by Robert White
THE FALL
Book 3 in Rick Fuller’s Manchester Trilogy
By
Robert White
www.robertwhiteauthor.co.uk
First published in the UK 30/03/17 by Robert White
Copyright @ Robert White 2017
Robert White has asserted his rights under the Copyright and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except for the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this work are fictional and do not represent the views of the author.
For my wife Nicola
I have dined with kings, I've been offered wings.
And I've never been too impressed.
(Bob Dylan)
Rick Fuller’s Story:
Her skin was cold to the touch, so pale, almost translucent. I held her tight, the only way I could think to give her warmth as we lay together on the cold stone floor of the barn.
Her eyes closed again. I called her name, but she didn’t respond.
Strong arms pulled me away from her, rolling me on my back. A guy in an aircrew helmet and overalls jabbed a needle in my arm and held up a drip. The pain in my groin was horrendous, I couldn’t move.
“Can you hear me, pal?”
I nodded.
“Can you hold this yourself?”
The same response.
He shot over to where Lauren lay and began to work on her. She had a drip too and another guy had a blood pressure cuff blowing up on her arm. He was shouting into his headset, numbers and instructions, my brain too muddled to compute them, my own blood loss beginning to dull my reasoning, taking me on the journey into darkness.
The Medevac crew would have flown from Belfast, but would need to fly us to Birmingham, to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Selly Oak. No doubt the guy with the headset was giving the heads up to the medical team there, telling them exactly what they had coming.
I could hear Des barking away somewhere in the background. Moments later, as I’d expected, things began to get dark.
I had never been a religious man. But just before I passed out I asked the Scot to say a prayer for Lauren North.
Des Cogan’s Story:
I watched as the pilot of the Medevac increased the power of the engines for take-off.
Rick and Lauren were aboard the Regiment-supplied aircraft, the Firm providing nothing but the best.
Knowing the on-board crew would be some of the finest trained medical staff in the world, knowing they would be experts in the treatment of trauma injuries and gunshot wounds, didn’t help me.
I’ll be honest with you right now, Doctor Kildare himself could have been on board that fucking chopper, and it wouldn’t have improved my mood.
As the powerful rotors blew snow into my face, filling my nostrils and ears, I couldn’t rid myself of my deep sense of foreboding.
Dipping my head and clearing my airways I saw JJ was leaning into the VW van we’d used to gain entry to the O’Donnell farm. He was packing what remained of our weapons and ammunition into a large holdall. Despite deep cuts to his hands, he was keeping busy, avoiding the awkward conversations that would inevitably follow about who may live or who may die.
Off to my left I heard feet on snow.
The crunching sound stopped a couple of feet from me; Cartwright, our MI6 handler had been aboard the helicopter. I examined him as he pulled on a pair of leather gloves that probably cost more than my entire shoe collection.
He wasn’t a big man, yet instantly commanded your respect. The combination of his deportment, intelligence and the total lack of any emotion, gave him an air of menace usually only found in more robust individuals.
He gestured toward the Medevac, now little more than a black speck on the horizon.
“They’re in good hands,” he said, using his finest bedside manner.
There was no need to answer the spook. Staring into his cold blue eyes, I waited for him to get to the point and say what he really wanted.
He gestured toward the devastation we had caused in the courtyard of the farm.
“Talk me through this mess, Desmond.”
I knew the drill.
“It’s no mess,” I said, stepping toward the carnage. “We got who we wanted…so did you.”
Declan O’Donnell was the first corpse we came to. He wore a red silk kimono which had ridden up as he’d fallen face down, revealing his bare backside. The massive exit wound in the centre of his back had torn his flesh open like a ghoulish flower. He had died before his face had met the snow-covered cobbles of the yard.
“Declan,” I said.
Cartwright nodded.
“And our man Clarke?”
I jutted my chin in the direction of the balcony of the main house. Joseph Clarke, the young man recruited by the Firm to spy on the O’Donnell family, the man who had become Declan’s lover and turned against the British Secret Service, lay on his back, his knees drawn bizarrely to his chest. His flesh still smouldered from the phosphorous grenade I had thrown at him. There was the unmistakable smell of burnt human in the air. Rick had put him out of his agony by emptying half a clip into his face; in hindsight, an action that had probably sealed his own and Lauren’s fate.
“DNA will confirm the boy’s ID,” I muttered.
Dead bodies clad in black bomber jackets lay all about the yard, their blood blushing the snow around them, framing each corpse in pinks and crimsons; someone’s son, someone’s lover, someone’s friend. The scene reminded me of so many I had witnessed in my lifetime. Walking through the aftermath of battles or massacres had been part of my world for too long.
“Security,” I said. “Hired hands; there are four more in a small copse about a mile or so north of here.”
The old spy raised an eyebrow. “The three Irish?”
I stepped over to the VW van that JJ had finished emptying of guns, and pulled open the rear doors. The bodies of Ewan Findley and Kristy McDonald were piled unceremoniously on top of each other in the back, framed like two bizarre lovers caught in a grotesque embrace.
“We think Lauren slotted these two before we arrived.” I pointed to the barn. “Dougie’s in here.”
Cartwright couldn’t find the strength to push the heavy wooden door so I gave it a swift kick. It swung open on creaking hinges.
More carnage awaited. Front and centre was Dougie McGinnis; he was on his back, his left leg doubled under him, eyes staring, tongue lolling lifelessly from his open mouth.
Seamus O’Donnell was by the window, the first of JJ’s victims with the M24. The back of his head was missing and a mixture of shattered bone and human brain tissue was splattered on the flagstones behind him.
The old spy studied him briefly before turning his attention to the young black guy that lay between the two identifiable corpses.
“And the coloured chap with his trousers down?”
“Not sure, but his body temp is lower than Seamus’s so I reckon he died first; small calibre bullet to the head, probably Dougie’s .38. There’s first aid kit in the bag over there, Lauren had a clean dressing on her knee when we got to her, so I’m guessing he was the O’Donnell’s’ pet doctor.”
“So why shoot him?”
I walked to the small table and picked up a half empty bag of cocaine. “The sick fuckers were having a party, a right old knees up eh? Guinness, Grouse, Charlie... Lauren was naked...maybe a sex game gone wrong?”
&nbs
p; Cartwright shook his head. “Jesus H Christ.”
The door creaked again and JJ stepped into the barn. He was covered in snow.
“I have my M24 now,” he said. “We are ready to go, yes?”
I turned to Cartwright. “Is that everything you need?”
He nodded. “For now; there will be a full debrief of course once Fuller is up and about. All your weapons will be returned to a DLB (Dead Letter Box) in Manchester. I’ll inform you of the location personally.”
I shook my head in disbelief. I didn’t like the way he thought that Rick would be the only one at the debrief. “Lauren’s a fighter you know, Cartwright. She’s made of sterner stuff that you think. We’ll all be at the debrief, you’ll see.”
Cartwright gave me that cold look again. “Quite,” he managed, before examining his phone, no longer interested in my opinion.
I’d had enough.
“Me an’ JJ will take the Toyota in the yard and meet the chopper as planned. I take it the Medevac will drop Rick and Lauren at Queen Elizabeth’s?”
Cartwright held up a hand, engrossed in whatever was written on his phone screen. “Elizabeth’s, yes, correct,” he said.
I gestured to JJ. “We’ll be away then.”
Reaching the door of the barn, I stopped and turned to the old spy. He may have been a cold fish, and I suppose he had to be in his line of work, but he’d played a blinder with the Medevac.
“Cartwright…I know you pulled a lot of strings for us there, thank you.”
He smiled. “No problem…we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed for the other two now, Desmond.”
I nodded. “Aye, we will…but, Cartwright, the game’s over for us now eh? All debts paid, we’re clear?”
He considered that statement for a moment. “Yes, clear,” he said, before remembering. “Ah, talking of debts, your fee will be in the same place as the weapons, old boy, in cash of course; we recycled it from what the Irish left in Maxi’s club.”
There were no flies on the Firm, eh?
The Toyota bounced along the rutted track from the farm toward our RV. I couldn’t help but notice Lauren’s blood all over the back seat and my stomach churned. The chopper that had dropped us in situ some eighteen hours earlier was six more away, so there was no point in worrying or wondering how she or Rick were. There was nobody to call, nobody to ask. Not yet.
Queen Elizabeth’s in Birmingham was the main trauma centre where all the poor bastards coming back from the Middle East with missing arms and legs were treated.
I checked my watch. Two more seriously injured casualties should have just landed.
We made our RV and waited.
Darkness finally fell. The minutes dragged like hours, and we sat in pensive silence as the Toyota’s heater dried our soaking clothes on our limbs. I fired up my wee pipe and committed a mortal sin by smoking inside the car.
“Rick would have a fucking fit,” I said, doing my best to break the silence any way possible.
JJ manged a smile, and did his best to follow suit, but the cuts to his hands were too painful for him to roll his cigarette.
“Here, let me,” I said.
The Turk handed me his makings. “Thanks, Des,” he said quietly.
It had been a while but I managed a couple of decent looking roll-ups and lit one for him.
JJ inhaled deeply and inspected the numerous lacerations to his hands and forearms. “My wife, she fix my hands when I get home.”
“I have to say, they look sore, pal, you’ll be adding a few more scars to your collection there.”
He nodded. “Yes, I know. After fighting many years with the knife I have dozens, but Grace, my wife will do a good job.”
“Your wife is a doctor?”
“Dressmaker.”
I managed a shallow laugh.
Of course, JJ would have no choice but to have his wounds treated at home. Any doctor looking at those hands would be onto the cops in a flash.
“Aye, probably do a neater job, pal...and no daft questions, eh?”
J.J looked out of the window into the ink black night. “I can’t wait to see her and my boy. I miss them.”
My mind turned to Anne, lying on that awful bed, her hair all but gone, consumed by her pain.
“It’s good to be in love, eh, pal?”
JJ flicked his cigarette out of the window.
“Yes, good. It keeps me alive,” he said. The Turk cricked his neck.
“Lights...chopper’s here.”
The journey back across the Irish Sea was just as hairy as our outward flight, and we bounced around in shocking turbulence.
Luckily, our BMW was exactly where we had left it at RAF Woodvale. Rick had hidden the keys under the front offside wheel-arch and within seconds we were mobile. The snow had failed to make its presence felt on Merseyside, leaving nothing but grey slush on the roads. The German marque negotiated it with ease and we were parked outside JJ’s home within the hour.
The moment we came to a halt, the Turk broached the subject we had been avoiding for hours. “When are you going to the hospital?”
“Right now,” I said. I can be there in forty-five minutes. But look, JJ, you know the drill as much as me, pal…”
I swallowed hard, not wanting to even say the words.
“If Lauren’s…if she’s…if she’s gone, they’ll search for her next of kin before they tell me anything. If she’s still alive, she’ll probably still be in surgery.”
“I am scared for Lauren,” said JJ. “She lost so much blood.”
So was I. She was in hypovolemic shock by the time she made the chopper. It’s fuckin’ nasty. Your kidneys fail, sometimes other organs too. The most severe cases even suffer gangrene in their hands or feet. It all depends how quick they can get fluids and meds into you.
I caught JJ’s coal-coloured eyes, and for the first time I saw fear in them. Not fear for himself, but for Lauren.
“She’s strong though, eh Des?” he said.
“They both are, pal, and they’ll need to be. I’ll tell you this much, Rick’s wound wasn’t so straightforward either. There was something weird about it, I reckon the bullet bounced off his pelvic bone or split in two, maybe it’s in his abdomen.”
JJ grimaced; he’d been stabbed in the guts in his youth by a drunken nightclub customer. Most unpleasant I’ll tell you.
“Maybe I pray,” said the Turk absently.
“I didn’t know you were religious, pal.”
“I’m not…but you never know, eh, Des?”
Being a Roman Catholic raised in the west of Scotland, I knew that when I got the chance, I would go to the chapel and light a candle for Rick and Lauren. My family would expect nothing less, and neither would I.
After all the shocking things I’d seen and done in my life, it was hard to keep my faith, but I clung to it with my fingernails, just in case.
I changed the subject.
“We need to sort your cash out, pal,” I said.
Just how much of a fee Rick had promised JJ, I had no idea, but I’d already decided to split whatever cash Cartwright had left at the DLB equally between the four of us. The Turk had saved our arses over there, he was a top bloke.
“I’ll get to the drop sometime tomorrow and bring your cash here if that’s okay, eh?”
JJ’s eyes widened. He was horrified. “But I come to hospital with you now, Des.”
I gestured toward his ruined hands. “You need those looking at, mate.”
“Yes, I know, but you come into my house now, my wife cook us hot food, good Turkish food, she fix my hands, and we go. You said yourself, Rick and Lauren will be with doctor now. Please, Des, wait for me, just one hour. I want to be there.”
I couldn’t question the lad’s loyalty. “You’ve done enough, pal,” I said.
“Please, this is my way. This is my duty.”
Thinking about it, he was right, an hour wouldn’t make any difference and a hot meal sounded like heaven.
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“Okay, pal, I have to say I’m starvin’.” I lifted an armpit and gave it a sniff. “I hope yer missus is the understanding type like. I stink like a pig.”
JJ displayed his perfectly white teeth. “Come, you meet my boy too. His name is Kaya, he is four.”
JJ lived in Yew Street, Hulme. It was a new build house, rented from a private landlord. Most of the houses in the street had been bought for rental. The area was close to the universities and the city centre. It made good business sense for landlords to buy up whole streets of ‘affordable’ housing and charge unaffordable rents.
I’d seen lots of JJ’s in my time. Guys that had left the army full of good intentions, guys who had tried buying a bar or other business, lost everything and ended up scratching around working twelve on, twelve off for Group4 or some other fuckin’ minimum wage security firm.
At least now he had a few quid coming.
The Turk pushed open his door and stepped into the hall. Before he had taken two strides a very attractive blonde, dressed in a blue pyjama top and little else, sprinted down the hall and leapt on him. Wrapping her legs around his waist and grabbing his neck with both hands, she pulled him to her. Before he could, speak she kissed him deeply on the mouth.
I stood in the cold, feeling uncomfortable and jealous in equal amounts.
She drew her mouth away, and was about to start work on the Turk’s neck when she spotted me. Trying to cover an embarrassed smile with her small hand she slid down JJ’s body to the floor.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she giggled.
Realising that her pyjama top did little to hide the skimpiest of underwear below. JJ’s wife turned the deepest crimson and ran into the house in fits of laughter.
I stepped in beside him and spoke quietly out of the corner of my mouth.
“You lucky, lucky bastard,” I said.
I was shown to a first-floor bathroom by four-year-old Kaya, who solemnly handed me fluffy towels and a set of his father’s clean clothes. He was a handsome wee boy, with the look of his dad, but the green eyes of his mum. I took the items and thanked him.
