Shores of Death

by Peter Ritchie

  The CROP officer called it in. ‘Looks like they’ve taken the bait. All units beware they’re on the way back.’

  The three targets headed back they way they’d come, and as soon as they were well away Macallan gave the order to extract Swan. Barely five minutes later a van with a telecom logo pulled up in front of Swan’s house, where it paused until the CROPs men confirmed there were no cars or walkers approaching. The moment it received the all-clear it reversed up the driveway and stopped parallel to the side of the cottage with about an inch clearance between it and the gable end, ensuring little or nothing of what happened next could be seen. Swan and Gnasher were virtually carried from the house, thrown in the van and it was on the move before the rear doors were properly closed. He sat between two very large policemen, who told him to relax.

  He looked down at Gnasher shivering on his lap and stroked the dog’s head. ‘Hear that, son? We’ve just to relax. I mean, there’s fuck all to worry about, right?’

  The dog didn’t get irony and continued to shiver at yet another change in his circumstances.

  Another pair of surveillance officers had booked into the hotel while Turner and his team were away. They would keep their eyes on the car park so as to let Fitzgerald and her partner sit in the bar and chat like any other happy couple away for a few days in the country. When Turner and his team returned they went straight to their rooms before coming down for dinner an hour later. They stayed off the booze and talked all through the meal.

  When Fitzgerald called to report that the three targets had then gone back to their rooms, Macallan guessed they would rest up for what they had to do later.

  ‘Don’t see them making a move before dark,’ she said to O’Connor, before giving the order for the crews to rotate so they could eat and take whatever natural breaks they needed. Darkness came late in this part of the world and they had a long night in front of them.

  Macallan stepped outside to stretch her muscles and gazed in the direction of Swan’s cottage. ‘See you there then, Maxi,’ she said to herself, wondering where Handyside was and what he was doing.

  *

  Handyside sat quietly at the window, enjoying a cigarette. He’d cleaned the place as far as he could while the girl was still there and all he could do now was wait. Another short text came in from his wife, saying that everything was fine and she wished he was beside her.

  He finished the smoke, put the stub into a jar and sealed it – the jar would be taken away when he left the lodge for the last time. The message from Turner was upbeat. They’d confirmed Swan was in the house so they would make a move after dark. No sign of any problems or the law.

  He rubbed his chin and wondered what Macallan was doing with her investigation. He smiled as he imagined her face when she arrived the next day and found what was left of Swan. Barring accidents, that would be job done and he could join his wife – and Turner could get together with all the other old gangsters in the south of Spain.

  As darkness fell the clouds closed in and it started to rain again. Not the monsoon they’d seen earlier but a steady drizzle that added to the discomfort of the men in the CROPs. Macallan checked again that everyone was in place and ready. She felt tired with the strain of the day and stirred more black coffee to help buzz up her grey matter.

  ‘You okay?’ O’Connor asked. He’d been outside to work his aching legs and was wet through.

  ‘Fine. I always hate this bit, waiting for them to move. Running all the negatives through my head. Christ, I’m sure these operations take years off our lives. Though Handyside is probably doing something similar. We’re so close to them, all waiting to meet up at Ricky’s place.’ She smiled wearily and O’Connor just nodded. There was nothing to say – she was just releasing tension.

  ‘Let’s get down there. We can give any commands from the car. If it’s going to happen it’ll be soon.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll drive and you can sit and worry for the two of us.’

  They settled into a small car park behind the post office in Kilmelford so they could be with the team in minutes if required. The night was quiet and there was almost no radio traffic apart from the occasional comms check. She started a text saying goodnight to Jack—

  ‘Standby. Standby. Standby!’ It was always said three times so there was no doubt. Every man and woman on the operation came to life – this was it.

  ‘That’s the targets on the move,’ said Fitzgerald, who was back in position watching the car park from her room. ‘They’re looking into the back of the van and it appears there’s some kind of concealment beneath the floor.’

  There was what seemed like a long moment’s silence and the operator in the command vehicle acknowledged the call, checking that the operational units had received it.

  Fitzgerald came back on. ‘Can’t be certain, but it looks like handguns being packed into their rucksacks. All three targets are into the van and they’re off, off, off. Over to you.’

  Macallan and O’Connor got ready to move, the tension in the car like an electric charge.

  As the van turned left onto the road, two other vehicles were also on the move, but they remained inconspicuous, keeping well back and showing no lights. Although the night was darkest black with low cloud covering the hills all around, the police drivers didn’t need lights because they were wearing night-vision goggles. The operation had a life of its own now, and all its components moved into place, ready for any action.

  Turner was in the passenger seat, feeling more nervous than he normally would on a job. This was strange country and he was used to operating in a city environment. The overwhelming darkness spooked him, and he wished they were done already.

  After sending a text to Handyside when he left the hotel, he’d thrown the phones into the loch and taken clean sets for the rest of the job. He had the boss’s number in his head for security, and till they were done that was all he needed.

  ‘Okay, boys, when we get there, stop the van outside. We cross the garden.’ He nodded to the driver. ‘You reverse up the drive. We crash the door if we have to. If we have to make a noise we throw him in the back of the van, stick him under the floor and find somewhere quiet to work on him. If we get in easy we can do him in the house. Okay. Now let’s fucking do this, get the fuck out of this shithole and back to civilisation.’

  The van swung left along the single-track road along the head of the loch. He pulled out the handgun and checked it again. There was no way he could know that on every side of the van there were cameras and eyes watching and waiting to arrest or blow the bastards to heaven and back.

  The lights were on when they got to Swan’s place and the main door was open. The interior lights shone through a glass vestibule door just inside and illuminated part of the front lawn.

  ‘Thanks, Ricky, you cunt – you just made it nice and easy for us.’ Turner grinned, his worries about the job easing slightly.

  They drew up outside the garden wall, pulled the balaclavas down over their faces and jumped out of the van. When they were over the wall, Turner gave a thumbs-up to the driver, who started to reverse into the driveway. While he was running across the wet grass towards the front door a thought flashed through his mind: there was no sign of the dog . . .

  A half-second later the place lit up like Hampden Park, and they discovered guns were aimed at them from every fucking direction. Turner was a hard nut and had always said he’d go down fighting, but this was what the Yanks liked to call overwhelming force, the Scottish version of which is, ‘You’re fucked, sunshine!’

  The van driver thought for a moment that he might make a run for it, but they blocked him in, and Turner didn’t even wait for the order; he dropped the gun and lay down on the grass so they had no excuse to fire. He regretted the decision immediately, because he realised he was probably going to die inside or be so fucking old when he was freed that he’d be terrified to walk back out through the gates.

  They were kept face down and handcuffed just a b
it too tightly for comfort. After a few minutes of waiting and feeling his clothes soaking up the water from the grass, Turner craned his neck up and saw a pair of sensible women’s shoes and a nice pair of ankles.

  ‘Let me guess; it’s my fucking lawyer,’ he said.

  ‘Sit him up.’

  He was pulled back and pushed down; after soaking his front the bastards clearly wanted to soak his arse.

  ‘You have to be Macallan. Nice, very nice indeed.’ Turner knew he was fucked, but like a good pro there was no way he was going to let them in on his misery.

  ‘Where’s the girl, Maxi? She’s done nothing, for Christ’s sake.’ Macallan nodded to one of the uniforms. ‘Get his phone and do last number redial.’

  ‘Do we look that stupid, girl? The phones are clean. Anything you want is in my fucking noddle.’

  She went down on one knee and put her face close enough for Turner to get what would be his last scent of a woman for a long time. ‘We can do a deal,’ she told him. ‘Save the girl and you’ll cut years.’

  He moved his face even closer to hers, but Macallan didn’t back away.

  ‘If I don’t make a call in the next ten minutes, she dies. Trust me. That’s the arrangement. I’ll make the call, tell him we have Ricky, you go and rescue the poor girl and I get a deal. Okay?’

  ‘Give us the number and you get the deal. That’s it.’ She knew he had them over a barrel, but she had to try. If what he said was true then a man like Handyside wouldn’t hesitate to do what he had to. He’d proved that already.

  ‘No deal, Superintendent. Fuck you – I’ll take my chances.’

  Macallan turned to O’Connor and they walked off into the shadows behind the cottage. ‘He’s got us cornered on this. If the girl dies, it’s down to me.’

  ‘No, I’m the rank officer so it’s down to me. Tell me what you think and let’s do it.’

  ‘We have to let him make the call.’

  Turner was taken inside, the handcuffs removed, and he asked for a cigarette. He sucked on the smoke and smiled when Macallan handed him his phone. His eyes remained locked on hers the whole time. According to his timescale they had three minutes left.

  He punched in Handyside’s number and put the phone to his ear. ‘Get the fuck out of there, Pete. They’ve got us.’

  One of the uniforms put him in a headlock while Macallan grabbed the phone from his fingers and put the phone to her ear. It was quiet but hadn’t rung off. She felt sick – there was no right way to do this.

  ‘Let her go, Pete. What’s the point now? It’s over.’ She waited for a reply that didn’t come. ‘Please.’ It was all she got out before the call died in her hand.

  ‘Take that bastard away,’ she growled. She wanted to hurt Turner but the urge to see him inside was stronger.

  The intelligence team got to work on the call that had been made to Handyside, but even at best there was more than enough time for him to do what he wanted and what the police team feared most.

  ‘There’s nothing more we could have done. We both know it. Now let’s track this down and bring Christine home,’ O’Connor said, then headed back to the command vehicle while Macallan waited to see the area cleared and Swan’s cottage sealed off. It was a crime scene and there was work to do.

  She watched the rear lights of O’Connor’s car fade into the mist that was drifting up from the cold waters of the loch. The specialist teams were packing up and heading back to their units for a debrief and a rest before they made their reports.

  Turner was the last of his team to disappear into the back of the van before they were taken away for process. It didn’t matter if they said nothing – they were already fucked.

  Macallan nodded to a couple of uniforms and told them to watch the cottage till it was sealed off, but that she had a couple of calls to make and she’d do it inside. She pulled the door shut behind her and walked slowly through the rooms. During the Troubles she’d been on several covert entries into terrorist homes and hides. She was trained in getting in, searching and getting out without disturbing the place.

  Swan clearly travelled light as she found very little in the way of personal possessions. He wasn’t careful, which seemed par for the course, and when she opened the bedside cupboard she shook her head when she saw the three discs inside. She took the laptop out of her bag, slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and it only took a few minutes for her to copy the discs onto her system. When it was done she relaxed – the copies she’d made would be stashed away in case there was any kind of cover-up.

  She made three calls inside the cottage to make sure her story worked if anyone was ever asked why she’d been in there on her own. When she went back outside she asked the senior uniform to take anything they found in the cottage and log it. ‘This is a crime scene and Mr Swan might end up as an accused for other matters.’

  That was all they needed to know and they got to work while Macallan headed through the mist towards the command vehicle to join O’Connor and sweat it out till the intel teams worked on the call to Pete Handyside.

  Dawn had started to light up the eastern sky as the police units closed in round the lodge where Christine Swan had been held. Angry purple and red clouds were rolling by and the air was cool and damp as Macallan and O’Connor stepped out of their car on a low rise about three hundred yards from the lodge. Macallan had hardly spoken a word since Turner and his team had been arrested. She was frightened – more frightened than she could remember being in a long time.

  ‘All those women.’ She looked round at O’Connor. ‘The women on the boat, Ingrid . . . We don’t even know if we’ll ever find her. Now Christine. We couldn’t help them. What’s the point?’

  ‘We can’t count who we save. We stop these bastards and somewhere along the line we’ve prevented someone being taken or killed by them. But I ask the same questions all the time. The difference is that you’re good at cleaning up the mess. Me, I’m a politician.’

  Two CROPs men were doing a creep round the lodge, looking for any signs of life. They had to be careful because there was still the potential, though unlikely, scenario that Handyside or some of his team were still there and fancied a shoot-out with the police. ‘There’s lights on in every room, but we can’t see any signs of life,’ the lead officer reported. ‘We’re going in closer.’ The men were methodical and would take as long as they needed to make sure Macallan and the teams had all the information they needed before deciding to pile in.

  ‘I wonder if he’s taken her with him?’ Macallan said.

  There was another call from the CROPs men before O’Connor could answer her. ‘The rooms that we can see into are clear. There’s one room to the back of the lodge with the curtains drawn. Can’t see in. Any instructions?’

  ‘Fuck it. She might be dying in there.’ Macallan made the call to send in the firearms team and she would be close behind them.

  The front door was unlocked. The lead team entered the lodge and methodically swept one room at a time. They left the room with the curtains drawn till last in case of a trap, and once they’d cleared the upstairs part they repositioned round the door of the back bedroom.

  The team leader carefully tried the door handle – it was free. He pushed down and burst into the room.

  ‘Jesus Christ. Get the medic in here.’

  Christine Swan’s head hung forward, her chin resting on her chest. The team leader dropped his gun and went down on his knees. There was no sign of blood. He said ‘Christine’ several times and put his fingers against her neck.

  ‘She’s alive!’

  Macallan came into the room as he said it and almost cried with relief. ‘Thank God.’ She knelt down beside Swan and saw she was unconscious but breathing noisily.

  Within minutes the medics hurried into the room and set to work on the girl. When they cut her bonds and laid her on the floor she looked the colour of death, but they worked calmly – apart from telling the audience to fuck off out of it and give them room
. Macallan nodded to the firearms team to clear the room and make space for what had to be done to treat the girl, then she turned back to the medics.

  ‘Just one thing, guys. This is a crime scene so disturb as little as possible. Is she going to be okay?’

  ‘I can’t be sure, but my guess is she’s drugged and it’s a heavy dose,’ the medic replied. ‘We need to get her out of here as soon as possible.’

  Macallan left them to it and wanted to hug O’Connor when he came in. He felt the same way, but they kept their distance. ‘Thank God, John,’ she said. ‘I was sure they’d killed her.’

  She got one of the team to make a call to Thompson, who was still with Ricky Swan, to let him know his daughter was safe and on her way to hospital. ‘Take Ricky to the hospital. We can at least give him that.’

  Ten minutes later Christine was in the back of an ambulance behind a traffic car burning rubber and making sure anything in their way was pushed off to the side of the road.

  Macallan left O’Connor at the lodge to look after the forensics teams while she drove to the hospital, at a slower speed than the ambulance and traffic car leading it. By the time she arrived Christine was already being examined and hooked up to a drip. Ricky was in a waiting room with Thompson and a couple of detectives from her team. He looked like a broken man and seemed to have aged ten years, but given what he’d been through it was hardly surprising. He looked up then stood when Macallan walked in, his eyes puffy and bloodshot.