Chipped ice filled the cooler to the brim. Matt used his gloved hand to gently separate the top layers. Beneath, under several layers of plastic bag, was a bright blue curved bowl containing a chilled human kidney.
Jason gawped at it. ‘That’s … shit.’
‘Human organ trade. Never used to touch us much here, but the waiting lists are getting longer.’ Matt shook his head. ‘I’ll call it in, make sure we’re not treading on any toes.’
Matt repacked the kidney and replaced the lid of the cooler, before passing it back to Jason. He held it awkwardly, like a squalling baby unceremoniously dumped in his arms.
‘What … what happens to it now?’ Jason asked Bryn.
‘Nothing. It goes into evidence.’
‘So, some poor sod’s lost a kidney for nothing?’
‘I expect he was paid for it. He … or she.’ Bryn squinted at the closed box, as if he could somehow divine the gender of the donor by his stare.
‘And what about the person on the other end?’
‘They wait their turn.’
Jason cradled the box in his arms, suddenly reluctant to let go. ‘Can’t we just … let this one go?’
‘That’s an illegal kidney. Who knows where it came from? Maybe some junkie, or a man offed in Ireland for his organs. We’re doing everyone a favour by taking it into custody.’
Jason’s fingers brushed the sticker on the side again, the snake and wings aligning in his head to form a symbol of medicine, a long staff with two snakes and wings at the top. First, do no harm…
‘How desperate do you have to be to take an organ off the black market?’
‘Jason, this isn’t a discussion,’ Bryn said sharply. ‘You’re gonna deliver that organ to the gangs to complete the chain, and then we’re gonna arrest the lot of them. Backup’s already on its way.’
‘What about the doctor? And the patient?’
‘We’ll have to deal with them too, in time. Since when did you care so much about the consequences?’
Jason knew the answer to that, knew that it was Damage Jones’ blank staring eyes that had altered him, changed him. The boy who had died merely to frame Jason for murder.
Drugs and women and now organs – nothing gang life touched came away untainted. Needing a kidney had led to someone seeking the only solution they could think of, and look where it had landed them. No kidney, maybe doing prison time on dialysis, before dying behind bars. What was the penalty for handling stolen goods, if those goods were sewn inside you? What about all the others in receipt of those organs – what price would they pay?
Jason thrust the cooler into Bryn’s arms. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘You can and you will. There is no one else.’
‘I can’t condemn them all like this.’
‘You want to work for the police, you play by our rules. You don’t play and you’re out, you and Amy.’
Jason baulked at Amy’s name. He could decide for himself how much he was prepared to sacrifice, but he couldn’t decide for Amy. Except he could – losing her police work would cripple her, and he could never be the cause of that pain. Not even for his own guilty conscience.
‘Fine,’ Jason said. ‘But I don’t like it.’
‘I’m not taking a vote.’ Bryn pushed the cooler back towards him, as Matt came over.
‘Problem?’ Matt asked.
‘What’s happening?’ Jason deflected, not looking at Bryn.
‘We’ve got the go-ahead from HQ. Make the drop as planned and, as soon as you’ve got the money, I’ll come in with the uniforms to make the arrests. I’ve formally noted you as an undercover, so there’s no issue of prosecution. We ready?’
Jason nodded his reluctant agreement, feeling inexplicably dirty. He also didn’t let on to Matt that there was no plan for the drop – Kyle had that knowledge and he was unlikely to share. Matt and Bryn hauled Kyle out of the car and into the back of theirs, while Jason replaced the cooler in its nest of blankets in the boot.
‘They always work in pairs,’ he called back to Matt.
The NCA agent returned to his side and beckoned someone out of the back of the car – Owain. ‘I think a black face will draw too much suspicion around here,’ he said.
Jason privately agreed, but he saw the way Owain’s hands trembled, shoulders hunched over as he approached.
‘You all right with this?’ Jason asked.
‘We’ve got three minutes to rendezvous.’ Matt was already moving back towards his car, leaving the two of them alone.
Owain said nothing, just slid into the passenger seat and did up his seatbelt, like a robot running on autopilot.
‘Let’s hope I don’t cop a speeding ticket,’ Jason quipped, trying to garner a response. Nothing.
Jason sped off towards the meet, his heart throbbing painfully in his chest. He was signing someone’s death warrant tonight and he felt the Reaper looking on, judging him and his. He didn’t feel like chancing his karma tonight, but surely Owain had earned a reprieve from yet more trouble?
The dots departed the motorway just after Bridgend and stopped. She didn’t have a camera on that spot, so Amy had to content herself with manually refreshing the GPS every thirty seconds.
Suddenly, one dot moved away from the rest. Amy double-checked the ID – Owain. After a minute, Bryn’s dot followed, heading towards Cardiff. But instead of continuing down the motorway, they took the Bridgend turnoff, making their way past the shopping centre and into the industrial estate beyond.
Her fingers itched to call Owain, demand if he was with Jason. It was entirely possible – enough time had elapsed since the altercation in Aberystwyth to allow him to reach Bridgend, especially with his somewhat reckless driving style. But why wasn’t he coming home? Was he persisting in whatever ridiculous mission Frieda had sent him on?
She didn’t have enough data. How was she supposed to work this out, calculate the risks, if she didn’t have data? Why were they keeping her in the dark?
Owain’s dot stopped at the edge of the industrial estate. Amy hunted desperately for cameras, but only caught one at the end of the road. She turned it as far as it would go, just able to make out the shape of a tall car – a 4x4? – parked up in the middle of the street.
No one moved. Amy checked several times to make sure the image hadn’t frozen, but the time code continued to rise, much slower than her frantic heartbeat.
Then a second car arrived, parking up on the opposite side of the street. After a moment, the doors opened together, like it had been perfectly choreographed. Two figures met in the middle of the road – while Amy couldn’t see faces at this distance, the man was too tall for Owain and Amy had watched Jason on too many cameras to mistake him.
The man seemed to be arguing with Jason, before another couple of men emerged to flank him. Three against one – with Owain in the car. Why wasn’t Owain moving to help him? Where was the backup?
But whatever Jason said reassured them, as the newcomers backed off a step. Jason handed over a large box and took something in return. A small powerful light source blinked on, whiting out the low threshold of the camera. Amy desperately tried to see around the edges of the light, but it obscured everyone in the road. Anything could be happening and she wouldn’t know. She wouldn’t know until it was too late.
The light died, and the camera readjusted along with Amy’s eyes. Jason turned and got back in the car. Suddenly, the road was filled with flashing lights, cars blocking both ends of the road. The cavalry had arrived.
But the gang boys weren’t going down without a fight. Little bursts of light surrounded their car – and Amy belatedly realised they were muzzle flashes. They were shooting at Jason.
The 4x4 was stuck between the barricading police cars, unable to escape. Amy’s heart was in her mouth. Would she watch him die here, helplessly separated?
>
But Jason wasn’t easily beaten. The 4x4 heaved up onto the pavement, reversing away from the shooters and scraping past the police car nearest her camera. The flashes from the surrounded car stopped. Had they run out of ammunition? Or had they realised, as Amy had, that the police weren’t shooting back? That the cars carried no SWAT team, no guns at all.
All they had to do was leave their car and execute the police officers one by one. And there was nothing that could be done to stop them.
Chapter 28
Fighting fire with fire
The first spray of bullets took out the driver’s side windows and rained down glass. Jason cursed and ducked, yanking Owain down behind the dubious cover of the dashboard. When the fuck had everyone started carrying guns?
The suspicious hard men had only just bought his story about Kyle being taken ill and only reluctantly parted with their cash when Jason had threatened to take the kidney away. He had seen the weapons distorting the lines of the coats and wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.
The thick smell of diesel filled his nostrils. The tank had clearly taken a hit, haemorrhaging the last of its fuel, much depleted after his night’s journey. But Jason wasn’t planning on this car becoming his coffin, or one large roasting tin when a stray spark set the whole lot on fire.
He turned the key and the engine miraculously turned over, enough fuel in the lines to give them a little time. Jason slammed the Land Rover into reverse and, still ducking his head, steered them up onto the pavement and back towards the waiting police car.
But Owain, without his restraining hand, starting yanking on the passenger door – desperate to open it, escape the thunderous sound of bullets with their names on.
‘Calm the fuck down!’ Jason yelled, as the door opened and scraped against the fence. ‘And shut that bloody door!’
When Owain showed no sign of complying, Jason steered closer to the fence, effectively shutting the door for him and meaning that they only destroyed a wing mirror when scraping past the cop car. Except the front of the Land Rover was too broad to pass completely and Jason was wedged tight against them. No escape except through the boot, and that was denied them by the dog cage.
Then the noise stopped. The officer in the passenger seat of the police car glanced over to him, just above the line of the window, and Jason met his inquiring gaze with equal confusion. Why stop shooting now?
Owain whimpered softly beside him.
‘Are you hit?’ Jason asked, his voice sounding muffled to his ears.
Owain shook his head, but something wild had overtaken him, adrenaline overriding all his better sense. Jason had no idea what Owain would do next and that frightened him.
A phone was ringing. Owain pulled it out of his pocket and stared at it like it was some mysterious artefact from the planet Zog. ‘It’s Amy.’
Jason snatched the phone out of his hand. ‘Amy, we’re—’
‘They have guns.’ Her voice was taut, flat – she was barely holding it together. ‘They can execute you. You can’t fight back.’
Slowly, it dawned on Jason that he wasn’t surrounded by Armed Response Vehicles, but ordinary police cars. The ARVs would be in Cardiff, maybe Swansea, but that was about half an hour’s drive away. The gang boys could pick them off one by one before backup materialised.
‘You got a plan?’ he asked, hopefully.
‘Stop them getting out of the car.’
Easier said than done. They had no covering fire, no projectiles. It was Jason who couldn’t get out, not them, so unless he managed to wedge them between the wall and a police car, that wasn’t the best plan.
He peered through the windscreen to examine the road for potential obstacles. But the lighting was poor here – he could barely make out the slick of diesel he’d left behind during his frantic reversing, and that was all…
That was all he needed.
Jason killed the engine and snatched a crumpled packet of fags and a cheap lighter out of his jacket pocket. He could light the oil nearest them easily, but then they would go up in seconds, taking the cop car with them.
He motioned for the police officer to roll down his window. ‘On my signal,’ he told him, ‘you have to make a run for it.’
The cop saw the lighter in his hand and blanched but only nodded.
‘Owain, you need to get that cage off, so we can get out.’
‘I can’t—’
‘You fucking can.’ Jason shoved him towards the back seat of the car without further ceremony.
‘Jason, what’s going on?’
‘I need to hang up, Amy. Do you know when—’
‘Ten minutes for the ARVs.’
‘We’ll need a fire engine.’
Amy, thankfully, didn’t question him. ‘Try not to die.’
‘Do my best.’ He threw the phone into the back, rummaging under the seat for anything to stick down the lighter switch. Electrical tape or even a pack of gum…
His fingers seized on a thick A-Z map, folded open to show the back roads of Anglesey. He hauled it out triumphantly.
‘Owain, is it—’
But he didn’t have time to finish, the doors of the gang’s car opening and three shadowy figures emerging. Jason crouched on his seat and lit the A-Z. It smouldered, the plastic cover giving off an acrid stench, before the cheap insides caught in a burst of flame, devouring the roads of North Wales in an instant. Jason stepped on the smashed remains of his window and the cop’s, enough leverage to fling the burning book towards the oil.
A shot rang out and Jason fell back into the car, just as the book landed in the middle of the road. And … nothing.
‘Shit. Owain—’
A burst of flame streaked across the road, driving the men back towards their car. Jason crawled into the back of the Land Rover, to find Owain still wrestling with the screw at the top of the cage.
‘Almost,’ he said, but they didn’t have time for ‘almost’.
Jason flung his full weight at the cage and the screw snapped, bringing down the cage with Jason on top of it. The boot released from the inside and the two of them tumbled out, the police officers herding them behind Bryn’s car.
Sirens filled the air once more, as Bryn and Matt joined their huddle, fleeing like a large multi-limbed monster away from the fire and letting the huge red engine see to the mess they’d made.
‘You’re bleeding,’ Owain said suddenly.
Only then did Jason feel the searing mark across his temple, blood coursing over his cheek and down his neck.
‘Jason, you’ve been shot.’
Amy hated this part more than any other – waiting for Jason to come home.
In the heat of the moment – literal heat, in this case – her anxiety still ruled her but she had purpose, direction. She could call for reinforcements, she could provide intelligence to the field. But in the aftermath, when the fire was out and the bad guys were carted off to the cells, she only had inertia.
She could not run to him, wait by his A&E gurney and press his hand like Cerys. She couldn’t awkwardly pat his shoulder and offer him a lift home like Bryn. No, she could only wait for him to return, make a cup of tea and try not to fuss like her anxiety demanded of her.
It was most important that he didn’t think he had to worry about her, not tonight. So she removed the empty wine bottle, dumped the multiple coffee cups in the sink, and pulled on a clean T-shirt. She could keep it all together just a little longer.
The lift ejected him as the midday sun was streaming through the gaps in the curtains. She surveyed him critically, taking in the white patch of gauze taped to his head and the way he walked unaided to the sofa, despite Cerys hovering at his elbow.
‘It only took off a few layers of skin,’ he said immediately, without preamble. ‘It’s gonna scar but it’s not gonna stop me d
oing anything. I feel fine.’
‘There’s blood on your shirt.’
The dark cloth was saturated with it, his right shoulder to his elbow starting to shed rust-coloured flakes.
Jason glanced at it and scowled. ‘Aw, shit.’
‘Head wounds bleed a lot,’ Cerys chimed in.
Cerys’ comment irked her. Amy had watched enough medical dramas to know that. She didn’t need Cerys coddling her as well as Jason.
‘Where’s Owain?’ she asked, a little pettily, just to see Cerys flush.
‘At home,’ Cerys said, brusquely. ‘He doesn’t like hospitals.’
‘You should get back to him,’ Jason said.
His voice was neutral, but Amy knew he was trying to get rid of his sister. As much as she hoped it was so they could spend some time together, she knew it was more likely he simply wanted to avoid an argument between her and Cerys.
‘Is he…?’ Cerys trailed off, glancing at Amy. Whatever she wanted to ask, she obviously thought Amy was too fragile to hear it.
‘A bit shaken up,’ Jason said.
Cerys left without another word, as if she’d heard more in his words than had been plainly said.
The kettle finished boiling, the button having been pressed as soon as Amy saw Bryn’s car pull up. She didn’t know why he hadn’t come up, merely waiting for Cerys’ return so he could deliver her to Owain. Maybe he suspected Amy would ream him out for his involvement in Jason’s nocturnal activities, and he would be right.
She made the tea and delivered a mug to Jason, her hands steady as a rock. She was in control. He would never know. ‘Do you have a headache?’
‘I told you, I’m fine.’
‘Fine is a broad spectrum.’
‘Like when you use it?’
It wasn’t quite teasing, the way he said it, and Amy’s smile was shadowed in return. They both knew that fine was relative for her, and that she had never yet said otherwise anyway. It could be more accurately called a polite fiction, a very British way of dodging that awful question ‘How are you?’
Captcha Thief (Amy Lane Mysteries) Page 15
