Cog in the Machine

by Nigel Shinner

  “If it wasn’t, could I get a kiss?” He didn’t blink as he asked.

  “Are you sure you didn’t take a bang to the head?” she teased.

  “Maybe. Or perhaps the near-death experience has loosened my balls and I’m taking chances that I’d normally avoid.” He held her gaze.

  “Maybe.” She smiled and leaned into him, pressing her lips against his, closing her steel blue eyes as she did so.

  “Mmmm, I wonder what other chances I could take.” The smile that graced his lips wasn’t forced, as everything since the crash had been.

  “My father may forgive you for breaking his car, but not for breaking my heart.” It was Georgia’s turn to hold his gaze. She wasn’t smiling. Her eyes glowed with cautious sincerity.

  “I thought your heart was made of Kevlar, like a bulletproof vest.”

  “I figure your attention will be armour-piercing.”

  Dom leaned in to kiss her. This time it lingered into new territory; a place where both their feelings could overlap without judgement or expectation.

  “So, why are you here?” Dom asked as soon as he felt her pull away.

  “Because I was concerned for you.” Her face filled with confusion.

  “No. Why were you at the race?”

  “Oh. Sorry,” she laughed at her own misunderstanding. “It’s my dad’s racing team - of course I’m going to come and watch.”

  “Of course.” He joined in with the laughter.

  “And I hear race car drivers are really hot.”

  “Only if they haven’t flipped their car over seventeen times.”

  She answered with a belly laugh. There was nothing to laugh about in reality. The humour of the situation was the only way to steer away from the many other possible outcomes of the crash.

  “How you feeling, kid?” Richards interrupted as he entered the maintenance area.

  “I’m ok.” Dom was immediately dropped back into feeling sorry for himself once more. “I’m really sorry about all this…”

  “Hey, don’t blame yourself. I’ve seen the replays and there was very little you could have done. We’re just happy that you’re in one piece.”

  “Thank you, Dick.” Dom attempted one of the fake smiles he’d been dishing out since the crash.

  “No worries… oh and just so you know, the Porsche team has had to pull out due to mechanical failure. It’s no consolation but I thought you’d like to know.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “We’ll be all wrapped up in about an hour and on our way. Are you still up for the other job?” Richards’ expression was hopeful.

  “Yeah. Why not.”

  “Good. See you in a bit.” With that he was gone.

  “What other job?” Georgia asked.

  This was the point at which Dom would have to be truthful and come across as foolhardy, or lie and save her from the harsh reality of the true nature of her father’s business. Either way, the job would still need doing and the truth would probably come out eventually. Tiny white lie, or a massive black fabrication; even the options for deceit had implications.

  He hated these kinds of decisions. If choices came with a steering wheel and pedals, he’d know what to do.

  They didn’t. He was torn.

  Chapter 45

  With their race officially over, and nobody from the team wanting to stay and watch an event they were no longer a part of, the crew left the venue with barely six hours of the race run. The small convoy - the crew minibus, the technical support van towing the wrecked BMW, and Georgia’s white Audi A3 – congregated in the carpark of a McDonald’s just a mile from the track.

  Dom was leaning against the support van, washing down his fries with a strawberry milkshake when Georgia walked up to him holding a Happy Meal box.

  “Let me guess – you collect the toys,” Dom asked.

  “Busted! I live for the plastic shit I can get with my burger.” She smiled that perfect smile and leaned up against the van with him, her shoulder touching his as though she needed the contact.

  “At least I know where to take you for a meal now.”

  “What’s next?” Her tone was less than playful.

  “I don’t understand. What’s next with us, or what’s happening now?” Dom tried not to appear too confused but if he was being honest with himself, he could only see the next five minutes. A personal crisis had that effect. It funnelled all thoughts to within a narrow time frame, the here and now and very little beyond.

  “Both.”

  “Well… I have a job to do tonight and that’s what’s happening now.” Dom paused to choose his words carefully. “And with us… we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Her face was a picture of uncertainty. She remained silent and tucked into her meal.

  Richards walked over, a coffee cup in his hand.

  “Are you sure you’re up for tonight? I can ask one of the other boys to do it if-”

  “I’ll do it!” Dom cut in.

  “What are you supposed to be doing?” Georgia broke her silence with a curious frown.

  “A little driving job,” Dom answered.

  “Driving? You were nearly killed just a few hours ago and you want to get back in a car already.”

  “The sooner you get back on the horse the better,” Richards piped in.

  “What he said,” muttered Dom, nodding.

  Georgia shook her head. Disbelief was an understatement.

  “And who’s put you up to this? Him?” Pointing at Richards. “My dad? Who?”

  “There’s no racing involved. I just have to drive somewhere and drop something off.” Dom explained.

  “Then why can’t someone else do it?” It wasn’t a question, it was a realisation. “No, they want you to do it because they need a skilled driver. Jesus! What scam have you got yourself caught up in?”

  “Look, Georgia,” Richards replied. “It’s just a bit of business that your father needs doing. There’s no risk involved but we felt…”

  “You felt? You felt? You mean you didn’t want to get your hands dirty and you’d thought you’d use Dom like he’s some expendable asset.”

  There wasn’t any point continuing the argument. Georgia’s animation was drawing the attention of the patrons of the fast-food restaurant.

  “We needed someone with skill just to be on the safe side. The job is a simple drop and go,” Richards tried to reassure the young woman.

  “If it’s that simple, then I want to tag along.”

  “No. Your father wouldn’t allow that,” Richards insisted.

  “Don’t use my father in this!” Georgia snapped back.

  Dom’s eyes danced back and forth, as though watching an aggressive tennis rally. He understood the job to have some risk but with Georgia’s protestations and Richards’ vague explanations, he was only just realising that there was more risk involved than he’d been led to believe.

  “Whoa!” Dom butted in. “Look, I’m doing the job. Georgia, you’re not coming with me and that’s final. Dick, tell me when and where and let me get to it.”

  Richards reached into his pocket, pulling out a burner phone and handing it over.

  “We need to get you to Michaelwood services on the M5. I’ll drive you. At the far end of the carpark is the other BMW. There will be items in the glovebox for you. Also, there will be someone to meet you to give you the package. Understood?”

  Dom nodded, taking the phone as he did, confirming he knew the score and was ready.

  “At least let me drive you to the car,” Georgia said.

  There was no more time for disagreements. The three of them nodded at each other and the job had begun.

  The clock was ticking.

  Chapter 46

  Patience was not something that the Boss had in his DNA. He was petulant, impulsive and would force a situation to get it to fit his timeframe, regardless of the consequences. So having to sit and wait for his money to come rolling in was like a slow, painful torture.
He was tied in place. He might as well have been tied to a table with water dripping onto his forehead. It was preferable to standing on a piece of waste ground just off the M5.

  Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop.

  Tick, tock, tick, tock.

  “What’s the fucking time?” They hadn’t been parked up an hour and the Boss was already halfway through a pack of twenty cigarettes, pacing back and forth, trying to speed up the world for his benefit.

  “Seven thirty.” Wade flashed his fake Tag Heuer at his employer.

  “Fuck sake!” The Boss flicked the butt of his cigarette into the air and had the half-smoked pack out of his jacket pocket before the butt hit the ground.

  “How reliable is your source?” Wade chipped in, hoping that conversation might act as the distraction that would keep the Boss on an even keel.

  “He’s a lying fucking scumbag for the Tall Man, so it’s anybody’s guess really…” The statement was broken by the lighting of yet another cigarette. “…but if this info is bullshit I’ll give you his name and you can go and break his legs for me.”

  “Whatever you need, Chief.”

  The Boss took a stroll over to a bush and unzipped his flies. He might have been impatient, but his bladder waited for no man.

  The sound of the traffic racing along the unseen motorway was unsettling him. What if the vehicle carrying his money was in one of those cars? What if the information had been wrong? What if the rendezvous was at a completely different location?

  The paranoia was fuelled by the company he kept. Liars, cheats and criminals – his peers, his employees, his friends. Every word uttered to him was second guessed. The only person he could trust was himself. And if he’d ever had an employee like himself, he wouldn’t have believed a word they said.

  He zipped himself back up and returned to the van, drawing a lungful from the smoke smouldering between his lips. Another drag and he was at the filter once more. He took out the packet and gazed down at the image of a pair of blackened lungs on the front. The warning was written in Polish or some other Eastern European language; yet another ill-gotten gain from somebody else’s crime. The Boss had heard about a shipment of illegal cigarettes coming into the docks at Avonmouth about a month ago and decided that he should take ownership of the goods. Just because he could. Wade and Gibbo had to break a few bones that night, one being the skull of the ringleader of that particular enterprise. The word on the street was the guy couldn’t walk anymore and drooled constantly. The Boss didn’t care. Not his skull, not his problem.

  “I need to kill some time or I’m gonna go fucking nuts,” he said, replacing the packet in his jacket without removing a fresh smoke.

  “Do you want to play eye spy?” Wade joked. For all his silent menace, the Boss number one leg breaker had a sense of humour.

  “Sounds like fun.” The Boss walked around to the back of the grubby white Transit van and opened the back doors.

  Wade got out and followed.

  The Boss dragged the prone figure out onto the broken concrete ground and removed the bag from off of their head.

  “Eye spy with my little eye…” He unleashed an unforgiving haymaker to the centre of the victim’s face, “…something beginning with B.”

  “Broken nose?” Wade asked.

  The Boss just laughed and hit the stricken figure again.

  And again.

  Who said you couldn’t have fun playing childish games?

  Chapter 47

  It wasn’t a long journey. Forty-five minutes of mostly motorway driving which frustrated the guts out of Dom. He was the driver. He wasn’t the one to conform to something as restricting as the speed limit. So as a passenger, it was like having an itch that couldn’t be scratched.

  She parked the car in the bays furthest most from the services building, near to but not directly next to the black BMW that had already been delivered for the job.

  “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?” Georgia’s voice was low, as though the worry hung heavy, bearing weight against her vocal cords.

  “I’ve never known what I was getting myself into. I just go with where the excitement is and hope that nobody gets hurt.”

  “Do people often get hurt where you’re concerned?”

  Dom stared into the foot well as though it held the answer would spring from.

  “I was given a life sentence for the hurt I caused. I could say it wasn’t my fault. I could say it was because Dunstan blinded me with his shotgun. I could say it was an accident, but I won’t. I was involved. I was behind the wheel and there’s nothing that I can say or do to take that back.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she endeavoured.

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I ended a police officer’s career. He was doing the job he was paid to do – putting himself in harm’s way for the sake of the public. I was doing the job I was paid to do – skilfully getting away from a crime scene.”

  “Skilfully?” Georgia tried to make light of his guilt.

  “I’m a fuck-up of a human being.” For the first time since they had met, Dom’s voice was raised. “I don’t look at a situation for the risk in it. I look for the angle where I can make a quid and take what fun I can from it. I’ve only one skill and that’s when I’m behind the wheel. It’s all I’ve ever been good at.”

  Georgia recognised genuine sorrow when she saw it. She leaned in, gently kissing his cheek; a small offering for the gravity of remorse overwhelming the ordinarily buoyant man beside her.

  “I’m sure there are many things you are good at other than having a wheel in your hands. You make me laugh – that’s no mean feat.”

  “You’ll laugh at anything…” His eyes shot sideways, a smirk on his lips but still a pensive rigidity to his frame.

  “You’re a dickhead.” She punched his arm playfully.

  “And you’re a bitch.” He jabbed at her arm but missed.

  “If you didn’t have to be here, right now, where would you like to be?” Georgia wanted to change the subject. She wanted all his thoughts to be on something nice, something memorable, not to be thinking about the uncertainty of the task Dom had to do.

  “A beach,” Dom replied without hesitation.

  “Which beach? Here or abroad?”

  “I don’t know. Abroad, probably. I’ve never been on a foreign holiday, so I couldn’t say.”

  “We’ll have to change that.” Georgia gripped his hand and squeezed it.

  “Get some brochures for when I get back.” Dom squeezed her hand in return.

  “Butlin’s?”

  “If you like,” he laughed.

  “I like the beach too. We’ll go to one, after all this is over,” she said, hopefully.

  Dom turned toward her, staring into the steel blue eyes that had mesmerised him from the moment they first met. “Which beach would you like to go to?”

  She stared back, relishing the shared moment between them, “My dad used to take me to Cornwall to watch the surfing. I quite liked Newquay but found it a bit crowded at times.”

  “Bob took us on a family holiday down there one summer. It was nice. I prefer the Welsh beaches though.”

  The distance between them shortened.

  “I liked Tenby. I went there on a hen weekend a few years back. Where’s your favourite beach?”

  Dom pondered on the question for a moment, visions of past trips flashing through his mind as he tried to pick a favourite.

  “There’s a beach in West Wales where you can walk the sand on a busy day and still be invisible. Three miles of flat sand to stroll your troubles away. Nothing but the gulls for company. It’s beautiful,” he said, his expression softening as the memories wafted through his head.

  “That’s where we’ll go. What’s it called?”

  “Blue Stone.”

  “Sounds perfect.” She leaned in and pressed her lips against his.

  He responded, opening his mouth, tasting her. Her hands gripped the back of his h
ead, drawing him in. His arms encircled her tight body. For that moment, they were as one, lost in their first truly intimate moment.

  As though on cue, a grey Audi A6, a vehicle they both recognised, pulled up alongside.

  Slightly flustered, Dom lowered the window.

  “Are you ready for this?” Tommy McQuillan himself had ventured out to oversee this end of the job. One of the more senior warehouse men from Mach Tech was sitting in the passenger seat. Dom remembered his name, he was Gary.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  The warehouse man stepped out of the car, walking around to the rear of the BMW, popping the boot.

  Dom got out of Georgia’s car. He could feel stiffness in his back and neck, his ribs throbbed but only as he inhaled. Mentally, he was always ready. Physically, well, that was something else.

  “There are six bags containing half a million pounds each.” Gary opened one of the bags, taking out a bundle of fifty-pound notes. He threw the bundle at Dom to prove it was the genuine article. Before Dom could even register what was in his hand, the man snatched back the wad of notes and thrust it back into the black holdall.

  Without a pause, the warehouse man walked to the passenger door and gestured to the driver to get behind the wheel. Dom did as he was told.

  From the privacy of the vehicle, Gary opened the glove compartment, reaching for a zipped wallet. He opened the wallet and took out the contents.

  “This is a Glock 27.”

  Dom was stunned to see the firearm. This was not what he had signed up for.

  “Are you paying attention?” Gary bellowed.

  “Yeah… sure.”

  “Safety on. Safety off. Eject magazine. Replace magazine. Cock back the guard. Check if the chamber is empty.” The man demonstrated in rapid fashion the workings of the gun. “Got it?”

  “Got it!” Dom didn’t have it.

  “There’s fifteen rounds in each mag - don’t use it unless you have to.”

  Dom just nodded. All the previous talk of hurt and risk seemed null and void. He was in too deep.

  The man pulled a burner phone from the wallet.

  “This is only to be used in an emergency. It’s switched off for the moment but is fully charged. If you are cornered by the police…” The hasty delivery was paused while the man pondered over the next detail. “… or anyone else for the matter, pull the sim and the battery and throw it all away. Got it?”