everyone behind the fighting cats just watched the action, but those who had been queueing ahead of them rushed up the pallet stairs and into the loading dock. Toni grabbed Nate’s arm and pulled him, and moments later they were inside.

  Last time he’d been here, this place had been a dusty old room, and the difference tonight was surreal. The floor heaved with bodies like a bag of maggots and thudding music seemed to shake the walls. Pulsing lights gave everyone’s movement a robot-like appearance, like in a movie shot at ten frames per second. People were shouting, laughing, stumbling, groping; drinks fell, people fell, intelligence fell.

  Nate had never been to an illegal rave before, but it was everything he had expected. He wished he could have been here another night, drunk, not hunted by killers and cops. With Pete.

  Toni pulled him through the crowd. Most of the partiers were young and inebriated, but his alert eyes locked onto older men who were clearly sober. Puzzler’s men, circling and selling drugs and being obvious about it. And orbiting these dealers, protecting them while watching the rest of the room, were bigger men in suits. Some had Nate’s skin tone and some had Toni’s.

  ‘I think Puzzler soaked up Ryback’s men after he had him killed,’ Toni said, mirroring Nate’s thoughts. Two teams working as one: a far bigger kill crew to hunt him. And a big slice of it right here, surrounding him.

  They moved deeper inside. They passed one of the bars, which was simply a foldaway table with an old cash register and rows of cans and bottles, and headed towards the mezzanine at the back of the room. The busted floor beneath had been covered by a large tarpaulin and the three open sides sealed off by manhole barriers. Nate wondered if Damar’s body was still there. He wondered if Toni was wondering the same thing.

  A meaty white guy sat on the metal stairs. He tried to appear casual, like some guy just having a sit down, but Nate knew he was one of Puzzler’s minions. His job was probably to stop drunken fools from trying to gain the offices atop the mezzanine. Did that mean Lazar and Puzzler were up there having a private party?

  A white guy in a black T-shirt, which all the barmen wore, was heading towards the stairs with a cereal box. The guy on the steps let him up. Box guy stopped outside one of the office doors. Nate saw the word STAFF printed on his back. A Turkish colossus opened the door, took the box, slammed the door. Box guy scuttled away. Nate saw a logo on his T-shirt’s front: a three-dimensional diamond made up of coloured squares.

  ‘I bet that was money from the bars,’ Nate said.

  ‘Did you see beyond the door when he opened it? No roof on the offices.’

  She seemed very delighted by this. He had a bad feeling about the reason.

  When she looked up at the roof of the warehouse, he said, ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

  ‘We have to get into those offices. The guy on the steps is an alarm. He’ll go off if we try to get up, and then anyone up there with a gun will have time to pull it out. We have to take them by surprise.’

  Her plan was loco, but he looked up anyway. The roof was flat, corrugated iron, some of the panels twisted, some hanging loose and exposing the night air. Six feet below it was a grid of rafters. The rafters were only ten feet above the top of the office building. So, climbing a pillar and working across the rafters and dropping into the roofless offices was possible. Daft, but possible.

  ‘But you don’t know how many guys are inside,’ he said. ‘You can’t take out ten by surprise, unless you’re invisible and they’re all blind and deaf.’

  She wasn’t bothered by this: ‘That’s not the problem. The lights are.’

  The disco lights were painting coloured swirls not just on the floor and walls, but amongst the rafters, too. People would be looking up. She would be exposed.

  She told him to go to a specific bar, and then she waved her phone at him and walked away. He understood. Also liberated from the country cottage in Essex: a second mobile, which Nate had. A burner, no numbers stored. Except that Toni’s was in its memory now. They would keep in touch by phone.

  Keeping his eyes on her, he approached one of the bars and joined the queue, and watched the barman work himself into a lather. Twenty metres away, she stopped at one of the pillars. He couldn’t believe she was going through with this lunacy. He couldn’t believe he was helping.

  His mobile rang. He answered it. Above the noise, he barely heard her say, ‘This is what you do–’

  ‘Toni, listen carefully,’ he cut in. ‘Name a puzzle involving a cube.’

  ‘What? Rubik’s Cube. Why?’

  ‘Swap the U in Rubik for a Y.’

  ‘Rybik… Ryback? Okay, that explains why Ryback picked the nickname Cube to give to the hitman. A play on words. What’s your point?’

  Nate was still staring at the logo on the barman’s black T-shirt. The 3D diamond wasn’t a diamond at all – it just looked like one because it was balanced on its corner.

  ‘I’m staring at a Rubik’s C
ube on a barman’s T-shirt here, in Puzzler’s warehouse rave. Now think of another nickname that’s a play on words.’

  She got it quickly. ‘My God. Ryback is also Puzzler? But he’s dead.’

  ‘Exactly. So who the hell are we chasing?’

  ‘Remember the packed suitcases in Ryback’s cottage?’ Toni said. ‘Olcay said Puzzler was going away. It’s true, then. Ryback is Puzzler. Playing games with names.’

  ‘Ryback is about the right age to have been at school when Rubik’s Cube became popular in the eighties. Because his surname sounds similar, Cube might have been a nickname given by classmates. When he hired the hitman, maybe Ryback thought nothing of using that nickname. The hitman operated out of Scotland, and they weren’t going to see each other again. No risk.

  ‘But for Ryback’s criminal activities in London, there was a bigger risk of Cube the gangster being connected to James Ryback the successful local businessman. All it would take is one guy to say, “Hey, I knew a guy called Cube at school”. So he adopted an alter ego, like a supervillain persona. He chose a name that was along the same lines, but distinct. Puzzler.’

  She sounded horrified when she said, ‘I can’t believe me and Damar were working for Ryback all this time. I never met him, but I thought Puzzler was Turkish like us. My God.’

  ‘Well he’s nothing at all now, except dead. So, who’s running this show? Lazar? Did he double-cross Ryback?’

  ‘I hope so, but I doubt it. Lazar’s a gofer. He hasn’t got the brains to match his balls. And he won’t have blood in about two minutes. But if he’s working for some faceless boss, I’ll get the name from him. But if Lazar is the top dog here, do I have your permission to kill him?’

  ‘I’m not sure I could stop you, Toni.’

  ‘I’m not sure you would if you could, Nate. Which is why I asked. It’s been a long time since you mentioned wanting to clear your name. Seems to me you gave up on that.’

  Nate didn’t respond. Of course he wanted to clear his name. He just wasn’t sure that it was a realistic premise now. Staying out of jail even less so. So why not get himself some vengeance for Pete while he at least had the chance?

  She took his silence as consent. ‘I’m going up. This is what you do…’

  Despite their fight outside, Hawaiian and Denim had gotten inside, and here they were at the bar, right in front of Nate. And making up. Shoulder slaps and handshakes and slurred apologies. Then Denim, standing in front of Hawaiian, turned away, and Hawaiian looked at a short skirt and legs to his left. Nate reached over Hawaiian’s shoulder and flicked Denim’s ear and quickly stepped back. Denim spun around with a sneer, and, lo and behold, once again only Hawaiian was within range.

  Down they went, tugging, elbowing, rolling. As if a bag of shit had dropped out of the sky, nearby merrymakers backed away, and a clear space was accorded the combatants for their ungraceful duel. The music thumped to each grunt and punch, like some odd soundtrack. Conversations faded and dancing faltered as the entire room tuned in.

  Fuelled by a desire for action, two bouncers thundered across the warehouse, taking the path of most resistance just so they could elbow people aside for added effect. They tore apart the duellers and dragged them away. Moments later, the cavity left by the fighters filled and the bar queue reformed, minus Nate. Conversations resumed and dancing restarted. And nobody noticed that the young woman standing by the pillar had vanished.

  Except Nate. He watched her go up the pillar like a monkey and into the rafters, where she was painted by colours. Across a thick beam, and over the office building. By this time the Turkish colossus had appeared at the door to see what the commotion was, but although his head was only ten feet below Toni as she passed above him, his eyes were cast down. A second later she was out of range of the lights, shrouded in darkness.

  Toni stared down. Six rooms in two rows of three, no roofs, which was like looking at a cross-section. Internal doors connected them all, but only four had external doors: the three at the front and the centre back one. And that door was a fire exit in the back wall of the warehouse. That would be her handy flee route if she couldn’t get down the stairs. She needed to warn Nate that he might have to escape without her when the shit hit the fan, but she couldn’t risk using the phone. Not with four men just a few metres below her.

  They were grouped in the front centre room, the only one not in darkness. It was lit by a single construction floodlight in a corner. The beam was angled towards the floor so as not to be blinding, but this also meant the light did not reach the rafters. Knowing she was hidden from any quick glance, she scrutinised the occupants of the room.

  Two Turkish guys, two white guys. One was Lazar, and even though he was six feet tall, he was the smallest by far. The others were muscular beasts doubtless hired for their intimidating presence. But they didn’t intimidate Toni. She was aware of the negative effect that heavy muscles had on stamina and speed.

  Plus, no-one looked geared-up for action. One mammoth white guy sat on the floor with his back against the wall and his legs crossed, reading from a tiny diary. The two Turkish brutes were on wooden chairs and playing cards on an upturned wooden box between them. Lazar sat on a battered and grimy two-seater sofa, playing on his phone. All four had cans of lager, which would further inhibit their reaction time to her attack.

  She heard a knock at the door. From her angle, she couldn’t see who was there, but wasn’t surprised when it opened to reveal a black T-shirted bargirl with another cereal box. She was gone ten seconds later. The Turk who’d answered the door took the box to a sports bag by Lazar’s feet and tipped in the contents. Money. Notes and coins poured out like a jackpot breakfast to join a mountain already inside the bag. Beer and drugs revenue. A lot of it. And they expected a lot more throughout the night, because there were three similar but empty sports bags on the arm of the sofa.

  Damar, and now riches to boot? No. Her plan had been to try to get Lazar alone to take him down, but there was a rising bloodlust inside her that she couldn’t deny. Nate had been right about something being wrong inside her head. But whatever it was that sometimes gave her seizures – a cancerous tumour or a faulty connection, maybe – it only unleashed her violence on bad people. And she could live with that.

  She pulled out her knife.

  Nate moved closer to the mezzanine. Toni hadn’t told him what to do while she was off playing Supergirl. He had thought about going outside to wait for her, but that seemed like running out on her. So he was doing this, although he had no idea what ‘this’ was. So he approached the stairs, and the guy who was just having a sit-down saw him coming and got up and came down. Nate grabbed the handrail and lifted a foot and pretended that there was something wrong with his lace. The guy just watched him. His job was to watch the stairs, so he had every right to be there, and Nate didn’t. Couldn’t just play with his lace all night. He moved away and tried to think of another plan.

  That was when he noticed the women. Two of them, young girls in killer dresses, staring at him. Three days ago he would have gotten all hot and hopeful about such a thing. Because there would have been no chance that they were staring because they’d seen his face in a newspaper.

  That was when he noticed the men. Two of them, young men in crumpled shirts, staring at him. Nothing good about such a thing, now or three days ago.

  He turned and walked, threading his way through the crowd, around a puddle of vomit. He looked up at the mezzanine, but nothing was happening up there.

  A tap on the shoulder. He turned. The two guys were right there, with the two women a safe distance behind them.

  ‘How’s things?’ one said. He had a ring in his lower lip. The other one said nothing.

  ‘All good,’ Nate replied. ‘You?’ He felt the weight of the gun in his pocket, but knew he could not use it here.

  The speaker handed his drink to his pal. Then he reached up to his lip. Going to remove the ring, Nate knew.

  Kill a threat early, he th
ought, and drove his head forward. The guy’s head snapped back. The two women were yelling even before the guy had hit the deck. His pal backed away and shouted:

  ‘He’s that bloody killer guy off telly!’

  ‘Gone and chopped up his brother!’

  Nearby heads turned his way. Shit. Two bouncers heard. One went running for the stairs. The other sprinted towards Nate.

  Toni heard the shout, even above the thumping music. She saw Nate immediately because there was a clear space around him. And a fallen guy at his feet. She knew he had been recognised by someone. Wouldn’t be long before some have-a-go-hero grabbed him, or the entire room, like a pack of wolves, fell on him.

  Below her, the men jumped to their feet, having heard the shout, too. And realised that the ‘killer off TV’ had to be Nate.

  And right then, another shout. Something beautiful at this moment: ‘COPS!’

  The flashing lights and music instantly died, plunging the whole warehouse into gloom.

  Except for the room below. In the aura from the floodlight, Toni watched Lazar slap one of his men on the back. ‘Get down there, all of you,’ he yelled. And they obeyed instantly, almost fighting to see who could get out of the door first.

  Lazar wasn’t planning on going down there himself, though. The moment the last of his cronies had gone, he grabbed the bag of money and launched it over the back wall, into the room behind. The one with the handy flee route.

  The door into that room must have been locked, because Lazar stood on the sofa and hauled himself up the wall, which wobbled under his weight. He was sitting astride it, about to flip his back leg over and drop down, when Toni wrapped her hands around a beam. Ten feet. Seven for her with her arms extended, and three for Lazar’s upper body. Just enough. Praying her bad shoulder would hold out, she swung down, fully extended, and her feet caught his head like a table football figure whacking a ball.