The Long Shot (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  Hennessy and Bailey climbed out of the back of the car, and walked quickly with Schoelen to the ground-floor room, carrying their bags. Carlos took his cases from the trunk and went after them. As he reached the door, which Schoelen was holding open for him, Lovell walked up. “Hi, guys. What’s up?”

  “Inside,” said Carlos.

  When they were all gathered in the room, Schoelen hung the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the handle and closed it. “You were followed, Lou,” Carlos said quietly. “You were followed all the way from the house.”

  Schoelen’s mouth dropped in disbelief. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Carlos sneered but didn’t reply.

  “What happened?” asked Mary.

  “I took care of it,” said Carlos. Bailey went into the bathroom, ripped the protective plastic covering off a glass and poured himself a drink. His hands were shaking.

  “Do you know who it was?” Lovell asked.

  Carlos shook his head. “I said I took care of it, I didn’t say I stopped for a chat,” he said.

  “A friend of Cramer’s?” asked Bailey.

  “A friend wouldn’t have left him in our care for so long,” said Carlos. “Whoever it was, he was alone.”

  “Maybe he was waiting for back-up,” said Lovell, and Carlos nodded.

  “Possible,” agreed Carlos.

  “That’s it then,” said Bailey. “It’s over. It’s f-f-finished.”

  Carlos’s eyes hardened as he looked at Bailey. “It’s not finished,” he said coldly. “I said I took care of it.” He looked at Mary and she nodded, acknowledging that Bailey was her problem and that she’d handle him.

  “You’re missing something,” said Lovell. “Without Rashid . . .”

  “Without Rashid we can still go ahead,” interrupted Carlos. “I will take her place.”

  Lovell and Schoelen looked at each other, astonished. “How?” said Schoelen. “We don’t have time to rehearse again.”

  “I have used Dina’s gun before, in the Lebanon. I have a tendency to aim a little high, but other than that I will have no problem using the scope as she has set it. I can compensate for the very slight difference in our eyes.”

  “You’ve been a sniper?” asked Lovell.

  “I have killed with a rifle,” said Carlos.

  Lovell shrugged. “Okay, okay,” he said. “So what do we do now?”

  “You and Lou take your room, Mary and Matthew can have this one. I’ll arrange a room for myself. We all meet here tomorrow morning at ten for a final run through.”

  If Schoelen and Lovell were surprised at the suggestion that Bailey and Hennessy should share a room, they didn’t show it. They took their bags outside and Carlos closed the door behind them. There were two double beds in the room and Bailey had slumped down onto one, his head in his hands. “I’ll go and fix up a room,” Carlos said to Mary. “Will you be okay?” She nodded. “I’ll leave the rifle here,” he said, picking up his bag. As he left the room he saw Hennessy put a hand on Bailey’s head and ruffle his hair.

  Lovell was waiting for him outside. “I don’t like the way Bailey is shaping up,” he said.

  “Neither do I,” said Carlos. “But we need him.”

  “He’s cracking up already,” said Lovell. “I’ve seen guys like him before, in combat. They talk a good war, but when the bullets fly they shit themselves and hide under the bed. I don’t think he’s going to cut it tomorrow.”

  “He’s tougher than he looks,” said Carlos. “They don’t tolerate wimps in the IRA. He’s just on edge because we’ve been waiting so long, that’s all. Mary will straighten him out.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  Carlos smiled. “Then I will.”

  Cole Howard stood watching the fire fighters coil up their hoses and restack their equipment on the engines. What remained of the wooden house hissed and smoked in the moonlight. There was a surprising amount of the building still standing, but it was clear that what remained would have to be demolished. Much of the rear of the house had fallen in and the roof had collapsed. A stone chimney at the side of the house was still in one piece and smoke was feathering from the top as if a fire was burning in the grate below.

  One of the fire engines drove off, the faces of fire fighters inside streaked with soot and sweat. The SWAT team had already departed and Howard was waiting to hear from one of the Fire Department’s investigators who was walking through the wreckage. They’d recovered the second body, a badly burnt man, when they had the fire under control. The corpse was charred and smouldering and Howard would never forget the smell. He’d covered his mouth with his hand as he’d put his head close to the blistered and blackened flesh. He found what he was looking for. Two bullet holes in the chest. Dunning had called Baltimore County Police and arranged for the medical examiner and a crime lab tech team before he’d taken his men and gone back to the city. He seemed to resent the fact that there had been no-one for his SWAT team to take down.

  Howard heard shouts of warning and a large blackened beam fell to the ground, not far from where the investigator was standing. He turned and waved, signalling that he was okay. Two of the fire fighters walked over to him, axes in their hands. The investigator, a black guy in his late fifties called George Whitmore, knelt down and touched something on the ground before lifting his gloved fingers to his nose. Whitmore stood up and spoke to the fire fighters with axes. They nodded and began to chop away at something while Whitmore watched. The thwacks of the axes were replaced by the sound of tearing wood and then the three men disappeared. Howard frowned. One minute the fire fighters were standing together, the next they’d vanished as if the ground had swallowed them up. Behind him, another fire engine drove off, its work done.

  Howard walked towards the smoking ruins, running his hand across his stubbled chin. The walls around the kitchen, and the floor above it, had been totally destroyed, and all that remained of that side of the house were smoking timbers and blackened appliances. As he got closer he saw that the fire fighters had opened up a stairway leading to a basement. A white helmet appeared, followed by the bulky shoulders of George Whitmore. He pulled a face at the FBI agent. “Another one down there for the ME,” he said. He took off his helmet and tucked it under his arm, reaching inside his waterproofs and coming out with a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter. “Want one?” he asked Howard, who shook his head. Howard looked around the remains of the kitchen as the investigator lit up. Everything above the kitchen area had been gutted and what remained of the ground floor was covered in a thick layer of ash. Despite the devastation, there were still signs of domesticity – the dishwasher door had popped open and inside were plates and cups, a floor mop stood by the refrigerator, its head melted but its handle surprisingly untouched, and a kettle stood on the stove.

  “Can I look?” Howard asked.

  “Better if you don’t,” said Whitmore. “There’s still a lot of smoke down there, and the stairs are in a bad way. Wait till the guys have made it safe.” He took a long pull at his cigarette and exhaled deeply, blowing the smoke into the air with a look of contentment on his face.

  “Okay,” said Howard. “What can you tell me about the body?”

  “Woman, late twenties maybe. Hard to tell ‘cos her face is all mashed up.”

  “Shot? Smoke?”

  “Not shot, that’s for sure. Smoke? I don’t think so, I think she was dead before the fire, but you’ll have to wait for the ME to take her apart in the chop-shop before we know for sure.” He drew deeply on the cigarette again. “Sure is some weird shit down there, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Knives, a pair of shears, all of them covered in blood. Bits of chain on the floor.”

  “You think she was tortured?”

  The big man shrugged. “Maybe. There’s a man’s wallet down there. I didn’t touch it, thought the crime lab technicians might want to take a look first.” A timber crashed somewhere at the other side of the house and
he put his helmet back on. “You’d better move back, Agent Howard, this isn’t exactly safe right now.”

  Howard nodded and walked away from the smouldering wreckage. In the distance he heard an ambulance siren, heading towards the house. He wondered why they were bothering with the siren.

  Mary picked Bailey’s glass off the floor and went over to her suitcase. She opened it and took out a bottle of malt whisky, keeping an eye on him as she unscrewed the cap and poured out a double measure. “Here, drink this,” she said, holding out the glass.

  Bailey took it and swallowed it in three gulps. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “We’re all a little apprehensive.”

  “This isn’t Ireland, Mary,” he said. “They electrocute k-k-killers here.” He looked up at her and she saw that his left eyelid was flickering. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  Mary held the bottle of whisky between her hands, gripping it tightly. “No-one is going to catch us. A couple of Sass-men have got close, that’s all. And they’ve been taken care of. You’ve dealt with the SAS before. You’ve gone up against them and you’ve always come out on top. And you know why that is? It’s because you’re fighting for something you believe in and they’re doing it for money. They don’t believe that the British Government is right, they do it because they pay their wages. They’re hired guns, and we’re freedom fighters. That’s why we’ll win in the end.” She put the whisky bottle on the dressing table next to a Gideon’s Bible and sat down on the bed opposite Bailey. “A few more hours and it’ll all be over.”

  “Let’s just go home, Mary,” he said. “We c-c-can try again some other time.”

  “We’ll never have another opportunity like this. Everything’s in place; we can’t fail. All we have to do is stay calm and do our jobs and they’ll talk about this for years to come.”

  Bailey began to shiver like a wet dog and Mary shook her head sadly. “Matthew, you’re better than this,” she said soothingly. “Pull yourself together. It’s going to be all right.” She stood up and stroked his cheek and he tried to kiss her palm. She let him, trying not to show the distaste she felt. He licked her thumb and then sucked it like a baby feeding. With her other hand she stroked the back of his head as she watched herself in the mirror over the dressing table. Bailey had a vital part to play in the following day’s operation, and he had to be kept under control, for twelve hours at least. After that, it no longer mattered. “Stand up,” she said.

  He did as he was told, his head bowed. She took off his spectacles, dropped them on the bed behind her, and put her arms around his neck. “You’re one of the IRA’s best, you know that,” she said. She waited for him to kiss her, knowing that he would, knowing that it was necessary, but dreading it nonetheless. She could smell his breath, a bitter, fishy odour, and his lips were dry and crusty. She closed her eyes and waited. His lips pressed against hers and his tongue forced itself between her teeth. She gagged but forced herself to respond. His hands went clumsily to her breasts, groping rather than caressing, and his erection stabbed against her groin. His kisses became harder, more aggressive, and his hands moved behind her, grabbing her backside as if he was scooping up handfuls of sand. He buried his face in her neck and began murmuring her name over and over again.

  His hands went down to her shorts and he pushed them down roughly around her knees, then did the same with her underwear. Before she could move, his hand was between her legs, fumbling and probing, and he kissed her again. He was slobbering like a wild animal. He shoved her back onto the bed, almost on top of his spectacles, and then he began grunting as he ripped off her shorts, throwing them into a corner and unzipping his trousers.

  “Mary, I’ve always wanted you,” he panted, falling on top of her. Mary opened her legs, closed her eyes, and filled her mind with images of Sean Morrison.

  Joker awoke in confusion, unsure where he was or if he was still in danger. Before his eyes opened, his hands flew up in front of his face as if fighting off invisible demons. His first thought was that he was back in the basement but then he realised that the ceiling was a series of square polystyrene tiles and that the walls were white. His wrists had been bandaged, and professionally by the look of it, and his body felt numb as if he was floating on a cloud. Painkillers, he realised. He was in a hospital. There were smears of black ink on his fingertips. Someone had taken his fingerprints while he was unconscious. He tried to lift his head up but a bolt of pain ripped through his back. A low dose of painkiller, he realised. He lay back and gathered his thoughts. The last thing he remembered was the fire, and clambering out of the burning building. And the stranger, the man from MI5. The man he’d killed.

  Something moved at the foot of his bed and Joker realised he wasn’t alone. He raised his head again, more slowly this time, and saw a uniformed policeman getting out of a chair. “Water,” Joker gasped.

  The cop scowled. “What do I look like, a fucking nurse?” he said.

  Joker lay back and closed his eyes. Something was digging into his hips and he felt around with his hands. There was a chain around his waist, and when he pulled it something rattled under the bed. “The doctors said not to handcuff you because of the damage to your wrists,” said the cop. Joker opened his eyes to see the man looking down at him. “But if you try any tricks with the chain, the cuffs go straight on. Understand?”

  “Understand,” croaked Joker. “Where am I?”

  “Shock-trauma, University of Maryland,” the cop answered. The cop walked back to his chair and sat down. Joker realised he wasn’t there to question him, which meant that the heavyweights were on their way. He was surprised that homicide detectives weren’t waiting at his bedside. Joker ran through his options, and they were few and far between. There were two corpses at the house, one with a crushed skull, the other with two bullets in its chest. A search of the house would show up his wallet and ID and a forensic test would show that he’d fired the gun which had killed the MI5 agent. His cover story as an itinerant barman would last about thirty seconds under any half-competent interrogation, and that was before he was asked to explain his wounds. He turned his head and saw that his shoulder was bandaged and he felt two dressings on his chest.

  He remembered what the dying MI5 agent had said. The Colonel had sent him to America as bait, to lure Hennessy and Bailey out into the open so that the Five agents could capture or kill them. Hard arrests. The Colonel had never intended that Joker should succeed, and probably didn’t even expect him to come out of it alive. The Five agents had seen him taken prisoner, and they must have known what was happening to him inside the house. They did nothing, and Joker ground his teeth as he realised that they had probably been sitting in their car, swapping jokes and stories, as Hennessy ripped the flesh from his body. It was the betrayal that hurt Joker most, more than the cuts in his back, the bruised and battered wrists and the wounds in his chest. He’d been set up, right from the start, by a man he’d trusted. Trusted and damn near worshipped. And that meant that Joker couldn’t rely on the Colonel standing up for him now that he was blown.

  The door to his room opened and a nurse walked in. She was a pretty black girl with short hair and eyes that were so green Joker assumed she must have been wearing coloured contact lenses. She was wearing blue-green scrubs and had a stethoscope hanging around her neck. She picked up a clipboard from the bottom of the bed and she read through his charts. “So you’re awake, Mr O’Brien?” she said.

  “Water,” he gasped.

  She went over to a small sink in the corner of the room and filled a glass. Joker tried to sit up but he was still weak. The nurse held the back of his head while he drank. “Okay?” she said when he’d finished.

  “Thanks,” said Joker.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Sore. And weak.”

  “You’ve lost some blood, but we haven’t given you a transfusion,” she said. “It was the smoke that did most of the damage. A fe
w days’ rest and you’ll be okay.” She grinned. “Your injuries look worse than they are. Honest.”

  Joker smiled thinly. “That’s good news,” he said.

  “Except for that old wound across your stomach. The doctors were wondering how you got that one.” When Joker didn’t enlighten her, she clipped the board to the foot of his bed again.

  The cop winked at her. “Any chance of getting a TV in here? For the Bird’s game?”

  “Sure, hon,” said the nurse.

  “Bird’s game?” repeated Joker.

  The nurse nodded. “The Orioles, our baseball team. They’ve won their last eight games. Your Prime Minister is throwing out the first pitch.”

  “Maybe I’ll make the game,” he said.

  “Don’t bank on it, Mr O’Brien,” she said, “you’ll need some bed rest for a while. The TV is the nearest you’ll get.”

  “Yeah,” agreed the cop. “He ain’t going nowhere, hon.”

  The nurse left. Joker tested himself to see how hurt he actually was. His shoulder was his only real problem, but that only hurt when he moved it. His arms and legs were sore and his wrists felt as if they were still cut to the bone. The wounds in his chest would take some time to heal, and he was still a little weak, but he could tell that he was quite capable of walking out of the hospital. The only thing stopping him was the chain around his waist and the six feet tall black guy in the cop’s uniform.

  Mary Hennessy watched the minute hand of her wrist watch crawl around as she lay with her back to Matthew Bailey. He was snoring noisily, his backside thrust out so that he slept in a V shape which deprived her of most of the bed. His love-making had been rushed and nervous and, Mary thought as she slipped her hand between her thighs, it had been painful. She hadn’t let Bailey know how much he was hurting her. In fact, she’d made all the right noises, encouraging, urging him on, calling out his name. It had been an act, the same sort of performance she’d given for her husband during the last years of her marriage, and she didn’t feel any less ashamed with Bailey. It had been almost five years since Mary Hennessy had been with a man, and she’d tried to make Bailey slow down, to arouse her before penetrating her, but he was too eager and he’d mistaken her gasp of pain for a moan of pleasure. She shuddered under the bedclothes as she recalled his bitter-smelling breath and bad teeth and the way he continually pushed his probing tongue into her mouth. She’d waited until he was asleep before slipping into the bathroom and showering. She had a bottle of Listerine mouthwash in her washing kit and she’d gargled with it for more than a minute, trying to rid herself of his taste. Later she’d climbed into the other bed but Bailey had woken up and asked why she wasn’t sleeping with him. Reluctantly she’d crawled back into his bed, hoping that he wouldn’t try to touch her again, and she’d thanked her lucky stars that he fell asleep almost immediately.