The Ring - An Alex Dorring Thriller

by Vince Vogel

  “Europe?”

  Staring Foster dead in the eyes, Grayling added, “All over the world.”

  Was this a threat? Foster had to ask himself. It felt like one. And what was all this rubbish about gathering intel? Was it right? Was the British government complicit in the lowest of all trades—sex slavery? And underage girls too? What was the world coming to, if it was? Had the curtain really been pulled back?

  “Do I have your understanding, Mr. Foster?”

  Grayling was leaning forward in the chair, his elbows on the desk and his hands pressed together.

  “What is it you want?” Foster asked.

  “Cooperation. Your complete cooperation.”

  Foster gazed at him for a moment, the intense eyes of the vulture staring back and burning into him. A smile gradually lifted his cheeks until he was openly grinning at Grayling.

  “Why the smug look, Mr. Foster?” Grayling asked.

  “How long did you work on that story?”

  “What story?”

  “All that shit about us running a sex ring to gather intel. What a load of bollocks! It’s you, isn’t it? You’re part of this bloody Ring.”

  A terribly evil look darkened the features of Grayling’s face. He leaned forward in the chair and pointed his dagger eyes square into Foster.

  “So be it, Mr. Foster,” he growled. “So be it.”

  Philip Foster glanced to his right as the door opened and two men came sauntering into the room. They stopped directly behind his chair.

  Turning back to Grayling, Foster said, “You’re willing to go this far?”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Foster. Oh, yes.”

  “Then I hope I live to see Dorring get you. Because whatever you do to me—and whatever you do to those children, as a matter of fact—will be nothing compared to what he’ll do when he catches you.”

  45

  “Meet me at the Imperial War Museum in an hour,” DI Powell had said. “In the main hall underneath the Spitfire.”

  Then the line had gone dead.

  Dorring stood at the entrance to the vast main hall of the Imperial War Museum, essentially a tall-ceilinged hangar. The main gun of a Matilda II tank stared straight at him. It felt fitting to Dorring. He’d had the vague impression of a gun barrel staring at him since he’d arrived in London.

  The sounds of schoolchildren chattered away in his ears. They were being walked about by teachers and guides, all holding clipboards and pens and chatting in little groups while ignoring their lessons. Knots of tourists stood around the exhibits, taking pictures of tanks, planes and missile launchers. All of which seemed to aim their guns straight at Dorring.

  He spotted a Spitfire hanging from the ceiling, its guns ready to annihilate everyone in there. Stepping through the crowds, Dorring made it to the shadow of its wing. There he waited, reading the plaque beside it to kill time.

  In a car parked in an alleyway about four hundred yards from the museum, Otis and Tina sat with Bess the sheepdog, awaiting his return.

  “Dorring?”

  He glanced up from the plaque. A nervous-looking man with a beard and long hair stood before him. He didn’t look like a cop. He was dressed in a leather coat, jeans and trainers. His black hair was messy and hung down his face.

  “Powell?”

  “Yeah. There’s a cafe on the upstairs level. Let’s get a coffee.”

  Dorring nodded and the two men walked from under the wing of the Spitfire. They moved through the flow of people, up some stairs and into a coffee shop that sat on the edge of the building, overlooking the grounds from a balcony. In the middle of a flower bed was a Sea Harrier jet plane. Typically, its missiles were pointed straight for the patrons of the coffee shop. It would make a terrible mess if they were primed.

  They bought coffee and took a seat in the corner, away from the edge of the balcony and shielded from the entrance to the cafe by several tables full of people.

  “Your man Philip Foster says you’re digging deep into this thing,” Powell said the moment they sat.

  “I’m looking for someone they took ten years ago. Jess Rawly. What do you know about that?”

  “I don’t know the specifics of the case, but I know her fingerprints were taken from the Belgravia. And I know what the Belgravia is. It must have been the Ring that took her, if she ended up there.”

  “So you have no direct knowledge of how Jess Rawly came to be with them?”

  “Not directly, no. I’ve never heard her name mentioned within my work regarding the Ring. Not until the other day. Nevertheless, if they had her, then whoever was driving that white van the day she went missing is—or was—with the Ring. See, they don’t just randomly take a child.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean they select them. You can bet that the Ring was watching Jess Rawly long before they took her. They’re very careful. And Jess Rawly fits the profile.”

  “What profile?”

  “Their victim profile. You know that long before psychopaths and criminals were profiled by the police, they were doing it themselves to their victims. Most killers and rapists don’t randomly pick victims—some do—the real crazy ones—but most only choose victims that fit a profile. Often they have a certain type of victim in mind. For instance, Ted Bundy liked coed girls with mousy brown hair. Some like their victims older or younger, depending on their tastes. However, usually the profile is based on assessing how much of a fight the victim will put up. Your average psycho goes for vulnerable types. They’re mostly inadequates in need of power. They’re not gonna feel much power stood opposite a three hundred pound muscle bound steroid freak. For the Ring, they pick children whose parents don’t have the resources to make waves. Jess Rawly’s parents were low income, low education, working class. They were country folk with little grasp of legal practices and without influence. They weren’t media savvy. In fact, they shunned the media at the time of her kidnap and it meant that the case disappeared very quickly from the public eye. The Ring also pick the children based on their current needs. Merchandise, they call them. They like to have a wide range. I’m guessing that when they took Jess Rawly, they were low on blondes.”

  “Do the girls usually survive as long as Jess?”

  “Ten years is a long time with the Ring. Most of the girls go missing permanently within five or six years. Jess has done well to survive.”

  “What about the members?”

  Powell shook his head and grinned. “The members, he asks! That’s why I’m working out of a basement with a team of only five people. There’s no budget or help when the names mentioned in an investigation are some of the most powerful men in Britain.”

  “Like who?”

  “Like Lord Lawrence Grayling of MI6.”

  “He’s part of this?” Dorring inquired.

  “Yes. His description—all the way down to the mole on his ass—has been given countless times. Girls that have escaped and who we’ve interviewed have given detailed descriptions of him. Pointed him out from photographs. But do you know how many times I or any of my team have spoken to him?”

  “None,” Dorring said.

  “None,” Powell repeated.

  “Is that why you’re telling me?”

  Powell frowned. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “That you figure that you can’t get to him, so maybe I can. I take it Philip Foster told you a little about me?”

  “He didn’t have to. I take it it was you who burned Rigsby Road down and set all those girls free?”

  Dorring didn’t say anything. Just stared straight ahead.

  “And I take it it was you who pulled all Kenneth Anderson’s teeth out?”

  Dorring remained reticent.

  “You’re getting things done, Dorring,” Powell said. “Getting them done in ways I could never imagine. All I ever get is names. Names of men who’ve done terrible things. Names of men I can’t go anywhere near. Those I can touch are low level. And they know nothing.”

/>   “So they keep telling me,” Dorring commented.

  “Yeah. Even torture only gets you so far up. Well, my twenty years on this and the decades of work that men before me put in, has gathered names. Lots and lots of names.”

  He dipped his hand into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a piece of folded paper. He slid it across the table to Dorring. The latter glanced down at it and then picked it up.

  “No need to open it here,” Powell said, glancing about.

  Both men gazed out at the surrounding grounds. Other than the Harrier, there were trees and people. Knots of them sitting about or walking. Some standing as if waiting.

  Dorring placed the paper in the pocket of his jeans, feeling the bulge of the FNX pistol stuck in his waistband as he did, his jacket neatly tucked over the top.

  “I take it you’re expecting something to happen to these men?” Dorring said.

  “They’re five members of the Ring. The highest we’ve found so far. Grayling’s among them. You’ll have a hell of a job getting to them, but I wish you luck. As for me, I’ll—”

  The sound reached Dorring before the bullet hit. It had been sharp and indistinct. He’d thought it was a car backfiring. But this thought had lasted no more than a second. The moment the hot blood covered his face, he knew exactly what the sound had been.

  Dorring threw himself onto the floor as a second bullet hit the wall beside where he’d been sitting. Powell was now face first on the table, the top of his head missing. The people around had frozen and gazed at Powell with horrified eyes. Then they screamed and began running out of the cafe, bottlenecking at the entrance and pushing each other over. Shoving into tables so that they tripped over them and spilled onto the floor.

  Dorring was under the table, blocked by a two foot wall that bordered the balcony, the FNX pistol gripped in his hand. He was sure the shot had come from the grounds below. The edge of the balcony was about five feet above the ground. They were shooting at an upwards trajectory. That’s why they’d hit the top of Powell’s head, the bullet rising as it burrowed into the forehead and came out the crown, annihilating the brain and skull in its path.

  As innumerable feet rushed past, he took the chance to emerge from under the table, practically crawling along the floor and getting into position behind the wall. Then he peeked out.

  People were running around the park, darting underneath the Harrier. No one was sitting about or standing and waiting. Everyone was on the move and there didn’t appear to be any one direction that they sprinted in. They simply ran in all directions.

  Muzzle flash beside some trees.

  Dorring ducked and the top of the wall was hit, spraying him with chips of concrete. He realized that they didn’t have much of an accurate range. From the shape and size of the muzzle flash, he easily surmised that it was a pistol and not a rifle that was being shot.

  The last of the people were leaving the balcony. Running into the cafe. He joined their flow, darting from the wall and keeping low within them. There was a scream. A woman he was passing fell down as though the wind had swept her legs away. She was screaming wildly and people around her stopped to help. Dorring didn’t even look back. It was clear she’d been shot.

  He made it into the chaotic mess of the main hall, bodies darting about between the exhibits. On the stone steps leading down, people had fallen over each other as they’d been pushed and shoved; some were lying injured at the bottom. Staff was trying to get order, trying to evacuate the building in an orderly manner, but the screams made the people panic more, until Dorring was running through a mass of moving bodies that resembled stampeding horses.

  By the main exit, a man stood with a hand in his pocket, glancing rapidly from face to face. His eyes widened at the sight of Dorring. The latter noticed. He dived to the side as the gun came out. Several people spotted it. They shouted. They screamed. More panic as the tide of people turned on itself and the two waves collided, people smashing into each other.

  A bullet pinged off a World War Two anti-aircraft gun while Dorring was rushing past it. Cue more screams and shouts and more chaos. Dorring dived into a tight corridor off the side of the hall. People moved about it in different directions. Some tried to get into the toilets that were on the corridor, but the people inside had barricaded the doors.

  Dorring kept going, never looking back for a single second, always concentrated on the moving bodies in front. A gun went off, echoing in the corridor and he felt a sting on his left shoulder. It threw him forward and the arm went instantly numb. He had no time to think about it. Turning left, he came to an exhibition room. In the corner, a fire escape stood open. At its side stood a staff member, ushering people outside.

  “You’ve been shot!” the woman exclaimed as Dorring darted for the door.

  Her eyes widened even more when she saw the pistol in his right hand.

  Dorring made it out of the building, pushing past people who clogged up the way. The park opened up in front of him. He headed along a pathway lined with tall plane trees, dashing between pools of golden sunlight and shadow. His arm was completely numb all the way from the fingers to the shoulder now.

  He heard another shot. Another scream. A woman had run across the back of him. It was her who took the bullet.

  Luck, Dorring said to himself as he hobbled onwards through the park.

  He entered the streets. People ran about. Those who’d escaped the park were running headlong down the street. Outside a public house that stood on the corner of a road, a police woman was ushering people inside.

  “In here,” she said to Dorring.

  He ignored her and kept going. Another shot cracked the air. More screaming. The runners became more disorientated. Cars were parked at the side of the road. In the windscreen of one, Dorring spotted the reflection of the gunman who was chasing him. It was a sunny day and the reflection was clear. The gunman came to a stop and aimed the pistol about fifty yards back. Muzzle flash. Dorring darted to the side. The bullet flew past and buried itself in a wall. In the next windscreen, Dorring spotted the man continuing to run in pursuit.

  He reached the side road he was parked in. Darted right into it. That’s when he skidded to a stop.

  “Armed police! Stop!”

  There was a line of them. Dorring counted five. All with their assault rifles aimed at him. Keeping his eyes on them and raising his arms the whole time, he scanned his surroundings. He had excellent peripheral vision. He didn’t need to swivel his head or eyes particularly to see that there was a long rubbish chute leading down scaffolding on the side of the tall building directly to his left. A construction company was doing work on the roof. The chute was a tall length of plastic tubes fitted together, attached to the scaffold and leading from the roof to a skip at the bottom.

  “Throw your gun!”

  Perfect, Dorring thought.

  He tossed the gun, and, like he expected, they all looked at it. This was his chance. He leaped to the left.

  “Stop right now!”

  He was over the edge of the skip and lifting the bottom of the chute when the first shot was fired. It hit the chute and shattered the plastic. It was a warning. The next would shatter him. He ducked under and up the chute, grabbing the inside and hauling himself up so that his feet gripped the edges. Then he began to shimmy up the tubing, using dried wedges of concrete that stuck to the inside to aid his ascent like a climbing wall, his bad arm aching terribly the whole time and taking all his concentration to grip the fingers. A bullet came through the tube just above his head, a bar of sunlight following it in. He ignored it and continued up until he reached the end, crawling out onto the roof.

  He could hear them shouting below. He ran along the edge of the roof and glanced down to where he’d parked the car. It was still there, but now it was empty, police officers all around it. A terribly forlorn feeling hit him as he skipped along the roof, jumping over a small wall that separated it from the next building.

  The cops ran a
long in a line along the street. He heard a helicopter. It was on the horizon. There was a door. He kicked it in and jumped down the stairs on the other side. Soon he was running past people, the building used as an office block.

  “Out of my way!” he shouted as he pushed past a group filling one landing.

  At the bottom, he ran down a corridor into a lobby, everyone staring at him as he dashed through. At the front door, he came to a motorbike courier who was on his way out. He had to be quick. The bike was parked a few yards up the road. With a kick, he swept the courier’s feet away, took a knife he had stuffed in an ankle holster, grabbed the man’s arm as he went down and then, with the courier on the ground and his arm twisted behind his back, placed the knife to his throat.

  “Your keys,” he snarled at the man.

  People screamed. There were shouts. Runners flooded past. He had no time for them or the police, who were making their way to him.

  The courier nervously handed up his keys. Dorring snatched them off him, let go of the arm, slid the knife away, and ran to the bike.

  The motor roared into life and he pumped his foot, putting it into gear. It leaped forward and he headed into the traffic, swerving in and out of the vehicles. Police sirens flooded his ears and the helicopter came over the top of him. He was racing for his life. Because he knew full well that they intended to kill him.

  He had no time to worry about Otis, Tina and the dog. Now, he was a simple animal with flight on his mind. He’d dropped the pistol. He shouldn’t have. Because now he realized that they would use it against him. Still, time to think about these things later on. Now he had to flee.

  He turned sharply across the road, cutting off two lanes of traffic, and headed down an alleyway. A police car skidded off the road in pursuit as he headed down an avenue of tall buildings, rubbish bags and wheelie bins. Fifty yards in and he came to a garbage truck, men tossing rubbish into it as it ambled slowly down the alley. On either side of it was a two foot gap. Perfect.