Who Dares Wins

by Chris Ryan

  With that, she turned her back on him, walked out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. She locked herself in and listened at the door, waiting to hear the sound of her ex-boyfriend leaving the flat.

  *

  Sam floored it home. He barely saw anyone else on the road, not because there weren’t any cars, but because he was blind to them. He blocked out the angry sound of horns as he cut up the other road users; he ignored red lights and pedestrian crossings. After his encounter with Jack Whitely outside the CO’s office, Sam had walked straight out of the Kremlin and left the base as quickly as possible. He didn’t stop and speak to anyone. He just had to get out of there. And now, as he sped round the roads of Hereford, there was one thought in his mind. Get home. Get away from everyone else. Then you can try to work out what the hell is going on.

  Coming to a halt outside his flat, Sam parked badly, one wheel on the pavement, the back of the car jutting out into the road. He didn’t care. He just leapt from the vehicle, ran into the house and – for some reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on – locked himself inside. He drew several deep breaths before going into the kitchen and opening one of the cupboards. It was empty apart from a half-drunk bottle of Scotch. He poured himself a glass and downed it in one, before pouring another and waiting for the alcohol to do its work on his nervous system.

  Jacob had changed. There was no doubt about that. He looked older, more weather-beaten. It probably wasn’t so surprising that Mac hadn’t recognised him. Sam’s brother had just been one of a number of faces and the photos were of poor quality. He sipped at his whisky, closed his eyes and tried to get his thoughts straight. It made no sense. Why would the Regiment be sending out a troop to kill a bunch of British citizens; why would they be eliminating one of their own?

  As that thought crossed his mind, he stopped. He gently placed his drink on the kitchen worktop and closed his eyes. Sam thought back to the previous day. He was in his father’s room. The old man had said something. What was it? Sam’s brow furrowed as he tried to remember the exact words.

  You know what those bastards are like. Jacob was an embarrassment to them. We both know how easy it is to get rid of people who are an embarrassment.

  He shook his head. His father’s words were nothing, just grief-induced paranoia, the delusions of an old man with time on his hands coming up with reasons to explain his favourite son’s absence.

  Weren’t they?

  ‘Damn it!’ he shouted, kicking the kitchen unit so that it rattled. Sam downed the Scotch, then started prowling around the flat like a caged animal. He needed answers, but there was nowhere he could get them – if Sam alerted anyone to what was going on, there was no doubt about what would happen. He’d be pulled from the op and a team of trained SAS killers would fly to Kazakhstan to eliminate his brother, without Sam being able to do anything about it.

  Morning passed into afternoon. The effects of the alcohol wore off, leaving only an uncomfortable, nagging sensation in the pit of Sam’s stomach. His phone rang several times; he ignored it.

  Afternoon melted into evening. Sam felt like a prisoner in his own home, as though even stepping over the threshold would somehow reveal his suspicions to everyone, like an escaping convict walking into the beam of a searchlight. As the light outside began to fail, so it grew darker in his bare front room. He sat on the old sofa and allowed the gloom to surround him. From where he sat he could see out into the road. His badly parked Audi was just outside; occasional passers-by sauntered across his field of vision.

  Evening became night. The streetlamps flickered on outside. Still Sam didn’t move. He had no idea what time it was and he didn’t bother to check. Before long he was sitting in darkness.

  By the time he noticed the figure on the other side of the street, Sam couldn’t have said how long it had been there. It was faceless, the head covered with a hood, the kind worn by kids. If this was a kid, though, it was an unusually tall, stocky one. He stood leaning against a lamppost; and although Sam could not see his face, he had the sudden, unnerving sensation that this person was looking straight through the window of the flat and into Sam’s front room.

  The unnerving sensation that he was some shadowy sentinel, keeping watch.

  Sam froze.

  The figure was in the light; Sam was in the dark. Chances were this guy couldn’t see him. Slowly, he slid down the sofa on his back and on to the floor. On all fours he crawled out of the front room and into the corridor. It was very dark in his flat, he used the tried and tested Blade method of not looking directly at objects, but looking around them, using his periphery vision, which is better attuned to seeing in the dark. He made his way confidently to the bathroom without switching on any lights. Once in there, he fumbled towards the toilet. Sam lifted the lid of the cistern and carefully groped inside.

  The handgun was there, a fully loaded Beretta 92 9 mm, carefully perched on the mechanical intestines of the cistern. He picked it up gingerly to stop it from falling into the water; but once it was in his hand, he gripped it firmly.

  He felt a whole lot better with the reassuring weight of a weapon in his fist.

  Chances were it was just some guy waiting for his girlfriend, or his dealer, or who just happened to be standing outside Sam’s house. But there was no doubt that Sam felt a cold, bristling uncertainty, a kind of sixth sense that experience had taught him never to ignore. He checked the weapon quickly before leaving the bathroom and walking back down the corridor, the shallow, steady sound of his breath the only noise in his ears.

  He stopped at the door to the front room, pressed his back against the wall and, squinting his eyes slightly, peered across the room and out of the window. Sam gripped the weapon a little bit more firmly when he realised the figure under the lamppost was no longer there.

  Out of the blue, a motorbike roared down the street. It made Sam start momentarily, but more than that it messed with his hearing, which had been carefully tuned to the quiet. The noise of the motor took a while to fade; only when it had finally disappeared could Sam readjust his ears to the thick silence of his flat.

  But silence wasn’t what he heard.

  It was faint, but it was there: the sound of footsteps. They were brisk and they were getting louder.

  Sam felt his jaw setting solid. The handgun was pointed out in front of him now as he backed up and headed towards the front door.

  The top panel was made of frosted glass. He stood several metres from it and held the gun at arm’s length towards the door. Head height. His eyes twitched slightly as he watched the blurred silhouette of a figure come into view. It was easy to determine the curved outline of the man’s hooded top, the broad shape of his shoulders.

  It would take two shots, he calculated, to kill him. One to shatter the glass, one to finish him off. And Sam was ready to do it; ready to defend himself at the first sign of danger.

  The figure remained perfectly still. In some part of his brain that was not concentrating on keeping the guy in his sights, Sam wondered if the hooded figure knew he was there.

  Movement.

  Sam’s trigger finger twitched.

  A noise.

  It was the sound of the letter box opening. Sam watched as an envelope slowly glided through the hole in his door. Instinctively he threw his back to the wall, not knowing whether that envelope was concealing something else; but it fell harmlessly to the floor. Almost immediately, the silhouette melted away and Sam heard once more the sound of footsteps, getting quieter this time. He ran to the front room window just in time to see the unknown delivery boy disappear round the corner of the street.

  Only then did he shake his head. Jesus, he thought to himself. And you thought Dad was paranoid. He felt stupid. He felt angry with himself. But why, then, did he still not want to turn on the lights?

  Why did he still not want to illuminate himself?

  Why did he still feel safer with the gun in his hand?

  He stepped away from the window and returne
d to the front door. The envelope was still lying there.

  Sam Redman bent down and picked it up.

  FIVE

  It was a plain, brown A4 envelope. There was no writing on the front and the seal had been Sellotaped down. It crossed Sam’s mind as he opened it up that the lack of saliva on the seal would make it difficult for anyone to discover who this envelope had come from, if they were of a mind to do so.

  Inside there was a thin sheaf of papers stapled together at one corner. In the darkness of the hallway Sam was unable to read what they said; he made his way back to the bathroom, closed the door and switched on the light above the shaving mirror. Only then, as he sat perched on the edge of the bath, did he start to read.

  The document consisted of four pages. It was barely legible, however, because large chunks of the text had been blacked out. At the top of the front page was an official stamp.

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

  SUPPRESSED UNDER DA-NOTICE 05 (UNITED KINGDOM SECURITY & INTELLIGENCE SERVICES & SPECIAL SERVICES)

  Sam read those bits of the text that remained: ‘.. a car park of a service station on the M4… cold day… seemed agitated… second meeting in a country pub…’ It was meaningless to Sam. He held the paper up to the light, hoping to read what was underneath. Nothing doing. Whatever this was, it had been heavily censored. Someone had wanted to make sure that it was incomprehensible. They’d done a good job.

  But there was something else.

  On the top page, scrawled in blue biro and roughly circled, was a name – Clare Corbett – and next to it a telephone number. A mobile.

  Sam looked at the number for a good long while. He even went so far as to punch it into his phone. But something stopped him from dialling. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. Everything was so muddled, so confusing. Who was this Clare Corbett? Did the document he held in his hand come from her? What was the point of him seeing it if he couldn’t understand a word that was written?

  No. This wasn’t right. He saved the number to his phone, but didn’t dial. He had a another idea.

  Sam glanced at his watch. Ten thirty. He couldn’t believe that the day had passed – it seemed like only a few minutes ago that he was in the briefing back at HQ. It was late, but that didn’t matter. He sniffed and then searched for another number on his phone. Nodding with satisfaction when it appeared on his screen, he allowed his thumb to hover over the dial button.

  He stopped again, then shook his head. No. He knew that it was too easy for someone to listen in on his phone calls and until he knew what the hell this was all about, that wasn’t a risk he was going to take. He switched off the light, allowed his eyes to get used to the darkness, then moved to his bedroom.

  Sam’s leather jacket was slung over the back of his chair. He put it on, secreted the handgun in the inside pocket, then returned to the front door. Moments later he was on the pavement, walking almost at random until he found a public phone box.

  Only then did he make his call.

  Detective Inspector Nicola Ledbury of the Metropolitan Police had endured, even by her standards, an extremely shitty day. The trial she’d been working on for three months solid had gone tits up on a technicality, prompting a bollocking from the judge and her DCI – no doubt there would be more to come in the morning, if she ever made it in. She dumped her bag in the hallway and went to the kitchen to pour herself a large glass of wine. As she did so, she looked at the clock on the oven. Ten-thirty and she was just getting in. No wonder her personal life was such a disaster.

  She took two deep gulps of wine before going into her small bathroom. As she always did, she glanced in the mirror. Nicola knew she was quite pretty on a good day, but today wasn’t one of them. Her blonde hair was a disaster and she had bags under her eyes. The kind of clothes that she had to wear on the job flattened out her slim, curvy figure and she couldn’t wait to get out of them. So, running the bath, she started to strip. Her clothes stank of London fumes – it was disgusting and all she wanted to do was wash away the grime of the city. Her blouse dropped to the floor, then her bra. As she was undoing her trousers, however, she felt her mobile phone buzz against her skin. Nicola’s heart sank. Who the hell was calling her at this hour? She pulled out the phone and looked at it. Number withheld.

  The DI sighed. It was probably the office. Wearily she switched off the bath taps and took the call.

  ‘Yeah?’ she intoned, making no attempt to hide the reluctance in her voice.

  ‘Nicola?’ A man’s voice. Quite deep. She recognised it, but couldn’t place it.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Sam,’ came the reply. ‘Sam Redman.’

  A pause as a little smile played across her lips.

  ‘Hello, Sam,’ she replied, her voice all of a sudden kittenish and full of intonation. She quickly stepped half-dressed out of the echoing bathroom, touching her hand to her hair even though there was nobody to see. ‘Long time no speak.’

  ‘I’ve been away,’ came the reply.

  ‘Anywhere fun?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Sam’s voice was curt, almost businesslike – a far cry from his boyish fair hair and mischievous eyes – but that didn’t bother her. It was just the way he was. In the couple of weeks they’d worked together while he and his SAS mates were body-guarding a witness, she’d grown used to it. Fond of it, even – fond enough, at least, for them to indulge in a bit of extra-curricular activity. Nicola blushed slightly to think about it.

  ‘So,’ she said lightly, ‘you thought you’d phone me to arrange a…’

  ‘Listen, Nicola,’ he interrupted. ‘I need a favour.’

  She hesitated. There was something in his voice. He sounded tense.

  ‘What’s the matter, Sam? Everything all right?’

  ‘Fine.’ He sounded like he was simply brushing away the question. ‘Listen, I’ve got a mobile number. I need a billing address. Can you get it for me?’

  As he spoke, Nicola felt deflated and she couldn’t prevent it from sounding in her voice. ‘I suppose so,’ she replied. ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘Mate of mine,’ Sam replied blandly. ‘Getting funny phone calls. Wants to put a stop to them.’

  He was lying. Nicola could tell that easily enough, but she couldn’t be bothered to make a thing of it.

  ‘All right, Sam,’ she sighed. ‘It’ll take me twenty-four hours. Give me the number and call me tom…’

  ‘I haven’t got twenty-four hours,’ Sam said. ‘I need it now.’

  A pause. ‘Sounds like your friend really wants to put a stop to these calls,’ Nicola remarked lightly.

  ‘Can you do it?’ Brusque, businesslike.

  ‘It’s half-past ten at night, Sam.’

  ‘Can you do it?’

  Nicola sighed again, heavily this time. ‘All right, Sam. I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Good.’ He gave her the number, then said, ‘I’ll call you in half an hour.’

  Without another word, the phone clicked off.

  Nicola looked at the silent handset, then longingly back at the half-run bath. Then, muttering under her breath, she went to find herself a dressing gown.

  Sometimes, she thought to herself, she was just too obliging for her own good.

  *

  Sam replaced the phone on its cradle, then immediately walked away from the booth.

  He was just outside a parade of shops, most of them shut apart from a kebab shop half full of pissed-up kids. Sam was hungry, but something stopped him from wanting contact with anyone else, so he walked purposefully away. The half-hour passed slowly. He found a second pay phone in about ten minutes, then spent the rest of the time hanging around waiting to call his contact again. He didn’t really know what he was going to do if he found out an address for this woman – it rather depended on where she lived – but at the moment he didn’t know what else to do. It was just gone eleven when he made the call.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Somehow I
thought it would be.’ Nicola sounded annoyed.

  ‘Did you get the address?’

  ‘Yeah, I got it. You didn’t tell me it was a woman.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he lied.

  A disbelieving silence. ‘Look, Sam,’ Nicola said finally, ‘I don’t know what this is all about, but I’ve got enough trouble at work as it is. This isn’t going to put me any deeper in the shit, is it?’

  Sam sniffed. ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ he lied. ‘I promise. It’s just personal.’

  He breathed steadily as he waited for Nicola to reply.

  ‘All right,’ she said, her voice heavy with resignation. ‘You got a pen?’

  ‘I can remember it.’

  ‘Fine. Ground Floor Flat, 31 Addington Gardens, W3. Hope your friend likes Acton, Sam. Personally, I think it’s a dump.’

  Acton, London. At this time of night he could make it in a couple of hours.

  ‘Thank you, Nicola. I owe you one.’

  ‘As far as I can remember,’ she replied, a hint of archness returning to her voice, ‘you already did.’

  For the first time that day, Sam smiled. ‘Don’t let the bed bugs bite,’ he told her quietly, but there was no reply. Nicola had already hung up.

  Fifteen minutes later, Sam was in the car, one finger on the steering wheel as he hurtled out of Hereford down the A road that would lead him to London. The screen of his SatNav illuminated the route, but he barely glanced at it. He knew the way well enough. The lights of the cars ahead of him were nothing but a blur – not only because the speedo was constantly tipping a hundred, but also because his mind wasn’t really on the road. The events of the day churned over in his head, a series of disjointed visions; but the more he thought about them, the more confused he became. Sam didn’t even know who he was going to find at Addington Gardens. Clare Corbett, whoever the hell she was? Or someone else? He glanced down at the passenger seat. The handle of his handgun was peeping out from under the document in its envelope. There were enough rounds in there for him to keep himself safe; he couldn’t shake the feeling that he would be discharging some of them before the sun was up.