The Drop

by Howard Linskey

  ‘She left with all of the others and the guy you saw came up the stairs. I still didn’t believe he was going to do it but he hit me then he tore my leggings off. When he started undoing his trousers I grabbed the knife and stabbed him.’

  Sarah had been incredibly brave and very lucky. She probably only had one chance to knife the guy somewhere vital before he’d have disarmed her, raped her and most probably killed her. But she’d earned her luck.

  ‘I didn’t want to kill him,’ she said quietly. ‘I just wanted it to stop.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘you did well, you did the right thing. It was him or you.’ I spoke the words like the expert on killing I had recently become.

  We drove in silence for a minute while she plucked up the courage to ask me. I knew it was coming but I was dreading it.

  ‘What about Dad?’ she asked quietly.

  She had a right to know about her old man. I couldn’t lie to her and tell her everything was going to be alright, because it wasn’t. But what was I supposed to do? Tell her the old fellah was gone because of me, tell her I killed him because I was forced into it by a Glasgow gangster, that they would have killed me too if I hadn’t done it. That I had no more choice in killing Bobby than she did in topping that big Russian? It was him or me. Is that what I was supposed to tell her?

  I didn’t think so.

  ‘He’s gone, Sarah,’ I said quietly, ‘Finney too.’

  She’s a tough cookie Sarah and I think she half expected it would end like that for her dad one day. Maybe she’d been preparing for this moment all her life because she just nodded and said, ‘thank you for telling me,’ as if it was somehow a relief that I didn’t try to lie to her. She started weeping silently next to me as I drove. She made no sound at all but occasionally, out of the corner of my eye, I would see her sweep her arm up to her face to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. By the time we reached Palmer’s rented house she’d dried them. I parked up and she followed me inside, her eyes red and puffy.

  I realised Sarah had just had a night on a par with mine. We had both nearly died and we had both killed a man for the first time in our lives. She’d had it worse, she’d lost her beloved dad in the process.

  But there was no time to think about any of that right now. We were at war.

  I made Sarah go up to the spare room and wait there. I didn’t want her to hear any of this. I followed her into the spare room and she sat on the edge of the bed. She looked up at me, appealing.

  ‘I want to do something,’ she said, ‘I want to help you, for my dad.’

  ‘Believe me when I say this, I knew your dad for a very long time and the last thing he would want is for me to involve you in any of this,’ I told her. ‘I will handle it, I promise.’

  ‘Are you going out again tonight?’ she asked, looking scared.

  I nodded, ‘I’ll leave someone behind. He’ll be downstairs all night and tomorrow. You’re totally safe. Nobody knows you’re here. You can stay in the room if you want.’

  ‘I don’t want you to leave me again,’ she looked terrified.

  ‘Listen to me,’ I told her and I stopped her protests by putting both of my hands out and gently holding her face between them, ‘I have to go and do this one thing. I have to finish it and I will be back, I promise you.’

  She opened her mouth to say something but I interrupted her, ‘I need you to do something for me. I need you to be brave until I sort this mess out. Then I promise I’ll come back and I will never leave you alone again, I swear.’ She looked like she was going to cry again, but not in the same way. This was a different emotion. Relief perhaps.

  I kissed her, there in the bare, spare room of that rented house. It was a strange place for our first proper kiss but it had been a strange night. That kiss was a promise and we both made it.

  Palmer’s rented house could have been described as minimalist, as if the bare walls, limited furniture and an absence of family photos were some deliberate design statement. I knew differently. He was a bloke who just didn’t value stuff. He had a 42-inch plasma TV on one wall to watch the football on a Sunday afternoon, a fridge full of beers and a couple of small couches to sit on but precious little else, so we just stood around in his kitchen.

  Palmer had rounded them up. They were all there, just like I asked: Palmer, Toddy, Mickey Hunter, Danny, Kinane and all three of his sons.

  I turned to Hunter and nodded. He put two long, bulky, black holdalls on the kitchen table and unzipped them both. Hunter took out the weapons one by one and placed them carefully on the table. He had brought everything I’d asked for. If he had been surprised to see Kinane and his sons he didn’t make a big deal out of it, just nodded in the older man’s direction, then he talked us through the guns he’d brought with him.

  ‘Four Beretta semi-automatic shotguns. From what you tell me there’s no need to saw off the barrels?’ He was obviously trying to find out more but I wasn’t about to tell Mickey Hunter what I had planned.

  ‘No need,’ I confirmed.

  ‘I’m grateful for that small mercy.’ He held up the ammo to show us, ‘don’t fuck about with these, they’re two and a quarter-ounce Super Magnum cartridges. They’ll bring down a rampaging elephant,’ and we all nodded respectfully. Kinane and his sons picked up the shotguns and started loading them like they knew what they were doing, which I didn’t doubt.

  ‘Danny,’ said Hunter. My brother was paying attention alright and he even smiled when he saw what Hunter was taking out of the bag for him, ‘the SLR; British Army, standard-issue, semi-automatic rifle from your time and beyond. I don’t have to tell you anything about this, do I?’

  ‘No mate,’ said Danny as he picked it up, scrutinised its length closely, peered down its barrel then held it reverentially, ‘you don’t have to tell me anything about it.’

  ‘Better than the SA80 any day,’ said Palmer, appearing at his side, ‘that won’t jam in a bloody sand dune.’ The two of them were gazing at the rifle like it was a picture of an old and much-loved girlfriend.

  ‘I thought you might feel that way,’ Hunter told Palmer, ‘so I brought you one as well.’

  ‘Nice one.’

  ‘Sure you don’t need anything?’ Hunter asked me, ‘I put another shotgun in the car, just in case.’

  I shook my head. I was happier with the Glock and less likely to blow my own foot off with it.

  Hunter handed me the long, thin black bag, ‘and you asked for this.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said taking it from him without another word.

  ‘You going to war?’ asked Hunter, a little nervously.

  ‘Maybe,’ he was still fishing. I jerked my head so he would follow me out of the kitchen where we couldn’t be heard. More importantly it would separate him from the others and he wouldn’t be able to hear me speaking to them later. ‘I need you to stay here with Toddy. Don’t go anywhere. Keep your phone handy.’

  ‘No sweat,’ he said, though he did look a bit worried, ‘I wasn’t planning to leave the country or anything.’

  ‘Make sure you don’t,’ I told him. Then I gave him a smile like he was my best mate.

  I returned to the front room and I didn’t waste any time. I went through it all; what happened to Bobby, Finney and Northam and who was behind it - except I left out the bit about me shooting Bobby, but you can’t blame me for that. I then told them what we were going to do about it. There weren’t many questions. They all knew we were in the shit and if we didn’t act now, we’d lose the city for good.

  We left Hunter and Toddy with Sarah. Danny and Palmer went in one car with two of Kinane’s sons. Kinane and his eldest came with me. Kinane sat up front while I drove.

  ‘I always thought I’d have the chance to sort it out,’ Kinane said, ‘you know, me and Bobby, even after all this time. We fell out over nowt really, pride more than anything. We were both stubborn fuckers, always were,’ he sounded almost affectionate, ‘these Russian tossers have robbed me of that and th
ey are going to pay.’ I was glad he was angry and so confident. I wasn’t. ‘Even Finney,’ he continued, ‘I mean, he was a cunt and everything but he didn’t deserve that. It’s no way to go is it?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s no way to go.’

  I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about anything. Soon we’d be at the farm house.

  What is it about certain nationalities and drinking? I mean, Geordies like a drink as much as the next man but they don’t go about it with the fervour of some countries. It’s not their religion. If they have one at all it’s football not drink. The Irish are different. They sink booze like they are trying to fill a deep, despairing void in their lives.

  With the Russians, I’d always assumed they drank because there was sod all to do under the communists but they’ve been free of them for years, so it has to be something deeper than that, otherwise they’d have stopped when the wall came down and everyone got cable. It’s more like a national pastime to them. I dated a Russian girl once. She taught me a phrase ‘Do Dna’. The Russians say it to each other when they raise a glass. It means ‘to the bottom’. No half measures with these guys.

  So it was no great surprise to me when Palmer reported back, ‘they make party,’ he said in a joke Russian accent, ‘slugging back the vodka. Guess they thought with Bobby and Finney out of the way, it was all over.’

  ‘Then we’ll leave them to it,’ I said, ‘until the morning, nice and early.’

  I’d always known it would be handy having an ex-special forces guy on our team. I don’t know anyone else who would have calmly climbed from his car and walked across the fields in the pitch darkness to that farmhouse, watching close enough to see those sickos glugging back their vodka, then cheerfully reported back to me.

  We left while it was still dark, Palmer leading the way, crouched low and moving silently across the fields to the farm house. The rest of us followed on behind, me wincing at every sound we made. By now I could have sworn Vitaly and his mates were capable of hearing every blade of grass we trampled.

  There wasn’t much moon but if they’d bothered with sentries they’d have seen dark shapes breaking the horizon behind us and we would never have got close enough. Luckily for us, they must have thought their job was all but done. I never took my eyes off that farmhouse as it gradually drew nearer, its slate-grey walls growing bigger with every step.

  We had to resist the temptation to run, knowing we needed to be silent. Instead we followed Palmer’s lead, walking slowly and fanning out, so we didn’t make one big, easy target.

  The last thirty yards or so were the worst, out in the open with no cover to dive behind, knowing all it would take was some pissed-up Ivan stumbling out of the farmhouse for a piss or a cig and it would all be over. As soon as his mates heard him screaming blue murder, we wouldn’t have a chance in the open.

  I could hear my own breathing, which sounded incredibly loud to me in my overwrought state, my breath coming out in plumes of white in front of me against the cold air. My heart was thumping in my chest again. What if I had messed this up? What if Palmer wasn’t half as good as we both thought he was and the Russians were better? We’d be dead that’s what - and if we were really lucky it would be quick. But if we weren’t… Christ I was scared.

  We made it to the relative cover of the hedge and stopped, hunching down low. Palmer held up his hand and we all froze, quiet as we could be, while he had a listen. The farmhouse was silent. Maybe they were asleep already. Was it too much to hope that they’d all passed out drunk in there? Probably.

  Palmer patted Danny quietly on the shoulder and pointed to a gap in the bushes a few yards along from where we were. Danny nodded and moved silently away towards his firing point. I’d never seen him so alert before.

  Kinane and his boys knew what to do. Palmer had given them their instructions and, thankfully, the big man had deferred to the former soldier’s experience in these matters. Kinane and his sons got to their feet and walked round the hedge into the open farmyard. I watched them make their way with exaggerated care across the wide open space. Christ, this was worse than crossing the field. A little sliver of light coming out of the farmhouse illuminated a section of the land they were forced to cross. They were moving like children playing a game of Simon Says, pulling their feet up higher than normal, then placing their boots down on the gravel with a gentleness I’d have thought impossible of such big men. Even so, their footsteps were clearly audible in the silence of the night. Surely they’d be heard before they made it to the other side?

  Then I heard a noise, a loud grating, piercing sound from within the house that made me start. Someone was shouting. They’d been spotted.

  I shot a glance at the house, expecting the door to fly open and armed men to rush out at any second. I made a move for my gun and Palmer placed his hand firmly on mine to prevent me from doing something stupid. I looked back to the farm yard and saw Kinane standing there, poised somewhere between standing firm, ready to fire his gun, and getting ready to leg it. His hand was in the air in warning, keeping his sons from shooting at shadows or panicking into a sprint.

  I still couldn’t place the sound. It was a shout, but was it really one of alarm? I could feel the sweat dripping from my armpits down my torso, cold and wet. I didn’t dare to even blink, in case I missed something that would have cost me my life.

  Then there was another shout and another. It sounded like a quarrel. There was a slight pause which felt like an eternity, and then a final shout that was halfway between mocking and challenging. A second later, voices were raised again but this time in raucous, mirth-filled laughter. The Russkies had been having a laugh, a bit of banter from one man to the other, then someone had cracked a joke and they all fell about. They were winding each other up. I couldn’t fucking believe it. I thought I was going to drop down dead from the tension of it all. Even Palmer raised an eyebrow and exhaled in relief.

  I glanced back at Kinane. He was still rooted to the spot. He looked round at his sons, nodded slowly and lowered his hand. He then walked the rest of the way across the farmyard with his boys following dutifully behind him, still clutching their shotguns. It had to be said they were disciplined; as good as any bunch of trained squaddies. Eventually, and not before time, they reached their position and disappeared from view.

  Palmer nodded at me and I knew what that meant. It was our turn. I was glad Danny was in place to cover us and I was mightily relieved Kinane and his sons had made it, but now there was no dodging it. We had to cross that farm yard too; a big, open expanse of gravel that looked about the size of a football pitch to me now and we had to do it without making a sound. Worse than that, we had to get right up to the farmhouse itself, leaving just the width of a wall between us and men who liked to cut people into pieces for fun.

  I took a deep breath, tried to forget that I wanted to be sick again and stood up. I followed Palmer as he made his way round the hedge. He paused to make sure the front door wasn’t about to be opened at any moment and we stepped out into the farmyard. We walked with excruciating slowness across the gravel drive way, closer to the building than Kinane and his sons, but only because we had no choice. The wind was blowing in the trees above us, I could feel the gravel under my feet and hear the slight scrunch-scrunch as my shoes settled on them with every step. My eyes were glued to the door of that farmhouse, though I knew that wouldn’t do me any good. If it opened, I was a dead man.

  We were nearly there, so close I started to feel a wave of exultation. I could see the end of the building, the far gable wall we would disappear behind. Only another few steps; then it happened.

  I took a step and felt a loosening of the pressure around my waist. Before I could do anything about it, the gun I was carrying there started to slip from my belt. Panicked, I snatched at it, desperate to prevent it from hitting the gravel where it would have made enough noise on impact for everyone in the farmhouse to hear, even if it didn’t go off in the proce
ss. How to describe something so terrible, so heart-wrenching, that happens to you in a millisecond? My right palm went instinctively across to snatch at the gun but it didn’t get there in time. Instead it flailed at the metal, caught it a glancing blow and deflected it to the left. Terrified, I grabbed at it desperately with my other hand but only proceeded to do the same thing, half-catching the gun as it fell but unable to prevent it from slipping through my grasp like a wet cricket ball. Palmer spun round in time to see the Glock drop from my hand and head in a downward trajectory towards the gravel, certain to give away our presence as soon as it hit the ground.

  I don’t know how I did it and I don’t really want to think about how close we came to disaster but, at the last available second, I stuck my foot out. It was an entirely instinctive gesture but I managed to get the top of my foot under the gun just before it crashed to the ground. The effect was a bit like trapping a football, much of the speed was taken out of the falling gun as it bounced off the top of my foot and with a nerve shredding bump it fell off my toes and onto the gravel.

  The sound was audible, but not half as bad as it would have been if I hadn’t interrupted the Glock’s fall with my shoe. I froze, my foot still hanging pointlessly in the air. Palmer raised his SLR and pointed it at the door, ready to drop anyone who burst through it.

  We gave it a second then another.

  Nothing. No sound from inside. Jesus Christ, we were off the hook.

  Palmer nodded for me to pick up the gun. I wasted no time in obeying him and we both edged slowly to the far wall of the building then disappeared around it. We went down on our haunches and kept back in the shadows. I could just about see his face and I gave him a look that I hoped would appear apologetic. He just nodded like he understood but he looked like a ghost. It seemed I had managed to shit him up almost as badly as I had myself.

  We weren’t about to go bursting in on them. We didn’t know what Vitaly and his mates were doing right now, how alert they were and how much weaponry they had nearby. To take men like these on we’d have to do it on our own terms.