by Mark Dawson
“Don’t,” Milton said. The pain from his shoulder washed over him in nauseous waves, but he managed to aim the pistol.
Twelve stopped. He was six feet away. Blood ran freely from his broken nose. His eyes shone with anger.
Milton slowly got to his feet. His left shoulder felt as though it had been mangled, the arm hanging uselessly down by his side. He was woozy from the pain. He knew, from experience, that it would get worse. It was the adrenaline that was holding him together, but the pain would overwhelm him eventually. He held the advantage, but he would not have it for long.
“Put the gun down,” Twelve said.
Milton looked across the room. Rutherford body was sprawled across the floor. Twelve’s shot had struck him in the forehead. He had landed in an untidy sprawl, his arms outflung. His body was still. There was no hope for him.
Milton tightened his grip on the pistol. He felt the old, familiar flick of his anger. His finger tightened around the trigger.
“Put it down,” Twelve said calmly.
He tried to tune out the pain. Twelve had sunk down a little, spreading his weight between both legs. He could see that Milton was injured. He would have noticed the way that his aim was slowly dropping, his gun arm gradually falling towards the floor. He would be making the same calculations that Milton had made moments earlier. The distance between them. How quickly he could close it. The odds of a shot stopping him before he could reach his target. Milton knew his weakness was obvious; Twelve would be able to smell it like a shark smells blood.
Milton fought the anger and the pain. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said, his voice quiet. “I’m finished with that, not unless there’s no other choice, and if you’re sensible you won’t back me into a corner.”
“Alright,” Twelve said, showing him his open palms, placating him. “I won’t. Take it easy.”
“I’m not going to kill you but you know I can’t have you following me.”
Milton stiffened his arm, switched to a lower aim and pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck Twelve in the right knee. His face distorted with agony and he fell back.
Milton closed in and swept his good leg. Twelve dropped to the floor. Milton backed away, covering him with the gun, until he reached the door. “Tell Control not to come after me.”
“He’ll come after you,” he gasped through the pain.
“Tell him I’m out.”
Twelve grunted; Milton realised that he was laughing. “We’re never out.”
“I am. Tell him if he sends anyone after me, I’ll send them back in boxes. And then I’ll bring him down.”
He looked again at Rutherford’s unmoving body, then at Twelve, staring up at him through a mask of pain. He reached around and pushed the gun into the waistband of his jeans and pulled out the tails of his shirt to cover it. The pain was reaching a crescendo.
He had to move now.
Right now.
He opened the door and hurried across the road towards the unlit stretch of park. He passed through the open gate and kept going until the darkness swallowed him.
* * *
56.
THE HOUSE WAS EMPTY. Milton had forced his way in through a door to the garden; he put his fist through the glass and unlocked the door from the inside. It was on one of the most expensive streets in the neighbourhood, a long curved cul-de-sac which faced onto the peaceful expanse of a common adjacent to the main area of the park. Expensive SUVs and four-by-fours competed for space on the road. The houses were large, set behind railed front gardens with wide bay windows and broad front doors.
Milton had started to feel faint as he crossed the common. The pain had started to dull and fade, a sensation he knew was dangerous. He kept his hand clamped to his shoulder but the blood kept coming. He knew enough about battlefield medicine to know that a lodged bullet could be sometimes be a blessing, plugging up the entry wound until it could be carefully removed and the blood staunched. Milton had not been so fortunate. This bullet had nicked a vein and the blood continued to seep out around it, squeezing through his fingers and soaking into the fabric of his shirt.
He found a packet of ibuprofen in a first aid box in the bathroom cabinet. He tapped out three and swallowed them dry and then laid out his tools on the kitchen table. He placed an adjustable mirror before the chair and stood an anglepoise lamp next to it, the shade turned so that the bright cone of light was cast back onto the chair. He opened the first aid box again and took a tube of antiseptic gel, a gauze dressing and a roll of bandages. He crossed the room to the gas hob and removed the small kitchen knife from where he had rested it, the blade suspended in the blue flame. He raised the knife before his cheek; the metal glowed red and radiated heat. That was good. He lodged the blade of a larger, broader metal spatula in the flame instead.
He went back to the table and took off his shirt, using it to mop the blood from around the wound. He sat in the wooden chair, adjusting the lamp so that its light fell on the wound and then turning the mirror so that he could stare right into it. A neat hole had been burrowed out, blackened around the edges and scabbed in parts with partly congealed blood. He grimaced with pain as he reached his left hand back up to his left shoulder and then gasped as he used his forefinger and thumb to spread the edges of the wound, opening it so that he could look a little way inside.
He took the knife and, biting down hard on a dish cloth, prodded the hot and sharp tip into the wound, digging deeper until he saw the silver sparkle of the bullet, lodged like a spiteful tumour an inch deep in his flesh.
He took a deep breath and pushed the knife further into his flesh, the sharp point sliding through the skin and into the muscle beneath. The pain yanked him back to wakefulness and then kept climbing; every millimetre of progress, every nudge and tap, was rewarded with a lance of agony that seared into his brain.
He thought about Elijah and Sharon.
He thought about Rutherford.
He felt the tip of the blade touch against the bullet and, with the pain and his weakness shimmering like heat haze before his face, he pressed down harder and then prised the blade back, levering the slug from its burrow and pressing it out until it dropped from the wound and onto the table.
The pain flared once, a crescendo that Milton met by slamming his fist against the table, and then slackened off.
Halfway there.
He swallowed another two ibuprofen and reached over to the hob for the spatula. Closing his eyes and pressing his teeth together, he took the blade and pressed it against the wound, the skin sizzling as the red-hot metal cauterised it. Milton gasped at another vicious wave of pain, clenching the edge of the table until it, too, passed. He inspected the seared, puckered flesh in the mirror. A huge, purple bruise had already bloomed around the wound but the bleeding had stopped. He had done a decent job.
There was no time to pause.
Milton went upstairs and stripped off, taking Twelve’s Sig Sauer into the bathroom with him and showered in the en suite bathroom. He dried himself, daubing antiseptic gel onto the clean wound and then dressing it with the gauze pad, fixing it in place with the roll of bandage. He went into the bedroom and tore through the wardrobe, finding a t-shirt and jeans that fitted him and putting them on.
He had noticed a key fob on the radiator cover in the hall. The fob was attached to a leather swatch decorated with a BMW badge. He left the house through the front door, his revolver hidden beneath a leather jacket he had taken from where it had been slung over the end of the banister. He aimed the fob at the line of parked cars and pressed. There came the familiar double blip and the illumination of the courtesy lights of a large black BMW X5 that had been parked a little way down the road.
Milton opened the door and slid inside. He put Twelve’s revolver on the passenger seat and pressed the engine start. The display reported a full tank of diesel. He let the handbrake out, put the car into gear and pulled slowly into the quiet road.
* * *
> EPILOGUE
* * *
* * *
57.
PINKY TOOK A SEAT on the see-saw and looked around. They were in the playground next to Blissett House. He looked up at the fifth floor. The fire had been contained there, but Elijah’s old flat and the ones on each side had been gutted. Black ash and soot was everywhere, the windows and doors had been boarded up, the damage sticking out like an ugly bruise on the concrete face of the block. Pinky didn’t have strong feelings about what had happened. Elijah and his mums had brought it on themselves. What else was Bizness supposed to have done, the two of them sending that man after him like that? Pinky had no sympathy for them.
He had sent messages to the other boys and they had been waiting for him when he had arrived five minutes earlier. They were all there: Little Mark, Chips, Kidz and a couple of the primary school kids from the Estate who had been hanging around with him for the last week. Time they got promoted, Pinky thought, time they had something useful to do. The boys were spread out; Chips and Kidz sat on the swings, Little Mark leant against the chain-link fence, the youngsters kept together, eyeing the older boys with a mixture of bravado and nervousness. The older boys were smoking from the joint that Pinky had rolled and passed around.
It had been a crazy few days and Pinky had not slept much. It didn’t matter, though; he still felt good. There was no point in pretending that he hadn’t been frightened, but nothing had happened to him and now he was in the clear. He had searched the studio after Milton had left; he figured he had a little time before the Feds came and he knew that there was bound to be stuff worth taking. He had been right about that: he had found more than ten grand in a holdall and dozens of little bags filled with cocaine, ready to be distributed to Bizness’s dealers, the network of shotters that he had on the street. Pinky had put the Mac-10s and the drugs into another bag he found and left the studio by the fire escape at the back.
It had been hairy getting back. London had been a war-zone that night, police cars and vans speeding through the back streets under blue lights, but he had not been stopped. He had stored the guns and money under his bed at home, hiding it beneath his empty trainer boxes and dirty clothes. His Mums had given up trying to get him to keep the room tidy long ago and she had stopped going inside. He knew they would be safe there for a day or two until he could think of somewhere better.
Pinky cast his gaze around the group. They all knew Pops was gone but no-one had said anything about it. Pinky guessed that they had heard that he was responsible, and, while he was not stupid enough to admit that it had been him, he was happy for them to speculate. He would not own up to it, but he would not deny it, either. A little bit of fear was a good thing, especially with what he had planned. It helped to build respect. That had been a long time coming, and he was going to make sure that he took advantage of it.
Pinky reckoned that he had been given an opportunity. After always being second best, now he had a chance to really do something with his life. Make a name for himself, make some money; he wasn’t going to fuck it up, no way.
He got up from the see-saw. “Aight,” he said. “First things first. I’m in charge now. Anyone have a problem with that?”
No-one spoke.
“Didn’t think so,” he grinned. He lifted the holdall onto the roundabout and pulled back the zip. Dozens of little bags, full of white powder, were snuggled together inside. “Pay attention,” he said, making sure that they had all seen the stash. “Things are going to change around here. We’re going to make some mad cash. I’m going into business, boys––if you got the balls to be a part of it, listen up. This is what we’re gonna do.”
* * *
58.
GROUP FIFTEEN had its own private medical facilities attached to a well-known London teaching hospital. State of the art facilities, the best doctors in the country, absolute discretion. Control watched through the window as the surgeon bent low to examine the damage that had been done to Twelve’s knee. The man––and his three colleagues––were wearing green smocks, their faces covered by surgical masks and latex gloves over their hands. Twelve had been anaesthetised and was laid out on the operating table, covered by a sheet with a long vertical slit that allowed easy access to his right leg. The surgeon had already sliced open his knee, a neat incision that began just below the quadriceps and curved around the line of his leg. The opening was held open by medical clips and a miniature camera on an articulated arm had been positioned overhead, its feed visible on the large screen that was fixed to the wall in the observation suite. Milton’s bullet had ruined the knee, smashing through the anterior and posterior ligaments and shattering the patella. They had examined the damage with an arthroscope first and determined that repairs were not possible; a full arthroplasty was necessary. The surgeon had removed what was left of the patella and had shaved the ends of the femur and tibia so that he could fix the replacement joint. One of his colleagues was preparing the bone cement while the other was checking that the prosthesis was ready to be implanted.
Control watched the screen, his eyes a little glazed. He was not bothered by the blood and the gore; Heaven knows, he had seen enough of it over the years, and much worse than this. He was not really concentrating on Twelve at all. His mind was on Milton.
His liquidation should have been straightforward. Twelve had had the benefit of surprise and Milton was not as young as he had once been. And, yet, here they were, with a badly injured agent and Milton a ghost.
He had been working on damage control ever since Twelve had limped out of the church hall and called for emergency pickup. He had taken the response team himself to ensure that there was no trace of Twelve ever having been there. The blood from his leg had been scrubbed away and footage from local CCTV cameras had been deleted. The dead man––Rutherford––was left where he was. Twelve had explained what had happened. The surprise of Rutherford’s appearance had saved Milton’s life and so now, in death, he would have to pay back the damage that he had caused. His body would prove to be useful. It was easy to fabricate the story. CCTV footage placed Milton at the scene and showed Rutherford arriving moments before he was shot.
A camera at the entrance to the park had footage of Milton heading north. He was wounded, too, a bullet to the shoulder. They had immediately checked local hospitals for admissions but it was perfunctory; Milton was much too savvy to do something as foolish as that. An hour later they had intercepted a call to local police of a break-in. A couple had returned to their house on the edge of the nearby park to find that someone had forced the door to the garden. Their car and a few clothes had been stolen. That, in itself, would have been enough for Control to have investigated but they had also reported that their first aid cabinet had been ransacked, that a lamp had been moved onto the kitchen table and that kitchen utensils had been found covered in blood. Control took command of the investigation himself and visited the house. He went through into the kitchen and sat at the table, glancing at his reflection. He knew that Milton had been sitting in the same chair a couple of hours earlier. He had operated on himself, cleaned the wound and made it safe until he found someone that he could trust to do the job properly. He had showered, changed clothes, taken their car and fled. The police were looking for the vehicle but they had not located it yet. It would not matter. They would find it eventually, abandoned at the side of the road when Milton switched vehicles. It would be too late then. He would stay ahead of them unless he made a mistake or he chose to be found.
Control focussed on the screen again as the prosthesis was carefully placed into Twelve’s wrecked joint.
John Milton was a chameleon. He had twenty years’ experience of blending into the background, surfacing only to do the bloody work of his trade before sinking out of sight again. Control felt an icy knot in the pit of his stomach. Milton was the most dangerous man he had ever met and now he knew that the State wanted him dead. He had no idea what he would do next and that was the kind of thought that wo
uld keep a man up at night.
* * *
59.
THE MOTORWAY stretched away into the distance, the slow-moving row of tail-lights painting a lazy swipe across the valley. There had been a crash outside Wolverhampton and the traffic had backed up, filtering slowly through two lanes while the grim wreckage was craned away. Milton had cursed the accident. He knew that it would only be a matter of time before the details of the stolen BMW were added to the national registry. The motorway was equipped with the CCTV masts that serviced the police’s number plate recognition system, and the longer he stayed on the road the greater the chance that the car would be noticed. He felt vulnerable and, even though he knew it would make no difference, he had tugged down the brim of the baseball cap he had found in the glove compartment so that his face was partially obscured.
He was tired and his shoulder throbbed. He had been driving for three hours. His instinct was not to stop until he reached Manchester but, as he passed the sign advertising the services at Stafford South he decided it was worth the risk for a strong cup of coffee.
Milton moved carefully into the crawler lane and pulled off the motorway.
The car park was quiet, a wide open space lit by a series of tall overhead lights. Milton parked in a shadowed area and walked across to the complex of buildings. There were very few drivers around, a handful of red-eyed travellers drinking coffee in the small Starbucks concession. Milton bought a packet of Nurofen from WH Smith and then ordered a double espresso and a bottle of water from the bored-looking barista.
