‘I’ll take my chances,’ said Hartshorn. ‘Come on, Cheryl, let’s get our bags from the coach’s locker outside and get the hell out of here.’
Cheryl’s eyes were glazed with fear. ‘I don’t know, Keith. It’s dark out there. I don’t like the dark…’
‘I’m with you, aren’t I? I’ve always looked after you. I’m doing that now. This guy is crazy. He could have busted my jaw over a piece of goddamn chocolate!’
Wade took in a calming breath. ‘It’s not safe out there.’
Hartshorn gave a derisory laugh. ‘Yeah, and whose word do we have on that? The three of you went out there and come back with a cock-and-bull story about the bus driver being ripped to pieces by a wild animal and we all fall for it. Then you refuse to let the kid light a fire to attract the attention of whoever it is out there. What’s really going on here?’ He put his arm around the trembling shoulders of his girlfriend. ‘There’s some kind of game you’re playing and we’re not in on it. I reckon it’s you that’s at the base of all this, Mainwaring. You!’ He stabbed out an accusing finger.
‘That’s a good point,’ said Jack Benedict, rising from his seat. ‘You’ve been acting suspicious for a while. What was on that newspaper you didn’t want Lauren to read, huh?’
Wade shook his head. ‘You’re getting nervous, you all are, but don’t make stupid mistakes…’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’ Jack Benedict folded his arms.
His girlfriend Lauren came to his side. ‘It was the front page, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘The headline was about the ex-soldier who’d killed his wife and child and was on the run…’ She looked at her husband. ‘His name’s Samuel Wade…’
Phyllis Kennedy gave a gasp and put her hand to her mouth. The bus fell silent.
‘So that’s why you were reluctant to tell us who you are,’ Hartshorn said. ‘You’re that murderer, Samuel Wade. Jesus, it’s all making sense now!’
‘If you go out there you’ll be killed,’ Wade said calmly.
‘By you?’ said Hartshorn. ‘You’re on the run, aren’t you? Christ, that’s really you on the news, isn’t it? Samuel-fucking-Wade!’
Wade reached up and placed a hand on his pocket where the gun lay. Then let it drop again. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said. The tension was mounting. He felt it would explode at any moment.
‘That’s why you don’t want us to be rescued…’ Lauren Smith mouthed quietly. ‘You’re afraid of getting captured by the police.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Wade, but he felt his body becoming increasingly damp with fresh sweat.
‘And I’ll bet the story about the bus driver being killed by an animal was a lie…’ Phyllis Kennedy said.
‘The others saw it, too, don’t forget,’ said her husband.
Hartshorn’s swagger was returning with the support of his fellow passengers. ‘Amanda and Martin, they’re in on it, too,’ he said. ‘They have to be.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Amanda Tyler piped up indignantly.
‘We saw it all right,’ Martin Bolan joined. ‘He’d been killed by an animal.’
Hartshorn laughed. ‘Well yes, you would say that, wouldn’t you? My guess is that you’re working with Wade here, helping him get away from the police. So what really happened out there? Did the bus driver become suspicious of you, Wade, and so when he ran to get help you bumped him off?’
‘Jesus, Hartshorn,’ Wade burst, ‘we’re in the middle of a bloody desert, which you’re conveniently forgetting! There are no police out there. There’s only more of the same!’
‘But you are him, right?’ said Amanda. ‘You are Samuel Wade.’
‘What if I am?’
‘Oh my God!’ Paul Kennedy said. ‘He shot his wife and child!’
‘I did no such thing!’ Wade yelled.
Martin Bolan held up a hand. ‘Calm down, everyone! This is doing us no good at all!’
‘You’re his accomplice,’ said Hartshorn. ‘I don’t know how or why we’re out here like we are, but it all has something to do with that murdering bastard, Wade!’ He grabbed Cheryl by the arm and led her brusquely to the door. ‘I’m not staying here with a murderer. I’m getting off this bus and I’m going to get help from that town out there.’
‘There isn’t any town,’ Wade said, his breathing becoming shallow. ‘You’ll stay here, for your own good.’
‘And if I don’t, then what? You’ll kill me, too?’
‘I never killed anyone…’ Wade said, his voice breaking. ‘I didn’t kill my wife… My daughter…’ Tears formed in his eyes. ‘It wasn’t me…’
‘Like I believe that!’ Hartshorn said derisively. ‘A man who’d bust a cheek for the sake of a bar of Cadbury’s Dairymilk!’ He stepped through the doors, off the bus, Cheryl following him.
Steven Lindsey was standing by the small fire, his horrified face aglow with the licking flames. ‘What’s going on?’
‘There are wild animals out there, Hartshorn,’ said Bolan from the doors. ‘You have to believe us.’
‘There’s a wild animal right here,’ he responded. ‘I’m not falling for your lies, Bolan. And if the rest of you morons want to do that then that’s fine by me, but I’m not staying here a minute longer. I’ll take my chances out there.’ He went round to the side of the bus and unfastened the locker catch, dropping down the flap to reveal everyone’s neatly-stowed bags inside. By the light of the bonfire he scrabbled about trying to locate his own small suitcase.
‘I don’t like the dark,’ Cheryl pleaded. ‘I’m afraid. I don’t want to go out there…’
‘Don’t be stupid, woman. We’ll be fine. We’ve got to get you to the clinic as soon as possible…’ He patted her arm. ‘You’re ill. You need your treatment.’
‘I’m scared we’ll die, Keith!’ She resisted his tugging, broke free. ‘I want to stay here!’
Hartshorn glowered. ‘Fine, have it your way, you druggie bitch! I’ve had enough of trying to keep you clean. You’ve made your bed now you can lie on it!’ He pulled out his suitcase.
‘You’re making a big mistake, Hartshorn,’ said Wade. ‘You’re an arsehole, but I can’t let you kill yourself.’
‘Go ahead, stop me if you can.’
Wade pulled out the handgun and aimed it at Hartshorn, who dropped the suitcase immediately and backed away, his mouth falling open shock. ‘Get back on the bus,’ Wade insisted firmly.
There was a click from behind Wade’s head, and he felt something cold and hard pressing against the back of his skull.
‘Drop the gun, Wade,’ said Martin Bolan evenly. ‘That’s right, I’m armed. Drop your weapon at once and no one will get hurt.’
Wade let his gun clatter to the floor. It fell down the steps and landed on the dirt outside. ‘Who are you, Martin?’ he asked. ‘Really.’
‘DI Bolan,’ he said. Then louder, to everyone on board. ‘DI Bolan. I’ve been tracking this man down for a while. Hands behind your back, Wade.’ Bolan took out a set of cuffs as Wade did as he was told.
‘You’re making a big mistake, Martin. I didn’t kill my wife and daughter. I’m on the trail of the man who did.’
‘Tell that to the jury, Wade.’ He fumbled to open the cuffs.
In a split second, Wade sent his elbow crashing into Bolan’s chest, spun round and grabbed the hand that held the gun, sending the unyielding metal crashing into Bolan’s nose, finally wrenching the gun free from his grasp. It all happened so fast, Wade’s training so completely instinctive, that he was standing staring at Bolan with the gun levelled at the man’s chest before he’d had time to even think about what he was doing. The two men eyed each other fiercely. Blood poured down Bolan’s busted nose.
‘Don’t even think about touching that gun,’ said Wade to Hartshorn, without turning to face him, as Hartshorn bent down to pick Wade’s fallen weapon from the ground.
‘Go ahead, if you’re going to kill me, get it over and done with…’ said Bolan, pant
ing, wiping away the blood with his sleeve.
The gun wavered slightly, like an animal about to pounce on its prey. Something in Wade’s head said pull the trigger. It screamed at him that this was the thing to do. The only thing.
Pull the trigger! Pull the trigger!
He lowered the gun. ‘I’m not going to do that, Martin,’ he said. ‘I’m not a murderer.’
The bloodcurdling scream that ripped through the night took them all by surprise. Everyone turned to see young Steven Lindsey being dragged sharply backwards into the black of the desert, his legs kicking as if he were deranged or in the grip of a fierce fit, his arms flailing madly.
It was only a glimpse before the young man was eaten up by the wall of solid blackness beyond the glare of the small bonfire, but they were all taken aback and horrified by what they thought they saw holding Steven Lindsey by his torn, bloodied throat.
It was the slavering jaws of a monstrous hairy black beast straight from the pits of hell.
15
Cold beyond Cold
‘Come in, Robert, sit down and make yourself comfortable. And don’t look so upset. It’s not good for the old ticker, getting yourself worked up like that.’
Dale Lindegaard was sitting in his office, legs crossed, on his cream leather armchair facing a huge screen on the wall. He motioned casually for Napier to sit in the armchair in front of him him.
‘I want him out!’ Napier said, barely able to contain his emotions.
‘Don’t be too hasty, Robert,’ Lindegaard said. ‘You look like you could do with a drink. Pour me one too, before you get comfortable.’ Lindegaard’s well-manicured finger, small, fat and slug-like, pointed out a decanter sitting on a cabinet.
‘You know what he’s done? I can’t have that! He’s murdered someone! In cold blood! A key informant!’
‘I can see you’re upset, and yes, it was a little unexpected…’
‘Unexpected!’ he blustered. Lindegaard’s finger remained poised, so Napier steadied his breathing and went over to the decanter and poured out two glasses. ‘It’s murder, Mr Lindegaard.’
‘It was an accident.’
‘Villiers killed the man in cold blood!’
‘It was his assistant Jungius, to be fair.’
‘That’s not even remotely funny, Mr Lindegaard. I don’t want anything to do with murder!’
‘But you’re already involved, Robert. Villiers works under your team, does he not?‘
‘You’re trying to hold me responsible for that? I will have no part in it.’
He smiled warmly. ‘Robert, Robert, I can see you’re upset, but if anything it will send out the right message to CSL.’
‘I don’t think you understand the seriousness of this, Mr Lindegaard. There’s a damn body…’
‘Which is unfortunate but will all be taken care of.’
‘Villiers planned it all along. He had a bag of cocaine…’
‘Yes,’ said Lindegaard. ‘A drugs deal gone terribly wrong, apparently.’
‘Christ, what a fucking mess!’ He downed a glass of whisky and poured out another.
‘Like I say, Robert, try not to get yourself worked up. Here, sit down, there’s a good man.’
Licking his lips of the sharp taste and feeling the alcohol creep warmly through his insides, Napier sat down opposite Lindegaard, controlling his breathing. ‘I knew he’d be trouble. Something told me. I had no idea…’
‘I know. I know,’ said Lindegaard. ‘But every cloud, and all that…’
Every cloud? What was the man going on about, thought Napier? He’d expected Lindegaard to have been furious.
‘So what would you do with him, with Villiers?’ Lindegaard asked.
Napier chewed at his lower lip. ‘I want him off my operation.’
‘Is that all?’
‘What do you want me to say? I want him dead?’
‘You’re thinking it.’
‘He’s trouble. I can’t operate with that kind of loose cannon. He’s a murdering bastard.’
‘So you want him dead?’
The man was testing him. Again.
‘I don’t care, as long as he’s out of my hair,’ he ventured.
Lindegaard gave a low chuckle. ‘You try to give the impression that you are a hard man, Robert, but deep down you are not as hard as you’d like everyone to believe. Villiers has stepped on your toes, gone over your head, call it what you will, and ordinarily I would have expected a man like you to be so mad you’d have taken the gun to Villier’s head yourself. But you carefully manoeuvre away from committing yourself to the blindingly obvious. Villiers should pay for his transgression. You’re getting soft as you grow older, Robert, I’ve seen it coming over you. Compassion is a wasting disease. Once it takes hold there is no preventing it from taking over completely. I remember smoking my first cigarette, thinking that one would not hurt, that I was in control, not the nicotine. But that one cigarette was all it took, and now look at me, like a starving babe needing to suck at the breast – I cannot do without them. Compassion – well, it’s like nicotine, Robert. My advice, don’t let it take hold, and to do that is to avoid it at all costs. Do I make myself clear?’
Robert Napier nodded, took a sip from his glass. ‘Very clear, Mr Lindegaard.’
‘There will always be casualties in a game where the monetary and power stakes are so high. Players should refrain from joining the table if they are unwilling to shoulder the costs of losing. Anyone would think you had feelings for this Roland Fuller.’
‘I have a job to do, and people like Villiers and his hired henchmen get in the way,’ he said through gritted teeth.
‘For now Mr Villiers will have to stay. His methods, though undoubtedly crude, have yielded results, and for that I must give him the benefit of the doubt.’ He lifted a remote control and aimed it at a screen to the left of them. ‘I would have liked to have kept Roland Fuller alive a little longer. But Villiers has ensured Fuller’s limited contribution was valuable. We have live feed coming through as we speak from the location given by Fuller to Villiers.’
The screen flickered on. The image looked to be coming from an unsteady head-cam, someone walking through a darkened corridor, bare concrete walls, metal pipes criss-crossing the ceiling, puddles of water on the floor.
‘Where is this?’ said Napier.
‘South London.’
‘A warehouse?’
‘Factory – used to be a sweatshop, mainly illegal immigrants putting together cheap clothes, till they closed it down. This was CSL’s latest operational base, courtesy of the late Roland Fuller. In use until just a few hours ago, my team reckon. Unfortunately they managed to scurry away before we arrived. They didn’t have the time to destroy or shift everything, though. Guess this time we took them completely by surprise, eh?’
As if to illustrate this the camera went through an open metal door that looked as if it had been forced. The room beyond was dark until someone hit a light switch.
‘Are you getting this okay, Mr Lindegaard?’ a disembodied voice said.
‘Show me the setup again,’ Lindegaard ordered, and the camera swivelled unsteadily to reveal a number of desks, on top of each a number of screens that had been laid into with something heavy, smashing them to pieces. ‘This is what remains of their equipment?’ he asked, leaning forward, his eyes narrowing.
‘They’ve taken some of it with them,’ said the voice behind the camera. ‘They’ve attempted to physically destroy the remainder, and I’m certain they’d have hit a self-destruct button to clear any hard drives they couldn’t haul away. It’s a mess. But it’s a better mess than any we’ve found previously. We calculate they had little more than fifteen or twenty minutes to clear out.’
‘No sign of anyone?’
‘No, Mr Lindegaard. We had all the exits covered but it looks like they’ve used another exit as yet unknown to us. We’re scouting the place to see if we can locate it.’
‘Forget it. They’ll
be long gone by now,’ said Lindegaard. ‘Like rats scampering through sewers. They always make sure they have an additional bolthole in case of emergencies. I’ll bet we scared them real good this time. Whoever our moles are didn’t have time to get out a warning.’ He chuckled. ‘See, Robert, Villiers did good after all! Fuller was true to his word.’ He turned to the screen again. ‘I want every scrap of equipment brought back to base so that we can take it apart and see what we can learn from anything we can salvage.’
‘Will do, Mr Lindegaard.’
Another, altogether more familiar, voice crackled in the background. ‘Get this, will you?’ he said.
The camera swung round to reveal the man. It was Villiers. He was smiling broadly.
‘What the hell is he doing there?’ said Napier, rising from his chair.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Napier,’ said Villiers. ‘I hope you’re enjoying the show.’
‘You little shit!’ he said. ‘You have no business being there.’
‘He did lead us to it,’ Lindegaard said evenly. ‘Let him enjoy the fruits of his labours.’
‘Who exactly is in charge of this operation?’ Napier hissed quietly to Lindegaard. ‘Why wasn’t I informed of all this before it happened?’
‘There, there, Robert,’ soothed Lindegaard. ‘Don’t let your pride get in the way of business. We didn’t have time to tell you before the raid took place. And in truth it was me that put an embargo on telling anyone until such a time as we’d carried out the raid. Under no circumstances could we afford to accidentally leak anything out. Walls have ears, and all that, you know.’
‘This is me you’re talking about!’ Napier said. ‘It’s people like him,’ he said, pointing at Villiers, ‘that should be nowhere near such an operation. What’s going on?’
Armageddon Heights (a thriller) Page 13
