Georgie removed the memory stick and saw that it had a sticky label attached to it. An eight-digit passcode was scribbled in her husband’s writing on the label. She carefully inserted the drive into a port on Roland’s desk computer. As the screen flashed into life she sat down, entered the passcode to open the document and began to read. The book’s title sent a shiver down her spine:
THE PANDEMONIUM CLUB
An hour later, she had devoured every word and was breathless with horror. With a shaking hand she reached for the phone and dialled a number.
The voice that came on the line was her brother’s. He sounded half-asleep, but anxious that his older sister was calling him in the middle of the night.
‘Georgie? What’s up? Is something wrong?’
Georgie Seaward replied, ‘Jasper. Listen. You’re not going to believe this.’
Chapter 25
‘We’re going to get caught,’ Tuesday had said anxiously into his co-pilot’s headset mic as the old Cessna buzzed across the choppy blue-green waters of the English Channel towards the UK south coast that morning. With no customs clearance and maintaining total radio silence, what they were doing was as illegal as the activities of the drug smugglers and gun runners who plied their trade in and out of Europe by sea and air. But it seemed that Tuesday was the only one worrying about it.
‘We’re not going to get caught,’ Jeff assured him with a smile. ‘Relax and trust your Uncle Jeff.’
They didn’t get caught. In Jeff Dekker’s capable hands the aircraft kept up an average ground speed of a hundred miles an hour, covering the distance from the Normandy airfield to their north Wales destination in just over three hours. The town of Wrexham lay between the Welsh mountains and the Lower Dee Valley, surrounded by peaceful patchwork-quilt countryside that looked as green as Ireland from the air.
The sixty-acre farm belonging to Jeff’s old SBS friend Reaper Rigby was three miles to the west, just a couple of miles from the border with England. Reaper’s passion was for all things equestrian, and he operated a successful stud and breeding centre for Arabian horses. His eighteenth-century farmhouse stood at the end of a long driveway flanked either side by white-fenced paddocks where his prized collection of Arabs pranced and grazed in the late morning sunshine. At the rear of the property was the well-drained, relatively smooth and level field, empty of horses, where Jeff was to make his touchdown. ‘Hold onto your hat,’ he told Tuesday over the headset as he lined them up and reduced altitude. ‘This’ll be a little bumpier than landing on asphalt.’
‘But you’ve landed on grass before, right?’ Tuesday asked nervously.
‘There’s a first time for everything, mate.’
The Cessna came down too fast, bounced twice, sending up divots of grass and earth, and overshot the runway, almost skimming a line of trees as it scrabbled to regain altitude. Jeff said, ‘Whoops.’ He banked up again and made a second pass, and on this attempt managed to get the plane down safely. As they trundled to a halt in the field, a mud-spattered four-wheel-drive came tearing across the grass to meet them. Jeff cut the plane’s engine. ‘Well, that was interesting,’ Tuesday said, never happier to get his feet back on solid ground.
Reaper Rigby pulled up beside the stationary aircraft and got out of his vehicle as they clambered from the cockpit. He was only slightly older than Jeff but looked ten years his senior, with a bulging belly and a fleshy, doughy face covered in white bristles. ‘Jesus wept,’ he said gruffly. ‘What kind of landing d’you call that? Thought you were a couple of fuckin’ goners there for a minute, I did.’
Jeff warmly shook hands with his former comrade. ‘Good to see you again, Reaper. Got to say you’re looking like shit, but that’s nothing new.’
‘Hey, try looking in the mirror, old son. If my dog had a face like yours, I’d shave its arse and teach it to walk backwards.’
Swapping insults was obviously an old tradition for these two, Tuesday observed. He was beginning to understand where Jeff had got some of his colourful expressions from.
‘I appreciate the favour,’ Jeff said to Reaper. ‘Sorry for the short notice. This is my friend and associate, Tuesday Fletcher.’
‘Brave man,’ Reaper grunted as he shook Tuesday’s hand. His grip was like a gorilla’s. ‘Getting in that flying coffin with this fuckin’ numpty at the controls.’ Reaper sourly surveyed the aircraft. ‘So, Dekker, when I agreed to let you park this heap of shit in my field and borrow my van, I never asked you what this was about.’
‘It’s about helping a mate in trouble,’ Jeff said. ‘And it’s about asking no questions. Better you don’t know.’
Reaper’s round, bristly face split in an ugly smile. ‘That’s what I thought you were going to say. This mate of yours, is he straight up?’
‘As straight up as any bloke you ever served with.’
Reaper said, ‘You need an extra hand?’
‘Nah, best you stay here, tend to your horses and keep an eye on the old girl for me. Might get a little hairy where we’re going.’
Reaper smiled wider, with a particular sort of meaningful twinkle in his eye. ‘Thought you were going to say that, too. Come on, hop in the jeep. Van’s over in the barn.’
Neither Jeff nor Tuesday understood what the mystery twinkle was about, until Reaper opened up the big double-door barn and showed them the van. It was a generic, beaten-up commercial Ford Transit with faded lettering on the back and sides that said TREV’S LIGHT HAULAGE, with a phone number that was probably as out of date and obsolete as the vehicle itself. The mess of straw in the back hinted at the van’s bale-collecting duties here on Reaper’s horse farm.
‘Bought it at a bankruptcy auction for a song,’ Reaper said. ‘Don’t look like much, but it won’t let you down. Comes with a few extra features, too. Here, take a peek.’ He slid open the side door and invited them to look inside. The space behind the front seats had been home-converted into a rudimentary wooden bunk, fitted with a thin foam mattress.
But it was the item lying on top of the bunk that Reaper meant for Jeff and Tuesday to see.
‘Didn’t pick that up at a bankruptcy auction, I’m guessing,’ Jeff said.
Reaper looked smugly satisfied. ‘You’re not the only one who doesn’t want no bleedin’ questions, so don’t ask where I got it. By the sound of things, thought it might come in handy for you boys.’
‘Handy’ was one word for the weapon lying across the rear bunk. Another way to describe its qualities might have been ‘state-of-the-art lethal efficiency’. The bolt-action Remington was an ultra-modern, battlefield-ready military sniper’s rig with a folding stock, ten-round magazine, fitted bipod, Titan sound suppressor and high-magnification scope. In the hands of a proficient shooter, the thing was a surgical instrument of death, capable of nailing any chosen part of the enemy’s anatomy from ranges of over fifteen hundred yards. And Tuesday Fletcher, more than any other member of the Le Val team, was a trained marksman of supreme skill. In Afghanistan he’d retired a key Taliban leader with a clean headshot at a verified 2,474 metres, one metre short of the world record for the longest kill.
Tuesday shook his head in wonder at the sight of the rifle. The gun alone was worth the cost of a good used Mercedes, with a few thousand on top for the scope. He’d rarely handled hardware this exclusive since his days as a British Army sniper. ‘Mind if I take a look?’
‘Be my guest,’ Reaper said.
Tuesday picked up the rifle. It weighed seventeen pounds, fully kitted up. The takedown version, for quick and easy disassembly. He clicked out the magazine and examined the shiny bottle-necked cartridges nestling inside. ‘.338 Lapua Magnum. Are these the heavy three-hundred-grain Sierra hollow point Match Kings? What you lose in velocity, you gain in extra wallop.’
‘Got another hundred rounds in a bag under the seat,’ Reaper said. ‘You seem to know your stuff, son.’
‘He’s the best,’ Jeff said.
‘Yeah, well, just make sure I get it back in
one piece,’ Reaper grunted. ‘That goes for the fuckin’ van, too.’
Jeff clapped him on the back. ‘Thanks, Reaper. You’re a pal. I don’t care what they say about you.’
After saying goodbye to Reaper, Jeff and Tuesday piled into the Transit and sped north. The van wasn’t fast but Jeff was determined to whittle the seven-hour drive down to six. ETA in Grace Kirk’s neck of the Scottish Highlands: sometime around 7.15 p.m.
Tuesday had broken the rifle down into its modular parts and stashed them out of sight in a bag under the rear bunk. As they drove, he glanced back to double-check it was well hidden.
‘I don’t know what we’re going to find up there, but let’s hope we’re not going to need to use this thing.’
‘If we do,’ Jeff said, ‘then someone’ll be dead meat before they know what hit ’em.’
Chapter 26
Jeff and Tuesday took turns at the wheel speeding northwards. Their planned route was all motorway as far up as Glasgow, passing Liverpool and Manchester and hacking through the dreary north of England with nonstop drizzle keeping the wipers beating. The Transit had an aftermarket CD player with a non-functioning radio, and aside from a pair of compact binoculars the glove box contained only a single disc. There was a limit to the number of times a person could listen to The Ultimate Motown Dance Party without losing the will to live, so they ended up driving in silence.
Time passed. Both men were tired and hungry. The drizzle turned to hard rain and then to muted sunshine. Somewhere beyond Carlisle on the M6, they pulled in at a Roadchef services. While Tuesday attended to the refuelling Jeff went wandering and soon found a mobile phone store where he paid cash for a pair of cheap no-contract Samsungs, and had each of them pre-loaded with fifty pounds’ worth of credit. In a boutique next door, he bought sunglasses and a black baseball cap with a yellow smiley face on it. On his way back to the van he picked up two cheeseburger-and-fries meals and two large bottles of Coke.
When they’d finished gulping down their food he and Tuesday activated their new phones and entered each other’s numbers into their contacts lists. Tuesday eyed Jeff’s other purchases and said, ‘What’s that?’
‘My disguise.’
Tuesday looked hurt. ‘So where’s my disguise?’
Jeff stared at him. ‘What would be the point? You said so yourself, mate. Going to stick out like a sore thumb no matter what you do. Don’t look at me like it’s my fault.’
‘Brilliant. Guess I’ll just have to hide in the back of the van.’
They set off again, Tuesday taking over at the wheel. Jeff lounged back in the passenger seat with his feet up on the dash, and used his burner phone to run an online search. ‘What’s the cop shop in Fort-something Ben said Grace works at?’ he asked.
‘Fort William.’
‘Got it.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Finding out her schedule.’
Jeff found the page on the Police Scotland website, keyed in the phone number but didn’t press the dial button. He turned to Tuesday and said, ‘Hoots, Mon, Ah cannae wait tae get ma teeth sunk intae yon haggis, neeps an’ tatties.’ In his normal voice he asked, ‘How’d that sound?’
Tuesday shot him a strange look. ‘I truly have no idea what language you were speaking just now.’
‘It’s how they talk up there. Got to blend in with the locals.’
Tuesday made a big show of understanding. ‘Oh, I see. That was your hopeless rendition of a Scottish accent.’
‘I thought it was pretty believable.’
‘Maybe tone it down just a weeny bit?’ Tuesday suggested, as diplomatically as possible.
Jeff shrugged. He thumbed the call button and a moment later got through to the main desk. In an accent that was only slightly less of a hideous pastiche, he asked if PC Grace Kirk was available to speak to.
‘The name’s McNulty. Angus McNulty. Ah live in Kinlochardaich. Ah’m callin’ aboot Fergus, ma cat … Och aye, that’s right, he’s goat stuck in yon tree at the bottom o’ ma garden … It’s no the first time he’s done it, the glaikit wee daftie. He willnae come doon, no even fur his favourite tuna fish. Ah’m feart he’ll be stuck there forever an’ Ah’m a wee bit too shoogly tae shinny up a ladder masel’.’
Tuesday was cringing behind the wheel, barely able to listen.
Jeff went on, ‘Grace – Ah mean, PC Kirk – is such a braw, bonnie lassie. She only lives up the way an’ she’s goat Fergus doon afore noo. Ah wiz hopin’ she could come over an’ gie uz a haund on her way hame frae work later. Could ye tell me if she’s on duty today?’
There was a pause while the desk staffer put him on hold. Jeff cupped the phone with his palm. ‘Checking.’
Tuesday shook his head in bewilderment. ‘What a performance.’
A moment later the desk staffer came back on the line. Jeff listened, then put the accent back on. ‘She willnae be in the office until the morn? Och, bless ye, Miss. Ah ken where she lives. Ah’ll tek a walk doon tae her hoose reet noo. Thank ye again.’
Jeff ended the call and flashed Tuesday a triumphant grin. ‘Ha! Who’s the boss?’
‘I can’t believe that actually worked.’
‘Easy as pie. She’s off duty and at home. Not due back at the station until eight o’clock tomorrow. So now we know where to find her.’
If Grace had been on duty that evening, the plan would have been to head for Fort William instead, thirty miles to the south.
‘Great. Just promise me you won’t talk like that again. Makes my eyes water, listening to you.’
They drove on. Jeff relayed Tuesday at the wheel after they crossed the Scottish border. After Glasgow the motorway narrowed down to an A road, and traffic gradually began to dwindle. As seven p.m. approached, right on schedule, they’d left the main roads far behind them and were winding their way along the twisty, narrow country lanes leading towards the Highland village of Kinlochardaich. Tuesday hadn’t been anywhere this wild and remote since he’d left the army, and he gazed in fascination at the rugged, misty mountains, thickly forested valleys and still, deep lochs. It was a different world from the Normandy landscapes he and Jeff were familiar with.
At last, they arrived at the small village of Kinlochardaich before darkness fell. Tuesday had already scouted the place in detail on Google Maps, using Street View to pinpoint the address they’d copied from Ben’s contacts book.
They were confident that they’d covered their tracks perfectly. Nothing about the Trev’s Light Haulage van could be remotely traced back to them, to Le Val, or to Ben himself. Jeff was wearing his smiley-face baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Tuesday clambered behind the seats and perched on the makeshift rear bunk, staying out of sight, scanning the parked vehicles by the kerbside for her car. Ben had told them that Grace drove an ancient green Land Rover that she never washed and seldom maintained.
‘There it is,’ Jeff said, pointing at the scabby old 4X4 parked outside a small house near the edge of the village, on the right side of a quiet, narrow street. Grace lived in a small, pretty stone house, set back a little off the road behind a low drystone wall, with hanging baskets by the door and roses growing around the windows. In front of the house was a tiny but neatly tended front garden with pot plants, a bird table and a curly wrought-iron gate. Definitely a place with a woman’s touch about it. The neighbouring houses looked peaceful and settled in for the evening. A few vehicles besides Grace’s Land Rover were parked along the kerbsides, many of them sitting angled with two wheels up on the pavement to make space in the narrow street. The only movement was an old man walking a chocolate Labrador. The dog was fat and grey around the muzzle and seemed to have difficulty walking. The bent, overweight old guy wasn’t faring much better. Shoogly.
Jeff drove straight by Grace’s home at a steady thirty, glanced to his right as he passed and could see the glow of a TV screen flickering in the living room window. A net curtain blocked out any more detail or movement inside. Thirty yards
past her home the street curved around to the left, and opened up into a little square. Offset to one side of the square was a small municipal park with some trees and benches. The other side of the square was a village hall with a clock tower, near to a block of public toilets and probably the last traditional red phone box left in the British Isles. There was a plumber’s van parked outside the toilets. Sandwiched between the block and the village hall was a narrow building with boarded-up ground-floor windows and a sign saying TO LET.
Jeff drove on further, following the street around in a curve, leaving the square out of sight behind them and passing a village store and a centuries-old greystone church with a graveyard before he reached a T-junction that he already knew would bring him back in a loop. He pulled up short before he reached Grace’s home, not wanting to pass it twice and attract unnecessary attention. Instead he parked the van about a hundred yards down the street, in a spot where they had a line of sight to her house and the little square in the distance behind it. The pensioner with the brown dog had shuffled as far as the park, and rested on one of the benches while the fat old mutt went off to crap among the trees.
‘Okay, Eagle Eyes,’ Jeff said, turning to Tuesday in the back. ‘What’s your assessment?’
And Tuesday told him about the watchers posted up and down the street.
Chapter 27
It wasn’t the endless hours of range training alone that had made Tuesday Fletcher such a skilled sniper. His visual acuity was 20/10, about as sharp and clear as it was possible for the human eye to see. He was also incredibly observant, with a near-photographic memory for tiny details that most people would miss.
Tuesday said, ‘I make two covert surveillance vehicles.’ He pointed. ‘First you’ve got the black Range Rover there on the left side of the street, thirty yards before her house. Smoked windows, but you can see the shapes of at least two guys inside.’
‘Roger that,’ Jeff said, nodding.
The Demon Club Page 14
