Target

by Simon Kernick

  Bollocks. She knew there was no way of getting past him to the barn doors, not in her current state. She was going to have to wait for an opportunity. Except there wasn't any time. Shit.

  Keeping the door open just a crack, she leaned against the wall and kept an eye on what was going on outside, hoping she'd get a lucky break before she collapsed with exhaustion.

  She had no idea how much time passed. It could have been fifteen minutes. It could have been half an hour. During that time she saw two other men – one immense with a shaven head, the other in his fifties with grey hair – go in and out the back of the lorry. They were carrying what looked like shorn-off drainpiping, tubes that were sealed at either end and filled with something heavy enough that it took two of them just to carry one of them. She wondered what it was they were doing, and what it might have to do with the kidnapping and murder of Jenny Brakspear, but they worked in silence, giving her no clues.

  Finally, just as Tina was beginning to despair, the moustachioed guy in the cab shouted something she couldn't make out to the two in the rear, then jumped down, leaving the door open, and walked towards the back of the lorry. Tina pulled the door open a little further and saw the other two men get out the back, and then the three of them went out of view. Opening it still further, she saw them disappear through a door at the end of the barn.

  This was it. Her one and only chance. She didn't hesitate, hopping across the floor in the direction of the front of the lorry, hoping she could use it as cover to get to the main doors, and freedom. The effort made her feel faint but she also felt a desperate elation at the thought that she might make it.

  She was already promising herself a bottle of decent Rioja and a good smoke as reward for her pains when she heard harsh laughter and saw that they were coming back into the barn.

  She was only half a yard from the driver's side door as they emerged. Knowing that the second one of the men looked her way she was finished, she toppled forward, grabbed the driver's seat for leverage and heaved herself up into the cab with all the strength she could muster.

  It didn't sound like anyone had heard or seen her. There was more laughter, and someone said 'Cheers' in a hard Northern Irish accent similar to her kidnapper's. Tina was panting with the effort, her last reserves of energy seeping out of her, yet she knew she couldn't stay lying across the front seats of the cab. She had to get somewhere out of sight, in case the bald man with the moustache came back.

  Biting her lip hard so she didn't cry out in pain, she crawled into the small rest area behind the front seats where the driver slept. There was an old duvet crumpled up on the dirty mattress, and she pulled it over her, lying as still as possible, her heart thumping in her chest.

  Only five metres from freedom, but at that moment it might as well have been a thousand miles.

  Sixty-one

  'So you're saying this has something to do with Sir Henry Portman?' Big Barry Freud asked, sounding as shocked as Bolt had felt when he'd seen the photo fifteen minutes earlier.

  'It's too big a coincidence otherwise,' Bolt answered, leaning against one of the patrol cars, looking over at Dominic Moynihan's front door where a uniformed officer was rolling out more bright yellow scene-of-crime tape. 'We're going to need to bring him in, find out what he knows.'

  'On what charge? So far, all we've got against him is he appears in a photo in a dead man's house.'

  'Then we should at least put him under surveillance.'

  'Sorry, old mate, but right now we're stretched to the limit. With everything that's going on, I doubt if there's a spare surveillance team this side of Hadrian's Wall.'

  Bolt felt his frustration growing. 'Well we'd better find one or all we're going to be left with is more dead bodies and a missing killer who's got away from us again.'

  'How did he get away? The Mazda's still there, isn't it?'

  'It is. He must have cottoned on to the fact that we were on to him and got himself some other form of transport.'

  'Or he's still there somewhere,' said Big Barry. 'We've got people flooding the area, and they're setting up roadblocks on slip roads off the M11.'

  Bolt thought this sounded a lot like shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted, but didn't think it was worth pressing the point. Instead, he concentrated on another issue that had been concerning him. 'What I want to know is how come we only picked up the Mazda at junction six. It must have come up on a camera somewhere before that.'

  Big Barry sighed. 'It was picked up on the A120 near Stanstead airport twenty minutes earlier, but whoever was meant to be watching for it didn't react quick enough.'

  'Shit.'

  'My sentiments exactly. But there's nothing we can do about that now.'

  'What about the lorry itself? Are we any closer to IDing it?'

  'Not yet. Some CCTV images of a possible vehicle have been sent to the FSS for analysis, but we haven't heard anything back yet.'

  'At least we know that Hook's been using the blue Mazda, and it was parked overnight in the area the ANPR narrowed it down to, which confirms he's got a base up there somewhere. Since the gas hasn't been released yet, my guess is the lorry will be up there too.'

  'It's still too big an area to be of any use to us, Mike,' said Barry. 'We're talking about close to two hundred square miles of north Essex countryside.'

  'I've still got Obanje checking through rental properties in the area, but the last time I spoke to him he was snowed under. Can you get him some help?'

  'I'll see whether I can move some of your team on to it. What are you going to do?'

  'I want to drive up there so that I can be on the spot quickly if we do ID a rental place that looks suspicious.'

  'It sounds like it could be a wild goose chase. I could use you back here, old mate.'

  But Bolt insisted, knowing that he'd done enough in the past twenty-four hours to warrant being cut some slack by his boss. He also knew he'd be of little use back at HQ, where in effect he'd be sitting round and waiting. He might also be of little use heading up into rural Essex, but at least he'd feel like he was doing something. At that moment he had a desperate urge just to drive.

  Big Barry didn't force the issue, so Bolt called Obanje, who'd told him that five of the nine properties whose tenants he'd been checking out in detail were definitely kosher rentals, and he was still trying to find out about the other four. Bolt gave him the good news that he'd now be getting help on his task and wrote down the four addresses still to be confirmed as kosher and rung off.

  Mo Khan was making his own mobile phone call a few yards away. He ended it and walked over, unable to completely hide the anxiety on his face. 'I've just been speaking to Saira,' he said wearily.

  'How is she?'

  'Still blissfully ignorant. Unlike me. I don't know what to do, boss. If anything happened and I could have done something about it...'

  'Are she and the kids at home?'

  'Yeah, they're all there. My mother-in-law's over at the moment.'

  Bolt put an arm round his friend's shoulders and looked him in the eye. 'I know how you feel, Mo, I honestly do. But right now, I think home is the best place for them.'

  Mo nodded. 'Yeah, you're probably right. I just wish we had a better idea of who or what they're targeting. Is there any news from HQ?'

  'Nothing yet. But I've got the addresses of four suspicious rental properties in the area where the blue Mazda was last night. It's possible one of them could be the one we're looking for. Let's go and check them out.'

  Mo didn't look convinced, but he didn't say anything as they walked back to the car.

  It had just turned ten past six in the evening. The gas had been in the country for just over twelve hours.

  Sixty-two

  Paul Wise was sitting on his veranda with his second gin and tonic of the evening when the mobile phone in his left trouser pocket rang. Hook was calling, and Wise wondered what he wanted. He hadn't expected to hear anything more from him until after the job was
done, and his mood immediately darkened at the prospect that something might have gone wrong. Charmaine was out with girlfriends in the nearby town of Kyrenhia, and the staff had all gone home, so he took the call from his seat.

  'They're closing in on us,' said Hook, his voice calm.

  'That's not what I want to hear.'

  'I've got rid of Fallon, but he managed to alert the authorities to parts of the operation.'

  'What are you saying exactly?' Wise demanded irritably.

  'We have everything in place, but we need to bring the timings forward. It's too risky leaving the cargo where it is until ten p.m., and I'm concerned that we're going to have trouble getting it to the target site, so I think we should choose another.'

  Wise looked at his watch. It was 8.30 at his home, and darkness had fallen; 6.30 in the UK. The operation, so long in the planning, was beginning to unravel, thanks to the interference of one man. He might be dead now but the obstacles he'd placed in their way were still there.

  But Wise wasn't the type of man to worry too much about things he could do nothing about, and the beauty of his plan was that as long as the bomb went off and caused both chaos and casualties (preferably significant), neither the exact location nor the time actually mattered too much.

  'Are all the elements we discussed in place?' he asked. 'The ones which will ensure success?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then move the cargo as soon as is practical. Aim for the target site, but if it gets intercepted, I'm not worried as long as it's still delivered.'

  'It will be.'

  'Make sure everything gets cleared up, and get rid of the phone you're using. I don't want to hear from you again. When I see confirmation of success on Sky News, you'll receive the balance of your money.'

  Wise hung up and stared out to sea, gazing at the patchwork of stars in the night sky. If all went well tonight, he would earn millions. The thought made him smile as he put the gin and tonic to his lips and took a sip, wondering what it would be like to die choking on mustard gas.

  Sixty-three

  The pain in her foot had reduced to a dull throb, but Tina was feeling faint and desperately thirsty as she lay on her side in the lorry, barely covered by the thin material of the foul-smelling duvet, trying to work out her next move. The three men were still outside talking, their conversation, when she could hear it, boring and innocuous, the light-hearted tone suggesting that their job, whatever it was, was done.

  She was torn between staying put in the hope that the lorry would leave eventually, and slipping out the passenger side and making for the barn doors. In the state she was in, weakened and hardly able to walk, the latter course seemed the more risky of the two. But it was difficult to think straight, difficult even to imagine how she'd survived until now.

  She tensed, hearing another sound. It was the barn doors opening, followed a few seconds later by his voice, the harsh Northern Irish accent cutting across the barn like a rusty blade. 'What the hell's going on?'

  'We're just having a quick drink,' said another Northern Irish accent in response, but he sounded less sure of himself. 'Everything's ready.'

  'There'll be plenty of time for a drink later. Everyone needs their wits about them before then. Come on, we need to get moving.'

  Tina cursed. Now that he was back, her escape was going to be discovered very soon, and then she was finished.

  The voices faded out and she risked poking her head out to take a quick look round. The barn doors were shut, but she was certain he hadn't locked them behind him. Barely five metres away. If she made a dash for it – or the closest she could get to that, anyway – she might just make it.

  There was a sudden sound of footsteps just outside and she ducked back down.

  Just in time, because a second later she heard someone getting into the driver's seat. Something clattered in the hollow well between the seats, only inches from where she was lying, and she heard him open the glovebox and fumble inside for something.

  Tina lay absolutely still, holding her breath, until she heard him clamber back out.

  There were voices outside again, but they seemed to be coming from the back of the lorry. Once again she risked peering above the duvet.

  That was when she saw it. A mobile phone in the well beneath the handbrake. He'd obviously dropped it when he was messing about in the glovebox, and he'd be back for it soon.

  But Tina also knew it was her best chance. Mobile phones can be traced to within the nearest few metres, which meant if the police could trace the phone they could find her.

  Grabbing it, she flicked through the menu to the 'create text' command before typing silently and furiously in block capitals ITS TINA IN DANGER DONT TEXT BACK TRACE THIS NUMBER NOW, praying that she was in a decent reception area. She remembered Mike Bolt's mobile number because it started with the same five-digit prefix as hers and was then followed by an equally memorable 787878. She punched it in and pressed Send, then deleted the message and returned to the main menu.

  She'd just put the phone back when she heard footsteps again, this time coming from both sides of the lorry. She felt a stab of pure terror. Were they coming for her?

  Ignoring the nausea she was suddenly experiencing, she slipped back under the duvet, curling up and shutting her eyes, as if this might somehow prevent them from seeing her.

  Two people got in the cab, one on either side.

  'Right, we all ready?' said a voice – not his – from outside.

  The driver and his passenger said they both were, and Tina wondered what it was they were ready for. She also wondered where he was. Was he on his way upstairs to finish her off?

  'You've got the GPS coordinates of your destination,' continued the man from outside, who sounded like he was in charge. 'Park up there and then you call me. OK O'Toole? So I know you got there?'

  'Sure.'

  Underneath her makeshift cover, Tina willed them to hurry up. Before he discovered she was gone.

  'And go straight there,' continued the guy outside the lorry. 'Don't stop for anyone or anything. Do you understand? Otherwise you don't get paid a penny. It's a quarter past seven now. I want to hear you're there by eight. Get going, and good luck.'

  The lorry's engine kicked into life, and Tina allowed herself a small sigh of relief as the driver turned the wheel and drove through the barn doors, out into the gathering darkness.

  At last she was putting some distance between herself and him.

  Now it was simply a matter of staying put, keeping quiet, and waiting.

  Sixty-four

  Bolt and Mo drove northwards into Essex on the B184, avoiding the M11 where, as Big Barry Freud had predicted, roadblocks had been set up on all the slip roads. Traffic was still heavy for much of the way though, and their progress was slow. Several times on the drive helicopters flew low overhead, only serving to add to the already high levels of tension in the car.

  For Mo, it was fear for his family and for the city in which he lived. For Bolt, whose mother lived only twenty miles away in St Albans, it was the same. But it was also the intense frustration at constantly being one step behind a quarry he'd been after for years. Someone whose callous disregard for his fellow human beings had ruined so many lives, and who, for the first time, had almost certainly killed someone close to Bolt.

  He'd been thinking about Tina a lot that day, more than he'd let on to anyone else, and with a sense of real regret. Beneath her cool, often distant exterior, he'd known there was a passionate woman there, yet he'd never managed to bring her out into the open. He couldn't help feeling that they could have been really good together. Now he was sure that if they found Hook's hideout, they'd also find her body, and he knew that this would be one of the most difficult sights of his life.

  There'd only be one small consolation, and that would be if they also got hold of the man responsible for murdering her. Bolt had killed before, on two occasions, and he knew with total certainty that if he had Hook at his mercy he wouldn't hesit
ate to do it again.

  But why was Hook involved in all this? And was Sir Henry Portman his client? They seemed unlikely partners in crime, yet Bolt was now convinced Sir Henry was part of the conspiracy.

  His mobile rang, interrupting his thoughts. It was Big Barry Freud's office number, and he immediately put it on to loudspeaker.

  'Where are you, Mike?'

  'Just short of Great Dunmow on the B184.'

  'Good. We've managed to track down the tenants of two of the four properties Obanje was looking at, and they're definitely kosher. We also think a third one is, because we've spoken to the guy who's letting it, and we're just doing a background check on him now. However, the fourth one's more interesting. It's a three-month company let, taken out three weeks ago, and with the rent paid upfront. It's in the name of an investment company registered in Palm Beach, Florida, but there's no answer on the number supplied for their UK offices, or from their head office, and we can't find any published accounts for the company either, or a website.'

  'Sounds promising,' said Bolt, looking at Mo, who managed a tight smile in return. This was exactly the kind of dummy company Hook would use to cover his tracks. Doubtless, Big Barry would take full credit for the lead, even though he'd been reluctant to let Bolt look into it in the first place, but right now that didn't matter. 'Who's the registered tenant?'

  'A Mr Andrew Regent, supposedly one of their employees, but no one from the agency's ever met him, and there's no one of that name registered at the property. The agency have given us a mobile number for him but I don't want to call it yet in case it alerts Hook to our enquiries.'

  'Which property is it?'

  'It's called Willow End, a farm near a village called Finchingfield, just off the B1057. How far away are you?'

  Bolt remembered it as the second of the addresses he'd fed into his GPS, and he brought up the details now. 'About fifteen minutes. Ten if I put my foot down.'