No Time to Lose: A Matt Flynn Thriller

by Iain Cameron

  Walsh nodded in agreement.

  ‘I called the hospital this morning,’ Rosie said. ‘He’s out of any danger and at some point over the weekend we should be able to question him.’

  ‘Good. Give him the once-over. You might not learn anything more than you got from Emir Solak, but it might corroborate a few of the statements he made.’

  ‘We still need to find out where they’re holding Jonty,’ Matt said.

  ‘All the more reason to talk to the patient,’ Walsh said.

  ‘Agreed,’ Matt replied.

  ‘Now, before we discuss the next steps,’ Gill said, ‘I want first to congratulate you both on a successful operation on closing down the TFF. MI5 have sent their congratulations, as has the prime minister.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Rosie said.

  ‘It reaffirms to the government what a good job HSA are doing,’ Walsh said. ‘We have to justify our existence the same as everyone else, even more so in this time of budget austerity.’

  Gill, and other members of HSA, suspected Kingsley Walsh had been a plant by the PM to make sure HSA did exactly what his office demanded. Walsh wasn’t hired in the normal way, but put forward by the PM to reduce the operational strain on Gill. Matt imagined when the PM suggested something to the head of one of the agencies funded by his government, it didn’t do the director’s career prospects any good to refuse.

  ‘Now Matt, I want you and Rosie to take the lead on the search for Yusuf Batuk, the man we now believe to be the head of the TFF.’

  ‘I don’t agree with you, sir,’ Matt said. ‘We should instead be chasing Simon Wood.’

  ‘We will, don’t you worry. First, I want to make sure all the remaining members of the TFF, in the UK at least, are no longer in the game.’

  ‘I think you’re making a big mistake. It’s Simon Wood who’s been funding the TFF and was behind the kidnap and murder of David Burke, for reasons we don’t yet know. Leave him alone while we search for Yusuf Batuk, and he might try something else, such as hire another outfit to do his bidding.’

  ‘You make a valid point, Matt,’ Gill sighed. ‘Nevertheless, there are points in life when we might not agree with the logic behind a decision, but we have to carry out the order regardless. Think of this as one of those times.’

  Matt and Rosie left Gill’s office ten minutes later, Matt now having a better understanding of the subtext behind Gill’s decision, a direct order from the PM, but still not agreeing with it. He debated going home to work there, but if anyone came looking for him his disappearance might seem like the actions of a stroppy teenager. He had never served in the Army as both Gill and Kingsley Walsh had done, although he had trained with army units, but he was capable of following orders. However, in an agency like this one, not bound by military strictures, Matt would use this additional leeway to interpret Gill’s directions in his own way.

  He walked over to the desk where Joseph was typing an email. He watched while he pressed ‘Send’ with a flourish. Joseph then spun around in his chair to face his visitor. ‘Hi Matt, what’s on your mind?’

  ‘I’d like you to tell me everything you know about Yusuf Batuk: how he escaped from our capture team, what we believe he’s armed with, and where you think he might be hiding out.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can, mate. Grab a seat.’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Matt was sitting in a car with Joseph and two other HSA agents waiting for the off. They had finally managed to interview the leader of the TFF operations group, Kerem Naskali, still lying in a hospital bed following surgery to remove two of Matt’s bullets. Matt wasn’t in the mood for soft-soaping or taking prisoners. This time, far from promising any deals which might reduce his prison sentence or playing nice, after instructing the officer at the door not to let anyone in, he stuck a cloth in the man’s mouth and proceeded to prod his injuries, looking for pain points.

  The screams were muted, but he removed the cloth long enough to hear the information they wanted: a disused industrial unit in Edmonton, used by the TFF for training. According to him, it was the only place, other than the houses already known to HSA, where the TFF had access. Problem was, he didn’t know the address. Ahmed, the guy Matt had killed in the Stoke Newington basement, had been in charge of driving them there.

  This little nugget was handed to the HSA research gurus, along with some titbits of information the injured guy could remember about the local scenery, only seen in the dark from their night-time sorties. Matt didn’t expect Amos to produce on this one, and, like many such snippets, it was salted away, awaiting meat to appear on bare bones.

  This arrived in the shape of a neighbour who had called the landlord of a warehouse she could see from the front window of her flat. She had been assured by the garrulous man that it was currently lying empty, and if she was interested and needed the space, the property was available at favourable rates. She had spotted unusual movement at the property, as she wasn’t a good sleeper, and on several nights had seen a van drive up to the building and two men entering. Getting no satisfaction from the landlord, she reported this to the local police, suspecting the visitors were up to no good.

  When Matt supplied everything he knew about the TFF training warehouse, Amos ran a piece of software which he called his ‘crabby crawler’. It was a program he used to trawl through the systems of the security services looking for any current information about anything. In this case, Edmonton. The system had spotted the police report of the woman’s call and HSA became involved before the local police could send a copper round to investigate, as the officer would be in danger of ending up in the same place where they believed Jonty was being held.

  Around twelve-thirty in the morning, a van drew up. The people inside were unaware that four armed HSA agents were watching their every move. Two occupants got out and approached the empty building. One of them fiddled with the lock on the door. Seconds later, they both disappeared inside.

  As soon as the door snapped shut, Matt said, ‘Right, it’s time to make a move.’

  Under the dull street lighting, the two people they saw didn’t resemble any members of the TFF they’d come across. These guys were taller, more muscled and wearing street gear, looking more like the members of a local criminal gang than Turkish terrorists. Perhaps the TFF had contracted out the care and feeding of their kidnap victims, although no one they had interviewed as yet had mentioned it. Whatever their background, if Jonty was inside, the two men would only be around for a matter of minutes, the time taken to offer him a cold supermarket meal-for-one, or give them a few bouts of practice with a human punch bag.

  While exiting the car, Matt was pleased to see a police patrol car inching into a parking place behind them. He gave them the thumbs-up. Their presence here was to give this operation some degree of credibility, and take away prisoners if HSA didn’t have any use for them. It was also in case the bad sleeper in the apartment block opposite saw another four men walk into the building and bombarded the Met switchboard with calls about a potential gangland powwow.

  The agents approached the door and found it unlocked. Matt opened it slowly and they moved inside, guns drawn. If the door had been locked, they would have had no choice but to ask the cops in the patrol car if they had any bolt cutters, or wait for the two men to emerge. This was the only way into the building, as the goods entrance at the rear was barred by a solid-looking, tall steel gate.

  Matt led the HSA team down a narrow corridor with doors either side. The corridor was unlit, but sufficient light was available from bright lights in the distance to stop them colliding with obstacles. Many of the doors were ajar, and after a quick look inside, it was clear they were empty, devoid of people and anything else.

  Up ahead was a metal railing, red in colour, but faded and chipped. From this and the empty rooms, he deduced they were creeping past offices. They would soon come across an open area, either filled with warehouse racks, or if the unit was to be used for some other purpose, a large
empty space.

  Moving closer, it did indeed open into a large empty space, but it was bigger than he’d imagined, more the dimensions of an aircraft hangar than a warehouse. Over to the right, difficult to see with any clarity in the dim, yellow light, and partially obscured by the metal railing designed to stop inattentive office workers from falling into the path of a forklift truck, he heard voices.

  Lying low, Matt eased himself forward to improve his view. The main part of the warehouse was about two metres below them, and there, two men were standing over an emaciated-looking man in a chair. He wasn’t tied to the chair, but one of his legs was shackled to a long chain attached to the wall. If the man in the chair tried to attack the two men facing him, all they had to do was take two steps back and they would be out of his reach. In any case, both men were equipped with handguns, at present tucked into their waistbands.

  Matt slid back, allowing the others to take a look. They weren’t in any danger of being spotted as the gunmen were too busy baiting and cajoling their victim. Verbally, the victim was giving as good as he got, and Matt was sure the voice sounded like Jonty. The behaviour of the man in the chair chimed with what he knew about his former boss, as he could be a gobby sod and didn’t take lip from anyone.

  When everyone in the team had witnessed the scene, Matt pulled them back into the corridor. Without speaking, he pointed at two agents, Lee Jackson and Kamal Ahmed, and indicated with his hand for them to head over to the left. He and Joseph would move to the right.

  The team heading left departed first; as Matt and Joseph were closer to the men around the chair and would be spotted earlier. Matt got down on the floor and crept forward.

  Now with a better view of the scene, unobstructed by the barrier, he confirmed Jonty’s identity. One of the gunmen seemed to take exception to something Jonty said, or was just being a sadistic sod, as he whacked him in the mouth with his fist. He then drew his gun and pointed it at his head. This looked to Matt like execution night. He stood and walked along the platform until he was directly looking down on the scene.

  ‘Put the fucking gun down!’ Matt shouted. ‘Open fire and you’re both dead men!’

  Joseph followed Matt’s lead, but kept a sensible distance away from his colleague, making it difficult for one of the gunmen to shoot them both. Kamal and Lee used the distraction to edge closer.

  ‘Who are you fuckers?’

  ‘Homeland Security. Who are you?’

  ‘None of your fucking business. Put the gun down or he gets it,’ he said, nodding at Jonty.

  The man holding the gun on Jonty was black and muscled, his white mate was also gym-toned, but betraying nervousness. He had his weapon pointing variously at Matt and Joseph, then, noticing the advancing Kamal and Lee, swung it towards them. The gun hand wavered, making the guy look jumpy, in contrast to his steady mate. Their dress and attitude suggested a couple of tooled-up, street punks, different in shape and ethnicity but dressed in the same tracksuit bottoms and fancy white patterned jackets.

  Matt suspected Jonty was thinking about doing something heroic, like grabbing the barrel of the gun pointed at him, but he hoped he wouldn’t go through with it. With four guns trained on his tormentors, and the HSA agents standing in good positions, nicely spread out and in two separate locations, they’d got this covered. The question was, could it be ended peacefully or did someone have to die?

  The guy with the steady hand stepped forward and grabbed Jonty by the hair. He pointed the gun down into the top of his head.

  ‘We’re gonna walk out of here with him. You fuckers back off. Roz, undo his chain.’

  It was clear this guy was the leader of the pair. With Jonty in the lead and the guy behind him with his gun at the superintendent’s head, Roz was instructed to cover the rear. It was a smart enough move against two agents in the positions taken up by Kamal and Lee, but not four.

  ‘You,’ the gunman said to Kamal and Lee, ‘get out of the fucking way and put your guns down.’

  Matt and Joseph didn’t receive as much as a glance from the younger men in a bid to seek guidance. No way would they comply with such an order.

  ‘I said, back off and put your fucking weapons down.’

  Matt looked at Joseph and nodded. He was in a better position than Matt as he was closer to the departing trio. With Matt and Joseph at one side of the warehouse, and Lee and Kamal in almost the opposite side, Roz couldn’t cover all the agents at once. The guy holding Jonty moved his weapon to point at Kamal and Lee.

  ‘I said move,’ he growled.

  Joseph fired.

  The gunman dropped like a stone, grasping his hip, the gun tumbling to the floor. Roz didn’t hesitate, his own weapon was thrown to the ground and his hands shot up in the air.

  Lee ran over and kicked the weapons away while Matt and Joseph ran round the railing and headed towards them.

  Lee cuffed Roz, and Kamal called for an ambulance while Matt attended to Jonty.

  ‘Christ, Matt,’ Jonty said, his bruised face almost unrecognisable from the ruddy-faced jolly man he knew, ‘how glad am I to see you!’

  ‘How are you, mate?’

  ‘They bashed me about a bit when they first nabbed me, so I’ve got sore ribs and face, but nothing an all-expenses-paid two weeks in the Maldives can’t solve.’

  Matt laughed. ‘I see they haven’t killed that wicked sense of humour. At least they’ve been feeding you,’ Matt said, nodding at the empty food trays in the corner.

  ‘Yeah, the cheapest crap they could find. If those two punks didn’t kill me, the Asda Chicken Tikka Masala surely would.’

  THIRTY-NINE

  ‘Now,’ the instructor said in a husky voice, ‘transition into downward dog.’ Suzy and the other thirteen members of her early morning yoga class did the same, all in one fluid movement. Mood music washed over her head like a cooling wave. Ordinarily, she would consider such sounds as schmaltz, not good enough even to pipe inside a hotel elevator, but here in the sweaty confines of the Pine Loft Studio, they matched the atmosphere perfectly.

  A minute later, they moved into the child’s pose: knees tucked under body, head down, arms outstretched. This was Suzy’s favourite move, not because it signalled the end of the yoga session, but it always felt like she was bundling up all her tension and anxiety, before releasing it into the atmosphere. They held this for half a minute before slowly unwinding and coming back to a sitting position.

  Her father couldn’t understand why she needed to release tension at all, and went to the bother of heading into central London to attend a class twice a week, and kick-boxing every Saturday. To his way of thinking, she worked from home, while he had a horrible journey in the morning in a packed commuter train, and she could pick and choose the projects she wanted while he had to do whatever his boss told him to do.

  He didn’t realise that once a project received the green light, there were tight deadlines to meet, and once the cameras started rolling, every delay could cost time and money. During this period, she didn’t eat well, worked fourteen or fifteen hours a day, got by on four or five hours of ragged sleep, and at times her anxiety reached sky-high levels.

  Mercifully, the film she was working on now had suffered only minor delays, but she had been in the business long enough to know a major disaster could be lurking just around the corner. Many of the background staff, and several of the actors, were taking various amounts of stimulants and other drugs to keep their attention levels high and their mood positive. She had done the same in the past, but her work required a clear head, and she found yoga and kick-boxing kept her centred and able to see her problems in some sort of perspective.

  The dance studio where her yoga class took place was equipped with changing rooms and showers, but Suzy had no need for them. Yoga was about stretching and being supple, and not something to leave her out of breath, making her all hot and sweaty; the occasional run around the park or visit to the gym did that. However, in the interests of the person force
d to sit beside her on the train journey home, she would give her body a short burst of deodorant spray, just in case.

  ‘Are you heading straight home, or do you fancy stopping off for a coffee?’ the woman at her side asked as she rolled up her yoga mat.

  ‘Sorry, can’t today, Michelle, I’ve got a ton of edits to do.’

  ‘How’s the shoot going?’ she asked as they descended the stairs.

  She was older than Suzy by about ten years, with two kids still at junior school. At one time, Suzy would gush effusively about her job, until she realised how desperately Michelle missed the great career she once had before children came along. Now, instead of discovering fantastic locations for adverts that once were shown on national television, she spent her mornings at yoga and tennis classes, and her afternoons before the school run digesting crime and rom-com movies on Netflix. In some respects, she knew more about the film business than Suzy.

  ‘It’s going great, better than the producer or the director imagined.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘It’s hard to put my finger on it exactly, to tell you the truth. It’s probably a combination of factors, like deliveries arriving on time, the actors behaving themselves and turning up every day, and no calamities with the set collapsing or someone getting their hand caught in a lighting rig.’

  ‘So much can go wrong, it’s a wonder any movies are made.’

  'I often think it’s amazing we ever reach the filming stage. The producer and scriptwriter might be on board, but can they obtain the finance? Will the director wanted by the producer be available at the same time as the lead actor everyone thinks should star in it?'

  ‘And I used to think my old job was difficult. Then, if the location I scouted was good enough for the director, often a day’s filming with a handheld camera and two people assisting was enough to make an award-winning ad.’