RIOT ACT: Charlie Fox book two

by Zoe Sharp

  Somehow, I knew who they were before I saw their faces clearly.

  West was in the centre, with Harlow and Drummond flanking him. Garton-Jones’s men. They advanced with an arrogant confidence that only faltered slightly when they saw the dog.

  Friday had started to growl as soon as he’d heard West’s voice, pulling his lips back to emphasise his teeth. Even his neck seemed thicker, his collar going tight around the engorged muscles.

  “If you’ve come to burn the boy, you’re too late,” Sean said. “He’s gone.”

  “He won’t get far,” West said, almost lazily. He looked at the burning Patrol with the satisfaction of someone admiring their own handiwork. “After all, your transport seems to be out of action. I don’t think the RAC will be able to fix that by the side of the road, will they?”

  As if at some unspoken signal, Harlow and Drummond started towards us then, closing in on Madeleine and me. Sean had said that Madeleine wasn’t a field agent, hadn’t had the training, but I just had time to see her let out a dreadful cry and charge forwards to meet Harlow head on. Then my attention was lost in my own problems.

  Drummond launched in with a crafty look on his face. We’d crossed swords before and he’d made the mistake of not taking me seriously. This time, his face said, he was more than ready for anything I might throw at him.

  Well, almost anything.

  “Friday!” I yelled, pointing at Drummond. “Get him!”

  I wasn’t sure if Pauline had ever included an attack trigger word in the canine training classes she’d attended with the Ridgeback, but I needn’t have worried that Friday wouldn’t get the right idea.

  The dog streaked across the ground between us, his toenails digging up clods as he tore at the earth to gain extra purchase, head low and shoulders hunched.

  Drummond hesitated for a moment too long before he started to twist away. With a devious look in his eye, Friday bounded the last few strides, reached up, and with great deliberation clamped his jaws around the fly of the man’s jeans. It was like hearing the lock snapping shut on a prison door and knowing that, without the key, you’re going to have to use Semtex or a gas-axe to get it open again.

  Drummond instantly started squealing and battering at Friday’s head and body, although without noticeable effect. The dog just tucked his ears back flat and shut his eyes. His skull was so thick he might as well have been wearing a crash helmet.

  Then the pair of them overbalanced, and once the man was on the ground, I knew the Ridgeback had the upper hand. I had no qualms about leaving the two of them scuffling while I went to help Madeleine.

  I ran past Sean and West to get to her. The two men were circling each other with their hackles up. Both were on guard, moving with that easy grace that suggested training, and skill. Even injured, I was still confident that Sean could take him.

  I kept running.

  Harlow had managed to land a couple of hefty punches on the dark-haired girl by the time I reached them, and seemed to be enjoying himself.

  I threw myself onto his back in a move Friday would have been proud of, lacing one arm tight round his throat, and the other over his eyes. He just managed to get an elbow back before Madeleine took a run at him and brought her knee up hard. It seemed to be something of her trademark.

  I swear I felt two lumps come up into his throat before I let go. I just had time to dismount as the man folded, gasping.

  Madeleine and I both turned then to find Sean and West trading blows. Sean was taller and heavier than the other man, and he’d been taught by the nastiest people in the business, but he was still weak from the wound and the blood loss, and it was clear he was already tiring.

  Even so, he’d scored a few hits, and for a moment I thought he’d done enough to disorientate West. The smaller man’s aim was off. His punches seemed to be consistently missing Sean’s ducked chin, deflecting off to the side.

  Then I saw the determination in his eyes, and the cunning.

  My legs had carried me a couple of steps, my mouth opening to shout a warning, when West finally got lucky and landed the blow he’d been planning all along.

  He hit Sean, hard, just under the point of his left shoulder. West didn’t bother to keep his guard up after that. He already knew it was a punch that would finish the fight.

  Sean went backwards silently, unable to spare the breath even to cry out. He twisted and fell, his whole body shuddering. His eyes were open, but there was only shock in them, and his breathing was quick and shallow. The blood started to well up, passing through the layers of dressing, tracking across the front of his shirt. It glistened in the firelight.

  West gave him a savage smile, and moved in for the kill.

  A wheaten blur suddenly shot past me and dived into the fray. Friday, bored with the game of ravaging at Drummond, had spotted a new target. His blood was up. His tribal instinct, so long contained beneath the veneer of domestication, had been let loose, and there was no stopping it now.

  By the time I saw the knife in West’s hand, it was too late. The dog had already started its run, muscles meshing smoothly under the skin as he powered forwards with a single-minded purpose.

  I yelled Friday’s name, but he didn’t hear me. Or if he did, he was too far beyond control to listen and obey.

  I saw West’s lips stretch back in a parody of the dog’s grimace as Friday attacked. The man took a couple of quick steps backwards, and for a moment I thought he meant to retreat, but it was just a bluff. He held his left arm out as he started to turn, a red flag that Friday couldn’t resist.

  “Friday!” I shouted desperately. “No! Leave him!”

  The Ridgeback gathered himself and leapt with perfect co-ordination and timing, clamping his jaws round the man’s exposed forearm just as he reached the crest of his jump. The sheer momentum should have carried West right off his feet.

  As it was, the man allowed himself to be spun about, pivoting on his toes to keep his balance. His right arm swung round towards the dog’s body, the blade flashing in the dull light.

  I’ll never forget the scream that Friday gave out as the knife went in. It was horrible, and oddly human. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a noise like it, and I pray that I never will again.

  West stabbed him hard enough to sink the blade into the dog’s flank right up to the hilt. Even so, Friday wouldn’t give up his grip without a fight. He hung on bravely, taking two quick, nasty blows about the head before he let go at last and dropped, bleeding, to the stony ground.

  I was moving forwards before the Ridgeback had hit the deck. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him struggling gamely to rise. This time it was Madeleine who called my name, told me to stop. Her voice was high with alarm.

  I paid no more attention to her warnings than Friday had done to mine. I just had to hope that the end result wouldn’t be the same.

  West grinned as he jumped away from the dog, waving the knife that ran crimson with his blood in front of me. Seeking to taunt. All it did was brace my courage.

  As I closed on him, he tried a couple of swift slashes to test my reflexes, didn’t seem worried that they failed to connect. He was high on confidence, the conviction of his own invincibility running through him like fire.

  He came at me with the knife held underarm, aiming to drive it upwards into my body, to slit me open from stomach to breastbone like a snared rabbit.

  On the upstroke, I grabbed the top of his wrist tight with both hands outstretched, thumbs overlapping to form a vee. I made no attempt to wrestle the knife from his grasp, which would have been stupid, and probably lethal.

  Instead I used the force of his own charge to swing his arm up and out to the side. Still holding his wrist I stepped inside it, underneath it, turning my back into West’s body as I did so, as though we were partners in some deadly form of old-time dancing.

  Our arms reached the top of their arc and gathered speed on the way down. I had control now, using his own size and weight against him. I tighte
ned my fingers around his hand, then, still wrapped firmly in his own fist, I plunged the knife down and sank it into West’s right leg at the top of his thigh.

  I felt the blade go in, tugging and tearing. It glanced off the bone, then settled deep into flesh. West howled much less convincingly than Friday had done, and I was aware of a fierce blast of grim satisfaction. It left a dark and bitter taste in my mouth.

  By the time I turned to face him, West was on the ground, writhing. Both hands were clamped round the handle of the knife, which was all I could see protruding from his leg. Blood was welling from the wound in gushing spurts like a burst water main coming up through clay.

  Numbly, I left him there and stumbled over to kneel by Friday’s body. The dog lifted his head as I reached him, and begged me with those big expressive eyes to make his pain go away. There was a trickle of blood coming out of his nose, and his sides rose and fell shallowly, as though he was afraid to breathe. The sight of him stung my eyes with tears.

  Madeleine had helped Sean to his feet. He moved across, producing from the side pocket of his trousers the sling he’d discarded earlier. He thrust it into my hand as he came past.

  “Here, stop the bleeding with this and watch he doesn’t bite you,” he said. He still looked pale. “You OK?”

  I nodded, and he carried on, bending over West.

  Loudly, with expletives, West was demanding a doctor, and an ambulance. He’d pulled out a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and was clumsily trying to knot that round his thigh. Sean eyed him coldly, and made no moves to help.

  Then, after a few moments he reached down and took hold of the knife’s greasy handle.

  West’s body jerked at the touch. “No, no!” he shouted. “Let them do it at the hospital. Don’t move it. I’ll bleed to death.”

  Sean cocked an eyebrow at that less-than-convincing argument, and hauled the knife straight out of the wound with a vicious jerk. West bucked and twisted, swearing.

  “You didn’t think,” Sean demanded quietly, “that I was going to leave you with a concealed weapon, did you, you sick fucker?”

  West stopped thrashing about long enough to spit at him. Sean leaned closer, ignoring the splatter of phlegm that landed near his feet.

  “Did you know that you can pick up virulent infections from dogs’ blood?” he lied conversationally, then turned on his heel and walked away, with the polluted knife still dangling from his fingers.

  Sean moved back to where Madeleine and I were trying to patch up Friday’s wound. He held the knife out towards me without speaking, and for a moment I didn’t understand what he was showing me.

  It was just a knife. A combat knife with a long serrated blade and a camouflage-coloured plastic non-slip handle. Then I suddenly realised where I’d seen it before.

  Well, maybe not that particular knife, but one very much like it.

  In fact, I hadn’t seen the blade. That had been buried deep in Harvey Langford’s chest, but the rest was identical.

  I didn’t have time to react to the discovery, though, because it very quickly became apparent we weren’t alone any more. That the burning Patrol had served as a beacon for trouble.

  Madeleine and Sean turned a slow circle, staring out beyond the area lit by the flames. I came to my feet, also, aware of a tightening in my chest, a drumming in my ears.

  Slowly, gradually, there came the slip and slither of feet approaching across the rubble from all sides until at last more than a dozen men took shape out of the darkness, and formed a semicircular perimeter in front of us.

  A final figure appeared, and they parted to let him through. Ian Garton-Jones looked much as he had done at our last meeting, shaven-headed and dressed in black. There was one notable exception, however.

  This time, he was carrying a double-barrelled shotgun, and he was pointing it unswervingly in our direction.

  Twenty-eight

  The shotgun was a twelve gauge Browning with stacked over-and-under barrels, a middle-of-the-range sportsman’s gun. Garton-Jones probably used it for clays.

  A brief picture of one of my old army weapons’ handling instructors flashed into my mind at that point. There was nothing to beat a shotgun for house clearance, he’d said. In a confined space you hardly even had to aim. They were deadly.

  On open ground, though, there was always a chance you could sprint out of effective range. Providing you were prepared to risk it that the gun hadn’t been choked down too far, and the shooter’s aim wasn’t too accurate. With a normal spread pattern of the shot you’d probably escape serious injury at anything over thirty metres. Forty, to be on the safe side.

  I glanced across at Sean, but he had that stubborn look about him that said he wasn’t going to run away from this one, even if he got the opportunity. And besides, Friday wasn’t in any state to sprint anywhere. There was no way I was going to abandon the Ridgeback to Garton-Jones’s tender ministrations.

  “Let that dog loose on me or any of my men,” he’d said, “and I’ll personally break its spine.”

  I stood my ground.

  West squirmed round, recognised his boss, and started making a lot of noise. He pointed to the knife which was still in Sean’s hand, screaming that we’d stabbed him, and exhorting Garton-Jones to shoot us.

  Garton-Jones silenced him with a dark look, the play from the firelight emphasising the older man’s deep eye sockets, making it difficult to read him. He jerked his head to one of his men, who approached warily and snatched the knife away from Sean.

  The man trotted back across to Garton-Jones and handed it over. He studied the knife for a long time, turning the blood-smeared blade over so it caught the light.

  “Look at it,” West shouted then. “It’s just the same as the one they used to kill that vigilante bloke.”

  I half-turned in surprise at his words. Whatever tactic I’d been expecting from West, that certainly wasn’t it. My eye caught Harlow and Drummond, both now back on their feet and trying to merge in with the other security men. They looked edgy, ill at ease.

  Sean ignored them, pinning West with a contemptuous stare. “And just why would I want to do a thing like that?” he demanded in a deadly quiet tone.

  West tried to stand, but his leg wouldn’t support him. He fell back heavily, addressing Garton-Jones rather than Sean.

  “Like I told you, Langford knew Meyer was trying to take over the turf now he was back on Copthorne,” he said, the lies forcing the sweat out of his skin. “He knew Meyer had killed the Gadatra boy for getting his brother into the shit. That’s why they got rid of him.”

  Sean took a step forwards then, intent. “You miserable, lying little—”

  “That’s enough,” Garton-Jones rapped. He brought the barrels of the Browning up, just to hammer home his point. “I think I’d like your hands where I can see them, all of you. Now – if you don’t mind.”

  Sean put his out by his sides. The left one wouldn’t lift more than a few inches. The blood had reached as far as his hand, trickling down his wrist and dripping from his fingers. West must have blown my father’s neat and careful stitches wide open. He was going to be livid.

  At that moment we caught the sounds of shouting, breaking glass, and missiles being thrown. The riot was moving closer, only a few streets away now. The sky was lightening up all the time as more houses fell to the flames.

  “I think we should continue this interesting discussion from a fallback position,” Garton-Jones said. He raised his voice. “Let’s move it out.”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Sean said, between clenched teeth. “My brother’s still out there.”

  Garton-Jones regarded him levelly. “It wasn’t optional, Mr Meyer,” he said. His cold stare shifted to me. “Ladies first, I think.” He waved the shotgun briefly in my direction. “Over here where I can keep an eye on you, Miss Fox, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  I glanced at Sean before I moved, caught the faintest flicker of his eyes, and understood instinctively wh
at he was driving at. To follow Garton-Jones’s orders, I kept out of his line of fire, and that meant crossing behind Sean.

  In the middle of Sean’s belt, tucked into the small of his back, lay the Glock. As I moved close behind him it took only the smallest of movements to reach out for the gun. My right hand closed round the butt, warmed to the touch from his body heat. I felt Sean breathe in, loosening the barrel to my grip.

  Smoothly, I brought the gun out into view round his body. I didn’t trust Garton-Jones’s bulky clothing not to be hiding body armour of his own, so I took a bead dead centre on the exposed flesh of his neck, just below the ear.

  Garton-Jones heard the precise, sharp double click of the first round snapping into the breech, and froze.

  The barrels of the Browning were down and away from me by then. It would have taken him much too long to have brought them to bear. He turned his head slowly, blinked twice into the business end of the Glock’s muzzle, ten feet from him, then almost seemed to relax. He turned his head back towards Sean.