Death Games

by Chris Simms

  ‘He claimed the detour was made to deliver a cargo. Something wrapped in oiled sheets. This object wasn’t large: one guy lifted it out from the boat. But it was a big deal to the people involved. They were all heavily armed and immediately rode off in Toyota Land Cruisers. This guy took the information to our consular staff in Athens hoping it would assist in his application for asylum here.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘They told him to hop it. But they put his story on the system anyway.’

  ‘So what are we meant to do now?’

  ‘The other teams will cover here; we proceed to Anglesey. We’ll be sent a list of places that need double-checking. He said to grab a couple of rooms somewhere cheap and cheerful then crack on first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Was there anything about the dealers for that boat – the XiC?’

  ‘Only that they’re hoping for more progress Monday morning when places are open again.’

  ‘Christ.’ He glanced at his watch. Just after seven. ‘I’d better let Alice know I won’t be back.’

  ‘We’ll need a hotel that sells toothbrushes; I haven’t packed a thing.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Jon replied, climbing back out while bringing up his home number. Holly got to the phone on the second ring. ‘What are you still doing up, my little treasure?’

  ‘Daddy! Where are you?’

  ‘At the seaside,’ he answered, ambling towards the jetty.

  ‘Have you had an ice-cream?’

  ‘No, the shops are all closed.’

  ‘That’s because it’s Sunday.’

  ‘It is. How’s Duggy?’

  ‘Asleep.’

  ‘I thought it sounded quiet. And where’s mummy?’

  ‘Right here. We’re reading Stickman.’

  ‘Again?’ He suspected Alice knew the story off-by-heart. ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Hello you.’ Alice’s voice.

  ‘Hi babe. All OK?’

  ‘Yeah, done bath time. Nearly wine time!’

  ‘I’m not going to make it back tonight, Aly. This op is growing bigger.’

  She sighed. ‘OK. Are you anywhere near?’

  ‘Not far from Liverpool. On the coast.’

  ‘With Iona?’

  ‘Yeah, and a couple of other teams.’

  ‘All in a hotel together?’

  He decided not to say that wasn’t the case. No point in her worrying any more than necessary. ‘I just hope they have a family room big enough.’

  ‘And one with good air-con; we all know about your farts.’

  ‘Says Mrs Windy-Arse herself.’ He savoured the sound of her chuckle coming down the line.

  ‘Well...you be careful out there, won’t you?’

  He could hear the tension in her voice. ‘Of course I will.’

  Silence.

  ‘Ali, are you there?’

  ‘I know you will be. It’s just…this new job. I didn’t think you’d be away from home so soon.’

  ‘Me neither. I don’t think it happens much.’

  ‘Let’s hope.’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Kiss them both from me.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Jon pocketed his phone and leaned against the wooden handrail. Now barely above the horizon, the burning sun had cast a layer of copper across the ocean. From somewhere behind him came a distant throaty hum. He craned his neck and saw a passenger plane, its nose tilted as it scaled the cloudless sky. It was low enough so that, when it started banking north, he could almost count each window wink in the sun. Liverpool Airport, he realised, was just the other side of the narrow stretch of water that separating the Wirral from the mainland.

  When he climbed back into the car, Iona’s attention was on her phone, one finger brushing steadily at the screen. Assuming she was going over an important communication from work, he leaned across a bit further than necessary while reaching for his seatbelt. The screen was full of slowly falling, brightly-coloured shapes: Candy Crush.

  CHAPTER 39

  He tipped an admiring nod at the plate of food. ‘Mmm, vkusno.’

  ‘Spasibo,’ she replied.

  His face, usually so impassive, broke into a smile. ‘Ty govorish po Russkiy!’

  ‘Njet.’ She dusted her plate of spaghetti with pepper then replaced the pot between them on the table. ‘Only the odd word.’

  Silence returned, but it was one she didn’t feel that she had to fill. They understood each other better now. She suspected he had the same low level of adrenaline humming about his body. A continual sense that something was about to happen. From beyond the kitchen’s dark windows came an owl’s haunting cry. He reacted instantly to the sound, shoulders stiffening, eyes lifting.

  The phone was never out of reach and she picked it up, spoke and waited for the translation. ‘It is an owl.’

  The noise came again and she gave him a nonchalant shrug. It’s nothing. He looked over at the window for a while, head cocked for anything else. After a few seconds he turned back to his food and started to eat again.

  She thought about how they were almost out of time. It had been seven weeks ago when Frank the Delivery Man had sat next to her in the staff area at the MRI and quietly shared his morsel of gossip.

  He’d been replenishing the supplies of oxygen tanks in the medical store at the Search and Rescue facility over on Anglesey. You know: the one where the older of the two Princes was currently stationed as a Sea King pilot. Frank was a familiar face to the crews there. Security clearance and everything. Pretty much came and went as he pleased. They were a friendly bunch, the crews there. Happy to let him sit in the Operations Room and chat, if things were quiet. No, he’d not seen the Prince in person that day, but he had seen something to do with him.

  Flight rotas for the coming month. They were being written on this big whiteboard on the wall of the operations office. Prince William? He’s known as Howie. House of Windsor? Get it? He had eight shifts coming up as First Standby crew over September. Almost seven but he’d got the very last day of the month. Unlucky. It’s good though, that they don’t treat him any differently. Does the same twenty-four shift as all the other pilots, seven in the evening through to seven the next evening.

  In fact, the only real difference between him and the other crew was the fact he didn’t drive himself. That was done by a special armed police officer. A bit like a chauffeur, the officer had to sit for hours in the dark blue Jaguar.

  Iona had rung her Uncle Bilal that afternoon asking to meet.

  She picked at her food. What was that definition of a secret she’d read? A piece of information told only to one person at a time. She stared at the unfamiliar pattern on the plate. The table. The kitchen. The fact she was sitting here, on the Welsh coast, the rest of her life a huge unknown. The sense of staring down into a black chasm started to grip her. Before she could blink it away, her shoulders suddenly shook. She checked to see if he’d noticed: and found him studying her face.

  ‘OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. No.’ She fluttered a hand and smiled. ‘Nervous.’

  He shook his head to show his confusion.

  ‘Nervous,’ she repeated, lifting her fingers and pretending to chew her nails. ‘Nervous.’

  ‘Ah,’ he replied.

  She picked up her fork again, but her appetite had vanished. It rattled slightly as she laid it back on her plate. His hand moved across the table, sliding over the top of hers. She looked at it for a moment then up at him.

  ‘Ne nervnichay. Ty silneye chem ty dumayesh.’

  His voice was warm and low. ‘I...I don’t understand you.’

  His hand left hers and he picked up the phone. The screen washed his face with a faint blue. He repeated his words and she waited for the double beep. ‘Do not be nervous. You are stronger than you think.’

  She tried to smile. ‘Thank you.’

  Silence returned, but this time she couldn’t let it continue. T
aking the phone from him, she said, ‘I am scared. We don’t have much time left.’

  As the translation sounded, he picked up his glass and raised it to his lips.

  ‘I feel weak,’ she added. ‘Because I do not know what is happening.’

  Now he looked away. As he lowered the glass, his forefinger moved back and forth along its rim. Small movements. He reached for the phone. ‘I will tell you what I know. It is not everything, but it is all I know, OK?’

  She dipped her head, eyes staying on his. ‘Yes.’

  He pushed his plate aside. ‘There is a boat coming across the sea. It is coming now. On this boat is a special weapon. A missile. It can destroy a helicopter.’

  She saw then how it would work.

  For some reason, she’d been imagining an ambush. Only one road led from the air base. She knew the type of car the Prince would be in. A stalled vehicle, forcing the Prince’s to stop. Doku waiting at the side of the road with a gun. The rendezvous at sea was, she assumed, to take delivery of that gun. This was far more clever.

  ‘We will meet this boat,’ Doku continued, ‘and then call on the radio to say it is sinking. The Prince will come in the helicopter. And I will be ready, like this.’ The way he positioned his arms reminded her of a photo from her geography classroom: a lumberjack balancing a log on his shoulder. The drone. The camcorder. It all made sense. They wanted to capture it on film. A spectacular in every sense. Even as the flaming wreckage sank beneath the waves, they would be racing across the sea to safety.

  A fresh wave of nervous energy surged through her. This was it. This was how they would be made to feel her pain. The one over in Afghanistan who joked about playing at soldiers while holding the controls of an Xbox. Now he would experience the same reality as her: losing a brother. His family would experience the loss of a son. They would all taste her world, the bitterness that could not be washed away.

  ‘Now you know,’ he announced quietly, lowering his arms.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, noticing how his lips had tightened in pain.

  He touched a finger to his neck in explanation.

  Of course, she thought. The muscles in his shoulder would be trying to compensate for his injured shoulder. It was likely they’d lock if he wasn’t careful. ‘Let me see.’

  She circled the table and stood behind him. Gently, she probed at the top of his shoulder, feeling the rigidity of his trapezius, right the way up to the base of his skull. Moving her hands across his shoulders, she tracked rock-hard muscle all the way to the deltoids. If he’d kept the sling on, he could have avoided most of this. Using slow, circular movements, she began to massage the back of his neck, employing her thumbs to get at the muscle closer to his spine. His head began to sag forward. Once those muscles felt looser, she ran her palms across his shoulder, using her fingertips to ease the tension trapped there.

  His right hand suddenly came up, fingers enveloping her wrist. She thought she must have hurt him: jarred the shoulder joint, perhaps. Anxiously, she leaned forward, and as he turned to her, she had that same flutter of confusion. Whether he was going to strike her, or kiss her.

  CHAPTER 40

  They spotted a twenty-four-hour supermarket on the approach to the ferry terminal in Holyhead, Anglesey’s main town. Jon waited in the car park as Iona nipped inside to grab overnight supplies for them both. It was slightly odd, he’d reflected while sitting there, to have someone you’d worked with for one day buying you boxer shorts, socks, deodorant and toothpaste.

  A little further along was a motel with plenty of spaces in the car park. Jon considered leaving the car there overnight, but drove back out in search of the police station. ‘I’d crap myself,’ he’d explained to Iona. ‘Imagine if it got nicked with that lot in the boot.’

  ‘Who’s going to get round the vehicle’s immobiliser? And the weapons box itself can stand up to an acetylene torch. Then there are the GPS trackers.’

  ‘I’ll just sleep better knowing it’s properly secure.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  As it happened, the police station was only a couple of minutes’ drive further into town. His badge got them through the gate and, after leaving the car in the compound, they walked back to the motel. The receptionist allocated them a couple of rooms before letting them know dinner was served for another hour. They could also add breakfast to the deal for just seven pounds ninety-nine extra.

  ‘Is it continental or the full spread?’ Jon asked.

  ‘Both. There’s a counter with cereals, fresh fruit, yoghurt and croissants, plus a hot buffet of sausages, bacon, black pudd – ’

  ‘I’ll take it,’ Jon cut in. ‘Iona?’

  ‘Why not?’

  He clocked her ambivalent tone. ‘Not partial to a good dose of trans-fats in the morning?’

  ‘Funnily enough, no.’

  ‘Not even when work are paying?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Well, there’s always the fresh fruit.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Shall we meet back here in twenty? I could do with grabbing a bite to eat before they stop serving.’

  ‘So,’ Jon placed his half-drunk pint of fresh orange and lemonade on the table. ‘This is nice.’

  Iona assessed their sterile surroundings. A vending machine was beside the door leading to the stairs. Below the flat screen TV mounted at the opposite end of the room were three men. Lorry drivers, she guessed. Half the tables had already been set for breakfast by the staff member who now stood behind a pokey bar. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Ever been out in Holyhead?’

  ‘Can’t say I have.’

  ‘It’s...interesting.’

  ‘What was it, a rugby tour?’

  ‘No, work as per. A bit further on there’s a massive set of cliffs. You get thousands of seabirds nesting on them.’

  ‘It feels like the back of beyond, here,’ Iona whispered.

  ‘It kind of is, if you think about it. Far corner of an island off the coast of Wales, on the edge of Britain. Except for the truckers coming off the ferries from Ireland, I think the gene pool’s a bit limited.’

  Iona surveyed the three TV watchers. Two bald heads and a shock of ginger hair. ‘Spoilt for talent.’

  Jon grinned. ‘When are we going to get a break, then? This pair’s luck is lasting far too long.’

  ‘I can’t see it being us who finds them. They’ll get snagged further down the line: trying to leave the country, or Elissa will use a cashpoint card. Something silly.’

  Jon removed the plastic stirrer from his glass. ‘Or she’ll get an opportunity to escape and raise the alarm.’

  Iona sat back. ‘You still think she’s an unwilling participant in this?’

  ‘I think there’s a good chance of it. We have no idea who the man she’s with is. Maybe she misjudged what she was getting into.’

  Iona shook her head. ‘She knows exactly what she’s doing. They’re scopers, is my guess. Gathering information for possible targets.’

  ‘Hence the drone? Reconnaissance on Wylfa, Stanlow, maybe Liverpool Airport...’

  Iona looked past Jon. ‘Food’s here.’

  The waitress had a plate in each hand. ‘Steak, mushroom, chips and peas, plus a small tuna salad?’

  Jon patted the table.

  The woman didn’t even check whose dish was whose.

  It was almost three in the morning when something caused Jon to wake. Sitting up in bed, blinking stupidly at the darkness, his first reaction was to find his phone. He was still fumbling for the switch for the bedside light when a light knocking sounded on his door. Was that what had woken him? Someone at his door? He swung his feet to the floor. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Jon, it’s Iona.’ Her voice was an urgent whisper. ‘Put some clothes on, I need to come in.’

  He hauled his jeans on and pulled the door open. She was fully dressed, bag on the floor between her feet, phone in hand.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘A call from Weir.’

>   He stepped aside, scratching at his ribs as she crossed to the armchair in the corner. ‘That sounds ominous.’

  ‘It is.’

  He lifted his t-shirt off the end of the bed and slipped it over his head. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘The Russians got an identity from those prints. The ones lifted from the mobile phone.’

  ‘In the early hours of Sunday bloody morning?’

  ‘What I said. Weir reckons it’s their little joke: they probably have had the information a while, but thought it would be fun to call it through now.’

  Jon filled the kettle from the tap in the toilet. ‘Have we time for coffee?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So: these prints?’

  She flipped her phone around. ‘Most is in this email. Shall I read it out while you do the drinks?’

  ‘Deal.’

  ‘OK, starting at the top. His name is Doku Zakayev and he’s a thirty-four-year old veteran of the Chechen War. That’s fighting against the Russians, not with them. He’s from the mountainous region in the south of the country – which certainly fits with the words on the map found in the crashed car.’

  ‘Veteran of the Chechen War? Jesus, that involved some brutal fighting.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Her forefinger played across the screen, then she turned the phone round so he could see it. ‘This is the best picture they’ve got. It was taken in 2008, by local Chechen police. They’d detained him but then let him go before the Russian military were aware he was in custody.’

  The photo was typical of law enforcement agencies the world over: an eye-level shot against a plain background, subject looking direct to camera. He had a thick mop of black hair and an unruly beard. Dark eyes were directed slightly off to the side, as if something more interesting was taking place there. Jon recognised the closed-down, impassive look – it was the type of expression people adopted when making it clear they’d been unjustly taken in. I’ve done nothing, it said. And I resent being here.

  ‘The reason this guy is of interest to the Russians is because they believe he fired a surface-to-air missile that downed a transport helicopter in south Chechnya in 2000. All fifteen Russian military personnel on board were killed.’