Blake was willing Cade on now. With one breath he’d urge him on, then look up, checking for the guard. He coughed, the signal. Cade stopped and resumed his position. The see-saw tipped Blake back down into the water, which was now lapping at his shoulders and rising. The guard hated the sound of running water; it played havoc with his over-active bladder. He was bursting. There was nowhere to go either, except…
He unzipped himself and began to urinate down into the void, a stream of foul-smelling, dark yellow liquid dropped metres down into the tube, hitting the water and adding to its volume. He shook himself a little too vigourously, then zipped back up and went back to his website. Not once did he glance down into the eerie green space.
“Gone?” Cade hissed.
“Gone. How much longer, Jack?”
“Five, maybe ten.”
“Look, if only one of us can get out of here, so be it. There’s something I need you to know.”
“Is it a long story Michael because I suspect we don’t have much time?”
“You know when you flew to Australia? It was a hell of a long way just to make love to Elena. There must be other girls in your life – and besides, you could have just rung her.” Blake looked at Cade in the half-light, waiting.
“It was a long flight, I’ll give you that.” He carried on shaving layers of plastic from the ankle strap. “But I needed to look her in the eyes and ask her the question.”
“Which was?”
“Why she also made the equally arduous journey to New Zealand – why she came to find me. But I think I know the answer now.”
“You spoke to John Daniel?”
“I did. And he explained that Elena was hunting for him, not me.”
“That’s right, but did she also say that it had become an affair of the heart? She fell for you, Jack, in every possible way. You know that. But look at you now, so much distrust, almost two different people. Why? She’s a beautiful girl, Jack, with a wonderful soul. You could do a lot worse.”
“She is. I met her mother once, she was equally beautiful. But I trusted her and she me, and I let her down enormously. I can’t allow that to happen again. Letting people down is becoming a theme.”
“I met her mother once too, Jack. And no, you didn’t. She got to London because of you, and she met the person she needed to meet. Again, down to you. We’ve covered some distance since those early days Jack, but you need to know that Nikolina treasured what you gave her.”
Blake continued to whisper, timing his story with Cade’s frantic cutting. And the water edged upwards, and Blake began to push himself up, trying to maintain the balancing act. He admired the cunning of the man that had built the contraption, hated him too. What sort of mind dreamt these things up? This was evil beyond anywhere he could ever imagine. Perhaps the countless hours in a prison cell did that to a man?
He pushed, up and through the water, but it held him in place. Tired legs and a weight disadvantage locked him down in the pool. Cade looked down at him. He could see Blake was almost done. The water was now teasing his throat, passing the Adam’s apple. He had minutes.
“You’ll do what I asked, Jack? Please.”
“I don’t intend to leave you here, my friend.” He moved suddenly, and the cable snapped. “I’m free. Stay there I’ll cut you free too.”
“No, go. You haven’t got time. Go, but tell her…”
Cade looked up at the ladder. It was hanging by a thread. Deliberate? Part of the game? Another few minutes and he could reach up. It needed the ever-increasing volume of water to allow him to stretch the final few inches. They knew this. They had calculated it, to the last minute. Pure evil.
“I’ll hold my breath as long as I can, Jack. But don’t look back. Do what needs to be done. And Jack.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” Blake’s words were short. He kept his lips tight, forming a seal. It was time.
Cade knew he didn’t have time to cut him free. The mythical knife never was in the drum, all it contained was glass and chunks of his fingers and a puddle of scarlet that washed around the tube with the churning water.
Francis did as he was told, switching the siren off but leaving the grill lights flickering.
“Where are we heading, Carrie?”
“Just bear with me, Dave. Along here.”
“Do you actually have a plan?”
“I do, kind of, but it needs some help from above.”
“Helicopter?”
“No, further up than that. If you believe in guardian angels Dave?”
“I didn’t until your boyfriend appeared in my life, Carrie.”
“He’s not…”
“Come off it. We all know you are besotted.”
“Fuck off, Dave.” She said it with venom but she couldn’t help but reveal a guilty smile.
“Here. Stop here.”
“What?”
“Now.” She pulled the handbrake on.
“What are you doing, woman.” He fought to control the car and steered it safely into the kerb.
“Come on. This way.” She was out and running.
Cade had once confided in Francis, told him his true feelings for the wild child Carrie O’Shea. He had also said she could find the needle without the haystack. ‘Call it a sixth sense, David. Call it anything you like, but trust me that girl has a gift for finding stuff. I once heard her referred to as a shit magnet. And that is what we have in common.’
They ran, with O’Shea holding the pistol awkwardly. They reached the partly derelict concrete building with its authoritarian but faded signage.
“In here. And please take this off me.” She handed him the pistol. It felt good to be holding one again after so long. The door opened with ease. As if the owners never expected anyone to simply walk up and enter.
Francis took over. Held a weather-worn palm up. It meant stop in any language. They waited and listened. Nothing.
But there was a faded light coming from the next corridor. Francis pointed and ran his hand across his throat. It must have meant something from his military days. He beckoned her closer. Then whispered.
“We need to see who is in there. You may have the wrong place.”
“No. This is it.”
They edged forward. The light flickered. A shadow flitted off the ceiling like a circling bat, hunting for its quarry. They reached the door and saw the outline of the male, too busy swiping the screen on his smartphone. Somewhere nearby they could hear water.
“We go on my count of three. I will lead. You follow. We’ll deal with whatever we come across.”
Elena had also arrived at a building. Hers was larger, more modern, and despite the many cars in the car park, apparently abandoned.
“You come with me or you stay here. Either way, it is going to get very noisy soon.” She was pumped full of adrenaline.
“But why don’t we wait miss?” It was a fair question from the detective who was beginning to doubt his decision-making skills.
“No, we go now.”
“No miss, we stay. And that’s an order.”
“No, we go or I shoot you.” She levelled the gun at him. God alone knew where she had produced it from.
“As you wish, miss.”
She stuck to the perimeter wall like a shadow, moving quickly. The five-year cop was a pace behind her, hoping to hell that she knew what she was doing.
“In here. Come on, follow me.”
Halford was being whipped through the traffic now, faster than everything else, with his devoted protection officer behind the wheel, bullying his way along the arterial route alongside the river.
“Remember, if this goes wrong, you are on your own. My reputation is worth more than yours. And I have paid you very well.”
“Agreed boss. It’s been a pleasure.”
It seemed that all roads no longer led to Rome.
Cade was bleeding from every finger now but rising in the water, closer and closer to the ladder. He gripped hold o
f the bottom rung and quietly pulled against it. Above him, to his left, a drainage hole became visible. He realised that must be where the overflow ran to. He took a second to realise that even if the river water reached it, the tube would still not empty until the tide began to turn.
He tucked in close to the ladder, but it moved; the bolts giving way. He looked down. The view of Blake’s face was all that remained. His hair moved in the circular current. He still looked alive. There was hope in his expression. If he was holding his breath Cade willed him to hold it just another minute or two. Just long enough to get him out of there and deliver the message himself.
Above him, the light flickered once more. Then a crack rang out. An ear piercing, head scrambling bang. It resonated, had nowhere to go and rang out, announcing a single gunshot. The male appeared at the gantry, holding onto his abdomen. He leant over, staring at Cade who was now propelling himself up the ladder to meet him.
The male tipped over the edge, hit Cade and fell into the water, which was a cocktail of misery, a mix of brown and green and red.
A hand appeared. Female, left, no wedding ring. Soft, cared for, but as strong as the right hand that joined it, male, older, time-worn skin, redder by the second as Cade’s fingers covered them in his fresh blood.
He allowed himself to be pulled up the ladder, got to the top, saw a face, friendly, a deep smile, then one of concern as it looked down, past Cade to the floating body and the second, near-lifeless soul in the bottom of the darkening tube.
“So this is where you hang out, Inspector Cade?”
O’Shea hauled him up by his shirt, onto the level floor and allowed him a second to breathe.
“It’s Blake, we need to get back down there now.” He was pointing, exhausted.
Francis slipped a foot over the side, tested the ladder which creaked and then gave way, falling down, into the water, partly dragging the Eastern European guard down further to the floor of the tube. All that remained visible was his face as he slipped below the water, a realisation that if he wasn’t dead yet he soon would be.
“I’m sorry, Jack. We can’t get down there.”
“Find some rope, a knife, do whatever you can. I need to get back down there.”
Cade looked over the railing, down into what was to have been his tomb. Blake was staring back at him, his eyes were the last thing to fade. They spoke a thousand words.
“Tell her.” Then he let go. Bubbles radiated around his mouth, then his nose, then they overwhelmed him. His eyes widened, water poured into his throat, he gagged, he coughed, and then having fought it with an intense resolution, he relented.
The river and the syndicate that called itself the Seventh Wave, both had claimed another victim.
Chapter 61
O’Shea held Cade by his shoulders, up against the wall, let him compose himself.
“See? I have my uses.” She pulled him close. Hugged him at arm’s length. He stank of stale air and putrid water. “Don’t think much of your new aftershave, Mr C.”
“Channel Number Five.” He laughed. “Come on, get me out of here. Dave ring for back up, get a team to recover Blake, I want him treated with complete respect. Let the other fat bastard stay at the bottom of that bloody place. Let the rats feast on him.”
He threw up, his body rejecting the dark water that had begun to fill his body.
“Better now?” O’Shea again.
“Enjoying this?”
“No, not at all. The team is descending on the Barrier. Jason has deployed the whole group – it stinks Jack, we’ve got the biggest police force in the country at our beck and call and we can’t even bloody tell them what’s happening.”
“And we will never will.” He wiped his mouth. “How far away are we?”
“Quarter of a mile.”
“So what are we waiting for?”
“You, Jack. Just you.” Francis patted him on the back and led the way back to their car.
Scott McCall tried to peer around the doorway, reducing his frame, just as he had been taught many years ago. It had saved his hide on more than one occasion. He could make out the leading edge of something in the next doorway along, about forty metres back, along the corridor. The shape was organic, human. He raised his weapon and knew when he committed to the shot there was a risk of being hit from either side of his place of safety.
Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat. It was written on his right shoulder, next to the tribal tattoo. And there was never a better time to test the theory.
He checked to his right, looking out quickly, to where he suspected Alex and his partner would be. Nothing. He’d head there next.
Another quick look to his left. He visualised the image. Worked out where the shot would fall, knew he had one, maybe two seconds to aim, and fire.
He emptied half of the rounds from his spare magazine, pushed them into his pocket. Tactically it was suicide. But he needed a distraction. This was a game of cat and mouse, and the cat was currently pinning him down. But cats were easily distracted. They liked shiny things.
With a prayer to his ancestors he resorted to his roots, a young Maori warrior, in the forest with an uncle, hunting deer.
‘We use many things to distract our prey, boy. Watch this...’
He was back, in the woods, far from home. His favourite uncle Amiri had spent days tracking the deer. He had shown him how to read the trails, what to eat, what to avoid, how to find water and how to build a shelter from the canopy and floor of the forest.
When McCall eventually trained to join the Special Air Service he was already halfway there. Amiri ‘Scottie’ McCall. Mack the knife to his friends.
His uncle’s first name meant ‘From the east wind.’ He was a legendary hunter. Scott had taken his name when he had been born. His anglicised name was purely for the army. With his piece of treasured greenstone, tied to a dog-eared leather thong, nestling among the black chest hairs, and secured around his neck, a treasure, gifted by his uncle, he knew he would be safe. His whanau, his family, were watching over him.
The hunted became the hunter.
He fired. One handed. Better that way. Less of a target.
The round screamed out of the barrel, along the corridor, it missed, but the second, fired with autonomous reactions didn’t. It struck the kneecap, shattering it, dispersing bone upwards and out, preventing it from ever being used again.
The scream that followed was immensely satisfying.
Stefan fired back in anger, but they were random, pain-induced shots and in doing so he exposed his hand and his weapon. McCall didn’t need a second invitation. Firing a burst of three shots, he hit the target. Stefan’s index and ring finger left the hand, spinning, spiralling, landing and coming to a halt down the corridor, pointing at the exit. A bloody sign if ever there was one.
The weapon clattered to the floor and McCall was up and running, on his toes, purely tactical now, a slave to his training. He was firing on the move, two shots left the weapon and struck his former partner in the chest. He was down, a crippled man with a devastated heart.
McCall got to the Romanian with the inequitable eyes before he could do anything to counter the attack.
He held his head, which had dropped, looking to the concrete floor.
“Look at me, you bastard. Why?”
Stefan let out a nonchalant exhalation. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me, fucker. I put my life on the line for you.”
“No, you didn’t. You were a well-timed piece of luck. Nothing more. You got me here. And anyway...” His head dropped.
McCall snatched it back up. “Oh no buddy, you are not going anywhere until I allow it. Speak.”
“You got the diamonds. You are as bad as us. Once my brother hears that you killed me you will never be able to live a normal life again. He is…as bad as they can ever get. Did you know he killed our parents in a fit of rage? No? Did you know he killed his own wife?” He was fading now.
“He’s one amazing man
, your brother. But trust me, he’ll find out that I killed you, two seconds before I empty the rest of this magazine into him and then reload and slowly finish off his snivelling little friend. You lot have no idea what comradeship is.”
“Fair enough. Kill me.” There wasn’t an ounce of fear. He knew he was dying, and that tended to remove the sense of dread.
“Before I do. What is this all about? You owe me that much.”
Stefan coughed, his breath smelt of aerated red blood – a metallic odour his assassin had long become used to.
“We are just the disciples. There is always someone further up the food chain, Scott. We live good lives, money, girls, cars, respect.”
“Yep, I hear you buddy, keep talking.”
“But we are just disciples…”
“You said…and who is the true Messiah?”
“The Gypsy King, of course. And no one betrays his true name.”
McCall knew he didn’t need to waste another bullet, but recovered the magazine he had thrown and the spare from Stefan’s gun. He tapped Stefan on the left cheek.
“Been nice knowing you.” He leant him forward so he would choke to death on his own blood. No reason why he should enter the gates of hell without some further suffering.
McCall was up and moving. Ahead of him, Alex and Constantin had heard the commotion. Constantin rang the Ops Room.
“What is happening?”
“Stefan has been killed. By the soldier.”
“Then secure the room and the people. We don’t need you there anymore. Go and find him and make sure you really hurt him.”
“But the river…”
“Let the river do what it wants. Go!”
Roberts answered his phone without checking the screen.
“Mr Roberts, Tell your people to leave us alone. That way no one else will be harmed.” An all too familiar voice.
“Funny Mr Stefanescu, but I really don’t believe you. We are closing in, I suggest you give up now whilst you can. This will not end well for you. Prison is a very lonely place.”
Seven of Swords (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 3) Page 60
