The Payback

by Simon Kernick

  I knew I was being paranoid, but I’ve always figured that it’s better to be over-cautious than dead. I just didn’t think Mrs O’Riordan was the type to change her mind and suddenly cooperate with two people who’d already been exposed as impostors in their unofficial investigation into her husband’s murder, especially when by doing so she would almost certainly incriminate herself.

  I should have pulled out, gone back with Tina to Manila and followed up on the lead I’d got from Tomboy. But I didn’t. Instead, curiosity got the better of me, and I motioned to Tina to follow as I crept along the inside of the wall, staying behind the tree line.

  It took us a full five minutes to skirt the garden, passing round the back of the outbuildings until we reached a side door to the main house. During that time, no movement came from inside.

  I tried the door. It was locked.

  ‘Hold this,’ I whispered, starting to hand Tina the gun. ‘I need to get this open.’

  ‘I can do it,’ she whispered back, producing a set of picks from the back of her shorts. ‘I’ve had plenty of practice. But if Mrs O’Riordan’s really got genuine information, she’s not going to be too happy with us breaking in like this.’

  ‘She’ll still give us it, though. Whereas if she doesn’t have any genuine information, this way we stay alive.’ I took a step back. ‘I’ll cover you.’

  Tina was quick and professional, and had the door open in under a minute, which was a lot better than I’d have managed.

  I told her I’d lead the way and pushed the door slowly open with the end of the suppressor, cocking the pistol at the same time. Before I went inside I looked at Tina, and saw that she had an uncertain expression in her eyes. I was just about to reiterate that I didn’t mind going in alone when she produced the .22 pistol from where it had been nestling under her T-shirt, and released the safety catch.

  ‘Go on,’ she hissed.

  I stepped into an empty, darkened storeroom with a washing machine in one corner. Another door opposite led through into the house proper, but this one was open, and as I went through it I came into a narrow hallway with a small washroom to the left, the toilet visible through the half-open door. The air con was pumping full throttle and I found myself shivering. The first glow of light appeared from round the corner and I stopped and listened.

  I felt the tension rising in me. We should have been able to hear something if Mrs O’Riordan was here waiting for us. Movement; music; the TV; something. But this place was as silent as a morgue.

  And then, as I came round the corner, gun outstretched, into a huge space-age kitchen, I saw them.

  They were tied to separate chairs in the middle of the floor, side by side with their backs to us. Both had slumped forward, their blood having mingled on the black-and-white tiled floor to form a single dark pool.

  I took a tentative step forward, then another, glancing down at the bodies. The brother, Jean-Paul, had had his throat cut, and the front of his overalls was stained heavily. Mrs O’Riordan had been shot in the back of the head, the golfball-shaped exit wound turning her left eye into a fleshy black pulp. Close up, I could smell the beginning of their decay, even though the air con was disguising the worst of it. It was obvious they’d been dead for several hours, possibly just after Mrs O’Riordan had made the call.

  It was, as I’d suspected all along, a trap.

  But it was also an opportunity. Clearly, whoever had killed Mrs O’Riordan and her brother was still expecting us to approach the house from the front, which meant we might be able to take him or them from behind. I didn’t like to involve Tina, but she’d made her choices. Just like I had.

  My finger tightened on the trigger and I turned in her direction.

  Which was when the huge figure in the balaclava loomed out of the darkness behind her.

  ‘Down!’ I yelled, my voice exploding in the silence.

  Instinctively, she ducked. Just as instinctively I fired into the space she’d left behind as the man in the balaclava, a gun in his own hand, went to grab her. I hit him three times in the upper body, sending him crashing backwards, the gun clattering from his hand.

  At the same time I swung round towards the far door as it flew open, and a second figure appeared, holding a revolver outstretched, already firing. I dived out of the way as a bullet whistled past my face and smashed into one of the kitchen units, sending a hail of splinters through the air. Landing on my side behind Jean-Paul’s chair, I cracked off three shots in his direction, through the gap between the two chairs, as he continued firing at me.

  A round took off the top of Jean-Paul’s head, and a third ricocheted off the tiled floor between my legs, missing my groin by inches, before embedding itself in another kitchen unit. Splinters stung my face but I ignored the pain, and how close I’d come to being hit, and fired back through the gap in the chairs, even though I only had a partial view of my assailant, and was running low on bullets.

  Three more shots rang out in quick succession, and though I was partly deafened by the noise, I could hear they were coming from Tina’s smaller .22. I stole a glance at her. She was already up on her feet in a two-handed firing stance, a look of intense concentration on her face. The figure in the doorway had disappeared.

  I ignored the hammering of my heart and stood up as well. By my calculations, I had three rounds left, and since Tina’s .22 only held five, she had two. Which meant we couldn’t afford to get involved in a protracted gunfight. I’d taken one of them out and that would have to do. Now we needed to get out.

  I inched along the kitchen sideboard until I was directly opposite the door from where the second assailant had appeared. The guy had been a good shot. Trying to hit a moving target with a big gun in darkness, especially when you’re moving yourself, is no easy task. He’d got very close, and I’d been very lucky, which is the kind of combination you really don’t want to rely on.

  From my new position, I could see out into a grand hallway. It was lit by a tacky-looking chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling. There was no sign of the gunman.

  I heard Tina’s gasp through the ringing in my ears, and as I swung round I saw her silver .22 fly through the air before skidding across the kitchen floor, way out of reach of both of us. The first assailant, the big guy I’d shot three times, had Tina in a vice-like headlock and was pulling her back into his shoulder. The bastard must have been wearing a Kevlar vest, and he had a pistol with suppressor against her temple.

  Twelve feet separated us. I raised my own gun.

  ‘Drop it or she dies,’ he said in a thick Russian accent.

  Tina struggled beneath his grip, and he drove a knee into the small of her back. She winced in pain, and her breath came in tortured gasps. She stopped struggling, although her expression was defiant.

  My eyes drifted back to the doorway. The second gunman was still nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Now,’ hissed the big man. As he spoke, he increased the pressure on Tina’s throat, and her eyes widened. ‘You have three seconds. One . . .’

  So much of life comes down to snap decisions.

  ‘Two . . .’

  There was no way he was going to let us live.

  ‘Th—’

  I pulled the trigger, shooting him right between the eyes.

  He stumbled backwards, and his gun went off. I blinked reflexively, and when my eyes opened again, Tina had fallen down. For a split second I thought she’d been hit with his final shot, but then she started choking and rubbing her throat. I felt a surge of relief, watching as the big man wobbled precariously, the hole in his head smoking, until finally he fell to the floor. Dead this time.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I grunted, hauling Tina to her feet, knowing we were going to have to move fast.

  Which was when I saw the silhouette appear in the back window. It was the other gunman.

  He opened fire, and I threw Tina down as the glass exploded inwards, firing my last two bullets back at him.

  I had no idea if I’d
hit him or not, and there was no time to find out. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ I yelled, shielding Tina as we scrambled across the floor, making for the far door.

  More shots rang out, ricocheting round the room, and I felt a bolt of shock tear through my left shoulder, spinning me round. As I rolled on the floor, I saw the .22, made a grab for it with my good hand – adrenalin driving me forward – and emptied out the last two rounds in the general direction of the window.

  Again, I didn’t know if I’d hit the guy, but it bought us a valuable couple of seconds, and I used it to bundle Tina out the door and into the hall. ‘Out the front and keep running,’ I said, overtaking her. ‘He’s going to try and cut us off.’

  I sprinted past the staircase, ignoring the pain in my shoulder, and yanked open the front door. Then we were charging down the drive in the direction of the main gate, just as the gunman appeared round the side of the house. He crouched down in a firing stance, and I saw that he no longer had the big revolver. Instead, he had a pistol with a suppressor attached. However, he was a good twenty-five yards away and it was going to be hard for him to hit either one of us. Or so I was hoping, as I clenched my teeth and kept going, head forward like a champion sprinter, willing myself on.

  But for some reason he didn’t fire, and two seconds later we were through the gate and out on to the road.

  And that’s when I heard the sound of a car approaching rapidly. As I turned in its direction, I was blinded by headlights. Instinctively, I flung Tina out of the way, then tried to dive clear myself. But I wasn’t quite quick enough, and my legs were caught by the bumper, sending me sprawling into the dirt.

  I lay there, unable to move, as the car screeched to a halt, and the two cops who’d stopped us earlier jumped out and pointed their weapons at me.

  I looked up into the eyes of the nearest one – the fat little psychotic, Frogface – saw the way his finger was tensing on the trigger of the pump-action shotgun he was holding, and suddenly realized that these guys had no intention of bringing me in. There aren’t that many people in this world who can pull a trigger and not give their actions a second thought, whatever we might like to think, but this guy was definitely one of them.

  I was a dead man. It was as simple as that.

  Thirty-eight

  Shocked and pumped up by the experience she’d just had, but otherwise unhurt, Tina sat back up on the tarmac and looked over to where Milne lay on his back. The two uniforms from earlier were approaching him. The squat, younger one was the closest of the two, and he was holding a large pump-action shotgun. As he drew closer he took a quick look up and down the road, and that was when Tina realized what he was about to do.

  Milne opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t move. She could see he was hurt, but how badly she wasn’t sure.

  Without hesitating, she leapt to her feet and yanked out her warrant card, speaking rapidly but with the utter confidence she knew she needed if they were both going to get out of this in one piece: ‘I’m a British police officer! Do not shoot that man! He’s not resisting arrest. If you shoot him, you’ll have to shoot me, and there’ll be a major inquiry. You’ll lose your job, your liberty, everything.’

  The older cop pointed his revolver at her, but she could see a flash of doubt cross his face. The younger one, meanwhile, fixed her with the kind of blank stare that said he either didn’t understand or, more likely, didn’t care.

  ‘You cannot kill a British police officer,’ Tina continued, her eyes scanning the front of the house for any sign of the other gunman. ‘If you do, you will have to answer for it. You want that? Do you?’

  The older cop said something in Filipino to his colleague. The younger one looked displeased, and said something back, and they had a brief, barked discussion.

  ‘Right, you are both under arrest,’ said the older one finally, pulling a set of old-fashioned Western-style cuffs from his belt. ‘You must come with us.’

  The younger one barked an order for Milne to turn over and put his hands behind his back, kicking him at the same time.

  For a moment, Tina thought Milne might try something, even though it would be suicidal given the look on the younger uniform’s face, but he did as he was told and the cuffs were placed on him.

  Their eyes met. Milne looked resigned to his fate, but it was clear he didn’t want her to share it. ‘Run, Tina!’ he snapped as the older uniform approached her, cuffs in hand. ‘Run!’

  For a split second she was hit by indecision. If she made a break for it, it would be tantamount to admitting that she’d had a part in the murders in the house, and she’d be a fugitive in a foreign land. She might even end up with a bullet in the back. But if she stayed, there was no guarantee either that she’d be safe. She didn’t like the way these two had suddenly turned up here in the middle of nowhere. It was too coincidental.

  Which meant they were probably in league with the killers.

  The older one took her arm. ‘Turn round,’ he demanded.

  ‘Run, Tina, for God’s sake!’ she heard Milne cry, followed by the sound of him being struck hard.

  She’d taken some kickboxing classes at the police gym the previous year – part of an obsession she’d developed for fitness that she knew bordered on the unhealthy. But it served her well now because she caught her captor with a ferocious uppercut that sent him reeling.

  She turned and darted across the road, launching herself into the undergrowth, and running through it as fast as she could, no idea where she was going, ignoring the way the bushes and branches slashed at her face, just trying to put as much distance between herself and the house as possible.

  She got about fifty yards before she ran into a ditch, lost her footing, and fell forward into a thick puddle of foul-smelling mud, unleashing a swarm of insects. Exhausted, she lay where she’d fallen, slowly getting her breathing back under control. She heard the police patrol car drive away, and wondered what would become of Milne. He’d saved her life tonight. At least once. Probably twice. When the big Russian bastard had grabbed her and pushed the gun against her head, she’d genuinely thought that was it. She remembered the way he’d violated her home three days earlier and half a world away, and now, at his mercy again, the hatred and rage had coursed through her. She’d wanted Milne to kill him.

  And he had. He’d put a bullet between her tormentor’s eyes. Without batting an eyelid. That took guts. Most men, virtually all men, would have dropped the weapon. He hadn’t. It made her respect him. And now he was being taken away, either to prison or to his death, and she would never have the opportunity to thank him for what he’d done.

  She found the mobile in her pocket, considered calling Mike Bolt back in England, and getting him to raise the alarm. But what could she say that could possibly help Milne? Nothing. He was finished either way. Perhaps death was even preferable. Calling Mike would only be a fast-track way of losing her career and ending up in a Filipino prison for aiding an offender.

  But the fact that she’d left him at the mercy of those two cops hurt. ‘There’s nothing more you could have done,’ she told herself. ‘And anyway, remember, he deserves all that’s coming to him.’

  But she was no longer sure she believed it.

  One of the many mosquitoes buzzing round landed on Tina’s face, and she slapped it away angrily.

  And then heard a twig crack behind her.

  She froze, palm still held against her cheek.

  There was the sound of movement in the undergrowth – bushes being steadily pushed aside. Getting closer.

  Tina pressed herself deeper into the mud, trying to work out whether it was best to break cover or stay where she was. She was partly concealed by a large fern, but her clothing – a white T-shirt and khaki shorts – would surely stand out in the darkness.

  She held her breath, her whole body tense, and ever so slowly turned her head.

  Two black work boots, scuffed at the tips, filled her vision, just a few feet from her elbow. The person they belon
ged to wasn’t moving. For all she knew, he could be staring down at her right now, ready to pull the trigger, leaving her to die here in a lonely, dirty backwater thousands of miles from home. Tina had to use all her willpower not to make a grab for his legs, or jump up and run. Instead, she stayed exactly where she was, still not breathing, listening to the thump-thump-thump of her heart, wondering for how long she could stay like this.

  The figure didn’t move.

  She counted to five in her head, wondering what the hell he was doing. Wondering, too, how long she could continue to hold her breath.

  And then he took a step forward, brushing the fern aside, and his boot landed in the mud, inches from her face. She heard him curse quietly under his breath and slap away a mosquito, recognizing the voice as belonging to the other, smaller man who’d tried to kill her back in England, and who’d almost certainly been the one who’d murdered Nick.

  Anger suddenly overcame fear, and before she could stop herself, Tina had grabbed one of his legs with both hands and launched herself upwards, completely upending him.

  He fell on his side into the mud, clearly shocked by her sudden attack, but already bringing his gun round to fire at her. He was wearing a balaclava, but Tina recognized the blue eyes beneath. It was definitely the man who’d tried to drown her in her bath.

  She was quick, jumping on top of him, knees first, as he rolled over on to his back, and winding him. She grabbed the gun arm with one hand, shoving it away, then snatched up a handful of mud and shoved it into his face, trying to rub it into his eyes.

  But he was quick too. And strong. With a single grunt of exertion, he flipped his body up, knocking her off him. She kept hold of his gun hand, though, and lashed out with her legs, as they rolled in the mud, fighting savagely. But he still had the gun, and he was stronger than her. Her only advantage was the fact that he’d been temporarily blinded by the mud. But he’d already rolled on top of her, and was wrestling the gun free, using touch rather than sight to fight this battle.