Hunter Killer

by Chris Ryan

  So Piers Chamberlain was getting his end away.

  Which meant he wasn’t travelling to Edgware.

  Nor was Victoria Atkinson.

  Nor was Harrison Maddox.

  Buckingham appeared at 20.32hrs.

  He was alone, a shoulder bag made of soft brown leather slung in front of him. He had two hands over it, as if it contained something special. He stood at the entrance to the MI6 building for a moment, an expression on his face that Danny found difficult to fathom. He looked around, as though checking that nobody was watching. Then he stepped forwards to the edge of the pavement. He looked right, into the line of the traffic, and raised the forefinger of his right hand. Forty-five seconds later, a black cab pulled over in front of him. It had an advert for cheap calls to Africa on the side. Buckingham leaned in to speak to the driver, then he opened the rear door and climbed inside.

  Danny followed.

  It took every ounce of his self-restraint to keep a covert distance. When the cab turned right over Vauxhall Bridge towards the centre of town, he felt his pulse quickening as the vehicle remained out of sight for the 20 seconds it took to catch up. And when it ran a yellow light up towards Victoria, he cursed under his helmet as the subsequent red light forced him to wait for a full minute and a half. Impossible to run it: there was a police car over his right shoulder, so even when the light turned green he had to keep himself well within the speed limit.

  No sign of Buckingham’s cab. Danny swore again. Streets fed left and right off the main road. He had no way of knowing if the cab had turned into one of them. And yet he knew, instinctively, that Buckingham’s path would lead up past Victoria and towards Hyde Park Corner, just as Danny’s had done earlier. On Ripley’s bike he was able to weave through the traffic. Sure enough, as he approached the station he saw the cab up ahead. Nigeria, 1p a minute. He manoeuvred up to within 20 metres. The cab continued north-west.

  A message came through from Ripley as he was passing the Park Lane Hotel again. What’s ur status? He ignored it. All his attention was on the cab up ahead. And the scheming, duplicitous, treacherous piece of shit inside it. Of course it was Buckingham who had taken his bait. Of course it was Buckingham who was heading to the location where he’d left the phone he sent the message from. Buckingham had been involved in this from the beginning. He’d brought Danny and Spud on board because he thought he could control them. And because he knew they’d get done whatever job he gave them. Danny felt sickened at the thought of Buckingham being in league with Abu Ra’id. The cleric’s voice replayed itself in his mind as Marble Arch came into view up ahead. Everything I have done, I have done with the full knowledge of this person. They have their reasons for wanting the streets of London to be filled with terror. What was Buckingham’s reason? To create a monster, then catch him so he could reap the rewards and the praise?

  Edgware Road. The cab overtook a bus and slipped out of sight for a moment. Danny swerved out and a car behind him honked its horn angrily. He accelerated past the bus. Green lights ahead. The taxi passed under the Westway. Danny stuck to him. The taxi travelled another 50 metres. It suddenly indicated left before pulling over.

  Danny didn’t stop. He just continued past the taxi as Buckingham climbed out of the back and paid the driver. He hooked a left into a dark side street and killed the engine on the Yamaha. He ripped off the helmet and hung it from the handlebars. Then he turned and ran back up to the corner of the side street and Edgware Road.

  He could see Buckingham approaching. Distance: 30 metres. The little shit looked shifty. He was still clutching his leather shoulder bag. He looked like he was hurrying.

  Distance, 20 metres. Danny stayed on that corner, his head down. He didn’t want Buckingham to recognise him before he’d made his move. He found himself clutching his knuckles, almost on instinct. He concentrated on the bag. What was in there?

  A weapon?

  Ten metres. Buckingham seemed to be talking to himself, his lips moving quickly but silently. A couple of kids cycled past on the pavement. Two red buses slid by in quick succession.

  Five metres.

  Danny raised his head.

  ‘Going somewhere nice?’ he said.

  Buckingham stopped.

  At first he looked behind him. It was as if he hadn’t even seen Danny. Or if he had, he’d looked straight through him.

  In the distance was the sound of a siren.

  Another red bus trundled past.

  Buckingham looked forwards again. His eyes fell finally on Danny. They widened.

  ‘You,’ he breathed. Then he swallowed hard.

  ‘Not dead enough for you?’ Danny asked.

  He stepped forwards. Buckingham staggered back, bumping into a couple who were walking arm in arm along the street. The man looked like he was going to say something, but Danny gave him a fierce look and the couple hurried on.

  Danny stepped up towards Buckingham and grabbed him by one arm. ‘Let’s have a little chat,’ he said.

  He could almost hear the clockwork in Buckingham’s brain. ‘Bloody good to see you, old sport,’ Buckingham said, his tongue tripping over the words. ‘We all thought you’d been . . .’

  ‘Conveniently blown up?’ Danny suggested.

  He dragged Buckingham down the side street.

  ‘You should have let us know you were okay. We could have . . .’

  ‘Sent in another drone to finish us off?’

  ‘Of . . . of course not . . . arranged some sort of . . . help.’

  Danny stopped in the shadow of a parked van, manhandled Buckingham so that he was facing him, then kneed him hard in the bollocks. Buckingham groaned as he bent double. Danny raised his knee again, sharply cracking it under Buckingham’s chin. Buckingham fell back on to his arse. He was still clutching his leather shoulder bag.

  Danny crouched down so they were face to face. ‘Let’s talk,’ he hissed.

  A flash of anger entered Buckingham’s eyes. ‘You’ve gone too far . . .’

  ‘Too far?’ Danny spat the words with contempt. ‘I haven’t gone nearly far enough. How many people were you willing to kill, Buckingham? You and your buddy Abu Ra’id?’

  Buckingham stared at him, speechless.

  ‘What did you promise him, you piece of shit? Immunity? Money?’

  ‘What the . . .’

  ‘How did you feel when you saw the e-mail, Buckingham? How many alarm bells went off in your head when you thought he was still alive and not dismembered in the Yemeni fucking desert with me and Spud.’

  Danny’s temperature was rising. He felt the anger taking him over. Controlling him. Before he knew what had happened, he’d dealt a cracking blow to Buckingham’s pretty-boy cheek. Buckingham fell to his side, a huge welt immediately appearing on the side of his face. Still clutching his shoulder bag, he tried to scramble away, but Danny was already on him. He dragged him up to his feet again, then thrust him up against the side of the van. The jolt made the van’s alarm start to blare loudly. Danny hardly heard it. He was too intent on doing Buckingham harm.

  ‘We’re going to go somewhere quiet,’ he shouted over the alarm, ‘and you’re going to tell me absolutely . . . fucking . . . everything!’

  ‘You’re insane,’ Buckingham hissed from between swollen, bleeding lips. ‘You’ve lost your mind, Black.’

  ‘What were you going to say to Abu Ra’id when you finally caught up with him?’

  ‘You’ll bloody well pay for this – I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Danny growled. ‘You’re the only one who’s responded to the e-mail.’

  ‘What e-mail?’

  On an impulse, Danny grabbed the leather shoulder bag from Buckingham’s arms. It was bulky. Heavier than an ordinary handgun. ‘What were you going to do, Buckingham? Finish him off yourself?’ He ripped the shoulder bag open.

  But he didn’t find a weapon. He found a bottle. Champagne.

  ‘What the fuck . . .’

 
Danny stared at the champagne. Then he looked at Buckingham.

  ‘You’re supposed to be dead,’ Buckingham snapped. ‘Why wouldn’t I go round and offer my condolences?’ He tried to straighten his tie – a ridiculous attempt to make himself look presentable, given the mashed-up state of his features. ‘She’s too bloody good for an oik like you anyway.’

  Danny blinked. It took a couple of seconds for him to twig what Buckingham was on about.

  ‘Clara?’ he whispered incredulously. He looked again at the bottle of champagne. ‘You were going to try it on with Clara?’

  Buckingham’s bloodied face grew redder. ‘Well why the bloody hell not?’

  A terrible pause.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Danny said. ‘You were working with Abu Ra’id all along. You were behind the bombings.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Abu Ra’id knew about Hammerstone. I heard it from his own lips.’ He reached out one hand and grabbed Buckingham by the throat. ‘And since you’re the most treacherous little cunt I’ve ever met . . .’

  ‘It must have been one of the others,’ Buckingham said in a strangled voice. ‘Maddox . . . the Americans . . . they’re always sticking their nose in . . .’

  Danny shook his head slowly. He’d heard Buckingham’s pathetic attempts to shift the blame one time too many.

  ‘What about Chamberlain? The man’s got more skeletons in his closet than . . .’

  Danny squeezed harder. Buckingham’s voice petered out as he gasped for breath.

  ‘Victoria,’ he said, high-pitched, desperate. He started babbling, words tumbling out of his mouth. ‘It’s all an act, you know. She pretends to be all mumsy and scatty, all that family stuff, but she’s ruthless.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘You’re wrong. She slept her way to the top, you know . . . I heard she shagged half the Russian-speakers in London . . . the academics . . . you know how that lot have all been tapped up by MI6 . . .’

  Danny blinked. ‘What?’ he said, loosening his grip slightly.

  Buckingham clearly thought he was getting somewhere. He nodded furiously. ‘Fucked them all, just to get her first job at Moscow station . . .’

  All of a sudden, Danny let Buckingham go. The spook doubled over, clutching at his bruised neck. Danny’s mind was elsewhere. He was remembering a conversation he’d had, days previously, in the bowels of Paddington police station with DI Fletcher. Fletcher had been holding up a report on his desk. His words rang verbatim in Danny’s ears. ‘This poor fella, a Professor Gengerov, lectures at one of them universities up Bloomsbury way, cycling to work last Friday just as he has done every day for the last twenty years, some idiot knocks him off his bike and kills him stone dead. We haven’t even collected the witness statements yet.’

  A hit and run on the same day as the first bombing. Hidden at the bottom of the pile while the police investigated more important things.

  The warmth drained from Danny’s body. What if Buckingham hadn’t been heading towards the RV? What if he had been heading to Clara’s to get his end away?

  Danny staggered back. Had he got everything so wrong? Had his strategy just collapsed around his ears?

  No. It was impossible. Buckingham was messing with his head. The little shit was talking now, spitting bile, aggressive bullshit. Danny didn’t hear a word he said. His mind was spinning. He couldn’t get a single thought straight in his mind.

  ‘You’re bluffing!’ he heard himself shouting at Buckingham. He stepped angrily towards him, all the stress and tiredness of the past few days crashing over him. He wanted to hurt Buckingham. Badly. The fire was back in his blood again.

  Buckingham shrank back.

  ‘You’re fucking bluffing!’ Danny roared again, raising his fists, ready to pummel the cunt to kingdom come.

  His phone buzzed.

  Not a text message. A phone call.

  Danny froze. As the terrified Buckingham cowered once more against the side of the van, he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  It was Barker.

  He accepted the call.

  ‘What is it?’ he growled.

  ‘Fuck’s sake!’ Barker sounded out of breath. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Victoria Atkinson left home about twenty minutes ago. I’ve been tailing her, but I just fucking lost her because my arm’s in this fucking sling . . .’

  Danny blinked. A sudden calmness came over him. Buckingham was scrambling away, running down the street. Danny didn’t follow.

  ‘She’s driving herself,’ Barker said, still breathless, still clearly pissed with himself. ‘A green Yaris. She’s in a fucking hurry, mucker. Ran three red lights before she even hit the river.’

  Danny took a deep breath.

  ‘Last seen?’

  A scrambled noise. Barker was breaking up.

  ‘Say again,’ Danny said.

  Barker came back online. ‘Park Lane,’ he said. ‘Heading up to Marble Arch. I’m sorry, mucker – that’s where I lost her. I don’t know where she’s going . . .’

  But Danny did. He killed the phone line and looked down the street. Buckingham had stopped about 20 metres away and was looking back, breathless.

  Danny threw the leather shoulder bag into the gutter. There was the sound of glass breaking. He turned his back on Buckingham, who started shouting again. ‘You’ll bloody pay for it, Black. I’ll have you hung, drawn and bloody well quartered for this.’

  But Danny wasn’t listening. He started jogging. His jog turned to a run. Moments later he was sprinting across the Edgware Road, then north, towards the dilapidated United Reform church where he had laid his trap.

  He’d been following the wrong scent, but now he was back on track.

  He had to get there first.

  Twenty-six

  Danny stopped at the corner of Station Way. He could see the United Reform church from this position. Thirty metres distant, the moon seeming to hang over it, bright and full. He watched carefully for a full minute, looking for anything suspicious.

  Nothing.

  His eyes scanned the vehicles parked along the road. They were all cars. No vans or trucks that would have rung alarm bells.

  A couple of pedestrians walked up the street. But they didn’t look at the church, and soon disappeared.

  He checked the roof. No movement.

  So far as he could tell, the location was unobserved.

  He advanced 15 metres on the opposite side of the street to the church, then stopped by a bus stop. No shelter, not even a timetable, and no other passengers waiting.

  A vehicle turned into Station Way from the south side. Headlamps on. As it passed, Danny saw it was a blue Golf. It continued to the far end of the road and disappeared.

  Now a second car had appeared from the opposite direction. A Mini Cooper. It shot past Danny. As it reached the south end of Station Way it honked its horn loudly at a third vehicle that had swung its way carelessly into the road. The third car approached. It pulled up on to the kerb ten metres short of the church entrance. The driver killed the lights. Danny squinted, to see what kind of car it was.

  Yaris. Green.

  Suddenly the street seemed unnaturally quiet.

  Danny inhaled slowly. He leaned against the bus stop and watched the Yaris from the corner of his eye.

  A minute passed. Nobody emerged.

  Suddenly, the clunking sound of a door opening. A figure climbed out. Short. Dumpy. She closed the door quietly behind her, but didn’t lock it. She had a large handbag from which she took something. Danny couldn’t see what it was, but by the way she covered her right hand with one side of her coat, he could tell it was most likely a weapon. Victoria Atkinson was armed.

  Danny wasn’t.

  She looked around, her body language nervous. And either she was unskilled in surveillance, or her nerves were getting the better of her, because she didn’t even seem to notice Danny loi
tering by the bus stop, staring at the pavement to hide his face.

  She moved, checking over her shoulder with every step.

  Ten seconds later, she was at the front door of the church. Danny had left it unlocked. She removed the firearm from inside her coat, pointed it in front of her, and stepped inside.

  Danny didn’t hesitate. He ran, lightfooted, across the road, then approached the entrance to the church a little more slowly. His every sense was on high alert. If she reappeared, the shock of seeing him could very well cause her to discharge her firearm.

  But she didn’t reappear. The door was slightly ajar. Wide enough for Danny to slip sideways through the gap.

  It took a fraction of a second to take everything in.

  A shard of moonlight cut into the church hall from the broken window at the far end. It illuminated Victoria Atkinson, who was standing in the middle of the hall. She was ten metres from Danny, her back towards him, and was staring at the mobile phone that was still on the floor where he had left it. Even though it was no longer raining outside, there was still a dripping sound from the far end. It echoed around the empty room.

  Atkinson’s shoulder’s seemed hunched. Somehow exhausted. Even so, Danny could tell that she was holding out the weapon – a snubnose of some type – in front of her as she stared down at the mobile phone. She was a hunted animal, trapped in a corner. He needed to disarm her as quickly as possible.

  He knew it wouldn’t be a problem.

  He covered the distance in a couple of seconds. Only when he was five metres away did Atkinson become aware of someone else in the hall. She spun round, her gun hand wavering dangerously, shock and panic on her face. Danny plunged towards her, knocking the weapon from her hand before she had time to fire it. It clattered noisily as it went spinning across the floor, while Atkinson collapsed into an inelegant heap.

  Danny stood over her. She looked up.