Working out what had probably happened to him wasn’t difficult, and the conclusion fairly obvious. And obviously unpleasant.
Jacko forced himself to relax, to marshal his strength and try to clear his mind for the ordeal that he guessed was about to come.
What he really didn’t understand was why. He was a serving SAS – Special Air Service – soldier. He’d been involved in numerous operations in his military career, but none of them particularly high-profile, and he – like every other SAS soldier – remained entirely anonymous during and after each op. So he didn’t think he’d been snatched in retribution for something he’d done in the past, because militarily, nobody had ever known who he was. He’d had domestic problems, which was why his wife now lived in the house he was still paying for and he lived in a bedsit in Camden, but what was happening to him was clearly nothing to do with her.
He was still puzzling over the ‘why’ question when he heard the sound of heavy footsteps, and moments later the door opened and with a buzz and a flicker, a couple of fluorescent lights sprang to life.
Jacko King closed his eyes against the sudden harsh brightness, then cautiously opened them to take stock of his surroundings.
It looked like a cellar, but it was certainly a windowless space, the overhead lights the only illumination. He spared the room the briefest of glances, then focussed his attention on the two men who’d just entered. One looked almost military, strong and fit and exuding an aura of competent capability; definitely an other rank, not an officer.
The second man was different. Better-dressed, in a good suit, and very clearly in charge, without saying even one word. Incongruously, he was carrying what looked like a bone china cup and saucer, both decorated with an elegant floral design, with steam rising gently from the cup. The smell of freshly-brewed tea was unmistakable.
He gave the briefest of nods to the other man, who moved to one side, to a wheeled metal trolley, the kind used everywhere from hospitals to factories to move stuff around. He pulled a rubberised apron from one of the drawers on the trolley and put it on, then stood waiting.
That alarmed King, and the sight of the tools on the top of the trolley – a blow torch, pliers, screwdrivers, chisels, a selection of other tools, and what looked like a bottle of acid – alarmed him even more.
A slight smile appeared on the face of the man wearing the suit as he looked at King.
‘You have some information that we want,’ he said, ‘and I promise you that we will get it. Sooner or later – the time it takes depends entirely on you.’
Like almost every other British serviceman, Jacko King had participated in his fair share of E&E – Escape and Evasion – exercises and had done all the Resistance to Interrogation courses available while he’d been in the Regiment. That meant he was a quantum leap tougher than any civilian and could hold out for a long time under hostile interrogation.
But as the man standing beside the trolley picked up the blow torch, King knew that none of the exercises and none of his training were going to be of the slightest help to him. This time the interrogation was going to be a long way beyond even the most liberal definition of the word ‘hostile’, and there were no referees around to stop the process when he could take no more and called out ‘Safeguard’ to bring the exercise to an end. This was no exercise. This was his life, what little was left of it.
‘You may begin,’ the man in the suit said, walking over to a white plastic garden chair that was positioned against one wall. He sat down and lifted the cup to his lips. ‘Hurt him first,’ he clarified, taking a sip. ‘Hurt him a lot, so that he knows we’re serious.’
With a dull roar the other man ignited the flame of the blow torch and stepped over to the wooden table to which Jacko King was strapped.
And then it started.
Chapter 8
A little over three hours later, Richter slowly regained consciousness in the recovery room of the general surgical theatre in whatever hospital they had taken him to. He genuinely had no idea where he was. Once the ambulance had started moving, he’d basically taken no further interest in the proceedings, due to the effects of his bullet wound and, probably, whatever painkiller the paramedic had been feeding into his body through the drip. He had asked if they could do the op under local anaesthetic, but the surgeon had refused, ‘in case we have to do a lot of digging around inside you’ as he’d put it. And Richter really hadn’t been in any position to argue.
As soon as the anaesthetist was happy with his progress, a theatre porter and a nurse moved him out of recovery and into a single room. As the door opened, he saw Stephen Carpenter sitting in an easy chair drinking instant coffee and looking at something on the screen of his mobile phone. On the small side table next to him was Richter’s Browning pistol and the Heckler and Koch MP5 Carpenter had drawn from the armoury at Hammersmith, both weapons immediately to hand.
‘You didn’t lop off his leg by mistake, then?’ Carpenter asked, putting down his mobile.
‘Not as far as I know. If we did, I didn’t notice. You’re staying here with him?’ the nurse asked.
Carpenter nodded.
‘Good, because that saves me a job. He’s conscious, and the last effects of the anaesthetic will wear off quite quickly. He’ll be thirsty, and you can give him water, but no more than one glass every thirty minutes.’
She pointed at a plastic jug of water and a plastic glass beside it, both sitting on a wheeled hospital table that could be positioned directly in front of a patient in bed.
‘If he experiences any distress, or there’s anything that you’re not sure about, just press the red call button on the panel beside the bed. And if you can, try not to shoot either him or anyone else with those blasted guns. There’s a sign on the door telling people to knock before entering, so that might help keep the death toll down a bit.’
Carpenter nodded. ‘That is rather the reason why I’m here, to stop anyone getting in here to shoot him again. One question. What he’s involved in is pretty damn urgent, so when are you going to let him out?’
‘That’s up to the surgeon, but probably sometime tomorrow. The entry wound was small and clean and we’ve tidied up the exit wound, which was fairly ragged. The bullet only passed through his skin and some subcutaneous fat, and missed everything important, like his brain. He’ll be sore for a few days, and we’ll prescribe some strong painkillers to help with that, but he should be mobile straightaway. The dressing will need changing twice a day, but his own doctor can deal with that. Anything else?’
‘Not that I can think of now,’ Carpenter said. ‘Thanks.’
The nurse nodded, looked over at Richter who was lying flat on his back with his eyes closed, and then left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.
‘You awake, Paul?’ Carpenter asked.
‘More or less.’ Richter’s voice was slurred and drowsy, the anaesthetic still having its effect. ‘My head feels like it’s full of cotton wool, and I’ve got a hell of an ache all the way down my right side.’
‘That’s pretty much par for the course, and it’s not as if it’s the first time you’ve been shot. Simpson thinks you should be getting used to it by now.’
‘He would.’
Carpenter moved his chair closer to the bed, but ensured that both the Browning and the MP5 were still within easy reach.
‘Do you feel up to talking about it?’
‘Yeah, unless you’re going to ask me complicated questions that mean I actually have to think about stuff. Keep it slow and simple and I’ll try not to go to sleep again.’
‘Nothing like that,’ Carpenter reassured him. ‘In fact, you told Simpson pretty much everything he needed to know when you called him from the field. He taped the call, as usual, and I’ve listened to it as well, so we’ve got a good handle on this from your perspective. But while you’ve been lying about in the operating theatre letting some doctor practice his embroidery skills on you, we’ve been doing a bit of digging.’
‘And?’
‘And you were right. You were definitely the target of those three comedians. Each one of them was carrying a newish smart phone, and in amongst the usual pointless games and low quality porn they’d downloaded, each of them had a photograph of you. Not a recent picture, granted, but good enough for them to use to pick you out in a crowd. Our best guess is that the image came from some kind of official publication that carried a photograph of you when you were in the military, when you had a proper job, I mean.’
Richter nodded slightly. ‘Makes sense,’ he said. ‘The Royal Navy had a pretty good publicity department, and any time anyone did something half-way competent there was usually a Phot rating lurking about to capture the moment. Frontline pilots – and especially Harrier pilots – always seemed to be newsworthy, so I went the happy snappy route a few times. There are probably dozens of pictures of me out there, if you know where to look’
‘That’s what we figured, but that just raises a bunch more questions. We wondered if you’d got caught up in something that was nothing to do with you, but what that gunman said to you and the photographs on their phones mean that simply doesn’t make sense. This wasn’t some off-the-cuff job. It would have taken them time to prepare, to pull the best picture they could off the Internet or wherever they found it, and source the weapons and ammunition they needed. Those are the mechanics, if you like, but however you look at it, we still have no idea about why you’re in the frame. Simpson’s convinced that you must have pissed off somebody, big-time, and whoever it is has taken out a really expensive contract on your life. The research on the web, one car, one motorbike, three shooters and a big enough armoury to start a small war.’
‘It was only three Kalashnikovs,’ Richter pointed out. ‘That’s not exactly Third World War stuff.’
‘True,’ Carpenter agreed, ‘but they each had a pistol – two Glocks and a Walther, all chambered for nine-millimetre – and in the boot of the car was a Russian Dragunov sniper rifle, a really nice and very expensive fifty calibre Barrett M82, well over a thousand rounds of ammunition in mixed calibres to suit what they were carrying, a couple of pounds of C4 plastic explosive with a selection of detonators, and half a dozen fragmentation grenades. And all that lot really is enough to start a small war. So whoever those three were, they were extremely dangerous men.’
‘Then I suppose we’re lucky,’ Richter said, ‘that they’re now extremely dangerous dead men. Any idea who they were?’
Carpenter shook his head. ‘Not yet, though it’s pretty obvious they were mercs of one flavour or another. Physically, they were all of a type. Heavily built, but with muscle, not fat, and two of them showed evidence of combat, at least according to the initial examination of the bodies by one of our tame doctors. One had a couple of old knife wounds and the other what looked like a scar from a previous bullet wound. The post-mortems will be done this afternoon, with someone from the section there as an observer, and I suppose that might throw up more information about them, but I’m not holding my breath waiting. The obvious implication is that they were pros, and that’s reinforced because they weren’t carrying any kind of ID, or nothing that checks out, anyway. They each had a driving licence, but the DVLA had never heard of them and they were only just good enough to pass muster on a casual inspection, and certainly wouldn’t have fooled a police officer if he was actually awake.
‘Between them, they had a fair amount of cash, over eight hundred pounds in all, but no credit cards because credit cards leave a trace. The Ford had been stolen four days ago from a car park in North London and the plates changed to a legal hire car that’s the same model and colour. Until we checked the Vehicle Identification Number we thought they might have been stupid enough to actually hire it, which would have needed legitimate and checkable documentation.’
‘But they weren’t quite that stupid, obviously. What about the Honda?’
‘Bought for cash from the previous owner out in the East End three days ago. He wasn’t particularly bothered about paperwork, identification, insurance or anything like that. He just took the money, handed over the keys and watched the buyer ride it off down the street. And before you ask, there were no CCTV cameras at either location, and it wouldn’t have helped if there had been. Presumably one or both of the two guys who were in the Ford boosted it from the car park, and the guy who was riding the Honda is probably the same man who bought the bike. But whether they were the people who sourced the vehicles or not doesn’t actually matter, because it doesn’t help answer the question that Simpson’s been asking.’
‘Which is why is there a kill order on me?’ Richter said.
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, I’m buggered if I know. I’ve trodden on a few toes over the years, like most of us have, but I can’t think of anyone with a serious grudge against me. Or at least, not the kind of grudge likely to be settled by a gang of men carrying assault rifles.’
The door of the private ward swung open a few seconds later, and Carpenter reacted immediately, standing up and in one fluid movement tossing the Browning to Richter and at the same time grabbing the MP5 and aiming it directly at the doorway.
‘Put that thing down, Carpenter, and you too, Richter,’ Simpson snapped, walking into the room a few steps in front of a man wearing the uniform of a senior police officer – Richter guessed he was a chief superintendent or thereabouts. He stared uneasily at the submachine-gun as Carpenter lowered the weapon and replaced it on the table. Richter put the pistol on the bed beside him.
‘There’s a good reason for the sign on the outside of the door,’ Carpenter said, his irritation showing in the tone of his voice.
‘What sign?’
‘The one that tells you to knock and identify yourself before walking in so you don’t get your stupid bloody head blown off your body. That one.’
‘I didn’t see it,’ Simpson snapped. ‘Anyway, good to see that you’re on the ball.’ He switched his attention from Carpenter to Richter. ‘You’re okay?’
Richter nodded. ‘Bearing up under the incredible strain, obviously, but no problem. I should get out tomorrow, if the theatre nurse is to be believed.’
Simpson didn’t reply for a moment. Then he glanced from Richter to Carpenter and back again.
‘Unless there’s some overwhelming medical reason why you have to stay here overnight, I’ll make sure they discharge you today. That’s not,’ he added, ‘because I want you back in harness as soon as possible, or not entirely. I don’t like the idea of you being flat on your back here as a static target in a soft environment. Carpenter is highly competent, but every now and again he’s going to have to leave the room to take a leak or something, and sooner or later he’ll need some sleep. I could spell him with another man, but in my opinion this is all heading towards being a bit on the too difficult side. You’d be better off in a more secure location, in one of our safe houses. And that would also minimise the chances of some innocent nurses or doctors getting ventilated if a new bunch of bad guys turned up here to finish the job.’
‘They might still turn up here anyway unless you can convince them that I have been moved,’ Richter pointed out. ‘Or is that the point of dragging your tame rozzer in here?’
‘I didn’t drag him here,’ Simpson said. ‘He came of his own accord when he heard about the shootout at the OK Corral. Something about unlicensed firearms, that kind of thing.’
‘I am not anybody’s tame rozzer,’ the police officer stated, somewhat frostily. ‘I’m Chief Superintendent Douglas Evans, and I don’t much care for your attitude, Simpson. Or, come to that, for the fact that a man with a pistol and another man with a submachine-gun, neither of whom appear to be members of the police force or the armed forces, are in this hospital ward. That does concern me, for a variety of reasons.’ He paused and subjected each of the other three men to a hostile glare. ‘Rest assured that I will be investigating your authority in this matter, Simpson, and checking on the legal
ity of these two men carrying those weapons.’
‘Knock yourself out, Evans,’ Simpson said. ‘I’ll get your Chief Constable to have a quiet word in your ear.’
‘You’d better check with the surgeon who stitched me up, or at least the theatre sister, but I don’t see any reason for me to stay here overnight,’ Richter said. ‘And I’d rather be somewhere with a few less civilians wandering about, just in case the hospital does get a visit.’
‘I wasn’t asking your opinion, Richter. I was telling you what’s going to happen.’
‘Figures. So when are we going to do it?’
‘In an hour or so. There are two components to this: medical and tactical. You’ve just had a fairly minor operation but under a general anaesthetic, so you’re not going to be much use to us for the rest of today, or at least for a few hours until the drugs are out of your system, and you’ll probably be leaving here in a wheelchair. We also have to talk to the people at Legoland and get them to open up and prep a safe house and get somebody in there with the medical supplies and equipment we’ll need to treat your wound. From a tactical point of view, we have to assume that whoever tasked these killers will know by now that the attack failed. This is the closest hospital with an accident service to where it happened, and if you’d been injured in the attack this would fairly obviously be where you’d end up. So we also have to assume that the building may already be watched and it’s possible that whoever these people are, they could start infiltrating it any time now. Anyone walking around a hospital wearing a white coat and looking as if they know what they’re doing isn’t going to be noticed, and hiding a weapon under a doctor’s coat isn’t that difficult.’
‘So you need to make my exit from the building fairly public and obvious, and ideally without getting my head blown off in the process, because that would stop the bad guys sending a team in here to take me out, with all the collateral damage that that would cause.’
Retribution Page 6
