31.
Blood’s thicker than water
Sitting in an innocuous looking van with Sam, Ben, and two unnervingly cool assault officers, fifty yards from the office building, Ethan felt perspiration trickling down his back inside his close-fitting body amour. It was chaffing and uncomfortable, but he’d seen how it had stopped Sam’s bullet and wasn’t about to whine about having it on.
Another vehicle with five more officers was parked around the corner and out of sight. Sam keyed a transmitter hanging from her belt, sending a pre-arranged signal to the other vehicle. To anyone listening in, the sound would have been interpreted as random static—they were taking no chances.
Sam checked her watch. They would give the others five minutes to disperse around the back of the building and then move in themselves. Ethan watched her fluid, practiced movements. He knew she’d done this countless times in the past in many different countries, but the sheer professional way she’d briefed the team—all men and women she’d never worked with before—was a study in professional expertise. Even Ben, a natural leader and organizer himself, had deferred to her vast experience, suggesting only one or two possible variations that Sam considered carefully before taking on board.
Ethan’s role in the raid was clear—keep well out of the way until the target area is secure. Glancing around at the massive amount of weaponry attached to everyone, that instruction suited him fine. One of the officers, a tiny, slim girl called Nan with a beautifully elfin face and who appeared to be about fifteen, was designated to brief him on their mission firepower. With dizzying proficiency she ran through the range and potential of 300 rounds per second shotguns, flash and disable stun grenades, tear gas guns, laser-scoped machine pistols, nerve spray, and long-range glue guns. After all that, he was relieved to be unarmed and bringing up the rear.
‘Sam signaled and everyone began to move quietly out of the vehicle. Ethan squeezed to one side to allow Nan to shuffle past, giving him a cheeky grin on the way.
‘You’re with me,’ she whispered, holding the van’s rear doors open for him to clamber through. ‘And we’re on silent mode from now on,’ she added, her face suddenly becoming serious.
He nodded, feeling his throat go dry. The others in the team, keeping close to the building line, had already moved off along the eerily quiet street. As soon as they’d arrived the road had been blocked as close to the target area as possible. Sam reached the keypad at the front door and turned to wave Ethan forward.
Sam watched him as he examined the pad and nodded. He took a small electronic box from his pocket and, attaching it to his smartcom, held it to the keypad and dialed a number. Across the other side of the globe Kralinsky was waiting, immediately transferring the electronic pulses from the keypad into a powerful mainframe. Ten seconds later, seven digits appeared on the box’s screen which he handed to Sam before slipping back to where Nan was waiting for him. They were in.
At the top of the sweeping staircase, as Sam slid a paper-thin probe under the door, Ben attached a ring of tight-focus explosive charges around the lock. He then ran more of them down the door line on the hinge side. Finished, Ben stepped back, allowing Sam to listen as she examined the screen on her smartcom. Ethan could see her faint smile as she concentrated. He fervently hoped that Sarah was safe somewhere inside. Unable to admit to Ben and Sam just how much he cared for her, he had to wait in line and be patient.
Once again he regretted placing her in such a precarious position. He’d used her as a pawn in his life-long endeavor to destroy Mark Payne and all he stood for. That last night, the one they’d spent together, had convinced him that he loved her. How close he’d come to telling her everything but, for once, his courage failed him and he’d let her down. Secretly, he knew it was worse than that. He had failed to trust her judgment and that, he realized with deep dismay, was indefensible. Closing his eyes tightly for a moment, and for the first time in his life, he sent out a silent prayer.
Sam pulled the probe back and held up five fingers. They had five seconds to flatten themselves against the walls on either side of the door. One officer and Sam held stun grenades at the ready as Ben entered a code into his smartcom and pressed the send key.
The sharpness of the blast made Ethan jump. Every charge had detonated simultaneously, tearing the door into splinters. Before the smoke cleared, the two stun grenades had been flung through the wrecked doorway and exploded with ear-numbing ferocity. As Ethan gathered his wits, he realized that he and Nan, her hand holding him back, were the only ones left standing in the hallway.
*
As they’d arranged, Sam was through the door first. From the probe’s video signal, she couldn’t see Sarah but knew where Payne and a young woman were standing together and intended to cover them first. Knowing the pair would likely have been smacked to the floor when the grenades went off, she was moving through the kitchen to try to spot them when Ben called out.
‘Male target keeping low and heading for a door at nine.’
Sam shifted her gaze left to nine o’clock. Payne was on his hands and knees, scrambling towards a door that hadn’t been on the schematics they’d examined before the raid. She didn’t wait to think about that.
‘Stop, Payne, armed police,’ she shouted, leveling her Glock at his scurrying form. At that moment the door banged open and Sam stared in surprise as a man she instantly recognized as wanted by every law-enforcement agency in the world, ducked through the doorway, grabbed Payne, and began hauling him backwards and out of her line of fire.
‘Fuck!’
Moving forward slightly, Sam took aim at the man’s torso and squeezed the trigger. At precisely that same moment her left foot, slithering through a mass of oil and mayonnaise soaked lettuce on the floor, skidded out from under her. As she went down, feeling her knee crack onto the tiles, her carefully aimed round splintered harmlessly above the man’s head, and the door banged shut.
Ben quickly poured automatic fire into the closed door and Sam was sure she heard a cry of pain above the shattering sounds of gunfire and wood splintering. Cursing vehemently, she scrambled to her feet and limped forwards. They hated closed doors, all assault teams did. They were to be treated with extreme caution but, right then, her blood was boiling and her failure to take out one of the world’s most dangerous, cold-blooded killers blinded her from prudence. Passing Ben, and oblivious of the pain in her knee, Sam hurled herself at the bullet-riddled door and crashed through it.
Following Nan as she moved quickly from room to room, Ethan looked for Sarah. Nan had firmly kept him back from entering the battle zone until she was sure the shooting had stopped and, even then, insisted that he remain behind her at all times.
Coming back into the main living area, they found a blonde woman lying on her stomach sobbing, arms pinned behind her back by Kevlar cuffs. She was half-dressed and had an officer standing over her.
Ethan crouched down.
‘Where’s Sarah? The writer. Where is she?’ he shouted.
‘She did a runner,’ the woman wailed. ‘She’s not here.’
‘When?’ Ben demanded.
Don’t know,’ she sniffed, ‘maybe a couple of hours.’
Ethan glanced at the ruined door and then back at the officer guarding the woman.
‘They went through there,’ he confirmed.
‘We can’t,’ Nan said, anticipating Ethan’s reaction. ‘It’s not cleared and Sam wanted you kept back out of harm’s way.’
Ethan stood.
‘It’s a bit late for that, Nan,’ he said, quickly. ‘I’ve been putting people in the firing line right through this shitty business and it’s time for some accountability on my part.’ Ethan turned to the other officer, ‘You’re a witness here, my friend. If anything happens to me, I’m taking full responsibility.’
Not waiting for the officer’s response, Ethan started moving towards the door until he felt a strong grip holding him back.
‘Deal,’ Nan said, moving
in front of him, ‘but I go first or no deal.’
Ethan tried to emulate Nan’s light-footed and almost silent progress as they crept down the concrete stairs. She had her Straker, a deadly, rapid-fire, automatic shotgun, at the ready, covering the ground ahead. At the foot of the stairs, before an open door, Nan stopped abruptly, holding up a hand. Ethan, hearing indistinct voices echoing from beyond, froze with her. Signaling him to remain where he was, she edged forward. He held his breath, waiting.
Nan was looking at the dusty floor. Ethan followed her gaze and immediately spotted the thick blobs of blood that trailed along in front of her. Nan stopped again, looking confused. The blood trail appeared to end abruptly at a shadow-filled alcove, rather than continue as expected into the garage area. Nan turned to look at him, her face stricken with shocked understanding.
When the shot came, Ethan jumped. Not from the sound, it was what he saw happen a split-second before the explosion reached his ears that shocked him.
As if hit by a mighty hammer, Nan was propelled clear off her feet, slamming backwards into the wall behind her. There was an expression on her face of utter surprise, and a neat bullet hole in her forehead. Ethan watched in horror as her body flopped to the floor, leaving a trail of bright red gore down the wall.
He felt a hard object shoved against the nape of his neck.
‘This way, sucker,’ a voice growled.
As if in a dream, Ethan moved slowly through the door into a garage area. He wanted more than anything to vomit his heart up. He glanced at Nan, crumpled against the wall as he passed, still marveling at how tiny she was. She looked like a discarded doll now, and nothing like the professional and caring person he knew she’d been.
‘Get going or you’ll be joining her,’ his captor barked, jerking him back to earth with a sharp, painful jab in the back of his head.
Although waves of anger began to supplant his shock, something else was niggling Ethan. Something rearing from the back of his mind—something from long ago. His mind, tick-tacking back through the years, desperately tried to identify his unease.
‘Stay still!’
Dismayed, Ethan took in the scene. It was worse than he imagined. Around twenty yards from him, Mark Payne stood with his left arm around Sam’s neck holding a pistol to her head. Ben sat on the floor. He looked dazed and blood was trickling steadily from a dark, matted patch on the side of his head.
‘Any more?’ Payne asked, directing his question at the person standing behind Ethan.
‘There’s one more—with the girl maybe. The others all went around the back and are probably coming through the front now. We’ve got to get going.’
‘You’re right,’ Payne said, ‘we should get this over with. I’m sure young Ben over there will enjoy the painful death that’s coming to him. He’ll be looking forward to a chat with his wife in another world.’
Ben tried to stand, face contorting with anger.
‘You bastard, so it was you?’ he hissed.
‘Not exactly,’ Payne smiled. ‘It was actually my friend over there, as you know. But we were helping someone out really. Your wife and her secretive little band of monkeys were getting a little too close to a very special person. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite anticipate your enthusiasm for revenge.’
Payne looked at Ethan and, for a moment, looked almost regretful.
‘Well Mr Cross, this is a fine pickle you’ve got your friends into. Why didn’t you stick with the winning side? You really disappointed me, you know.’
‘I was never on your side, Payne.’ Ethan replied. ‘Everything you thought about me was false—everything. And, if I had the chance, don’t worry I’d do it again.’
Payne laughed.
‘You won’t get the chance and isn’t it lucky for me I didn’t tell you everything?’ he said. ‘As I always say, there’s only one person you can trust in the world, and that’s yourself.’
‘You won’t get away this,’ Ethan said, thinking how stupid he sounded.
‘Get away with it?’ Payne echoed, with a smile. ‘I already have, you insolent smartarse. While you were running around chasing up your girlfriend’s skirts, I was setting up the infrastructure to get the presses rolling all over the world.’
‘You haven’t got your ghost …’ Sam said, before Payne tightened his arms around her neck, cutting her off.
‘Never needed one,’ Payne laughed. ‘We’ve a team of writing specialists ready to bash all of our sadly deceased celebrity author’s verbal diarrhoea into acceptable shape.’
‘Boss, we really have to move.’
Ethan felt his brain snap into clarity. That voice—he knew it. He was sure …
‘Joey?’
He heard a sudden intake of breath behind him as everyone’s head twitched his way. Even Ben, who had been staring morosely at the floor, looked up curiously.
‘What?’
Ethan was turned around abruptly. Pain flared as a gun barrel was rammed roughly under his jaw.
‘Who the fuck are you?’
Ethan stared into two dark brown eyes glaring into his face.
‘It’s Ethan, Joey. Your brother.’
There was complete silence in the garage. Somewhere, far away in the distance, boots could be heard crunching across broken glass.
‘Bullshit!’
‘Remember you and Sharlene in the tool shed …?’ Ethan said, surprised that the scene was still so vivid in his mind.
‘Eath?’
Ethan felt a million emotions prickle at the sound of his long-forgotten family name.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ he murmured, holding back an inane desire to hug a man who was ready to kill him.
Suddenly he noticed that the gun barrel had gone from under his chin and his brother had stepped back, looking bewildered. It was only then that Ethan noticed the dark red stain blossoming across Joey’s upper body. He was bleeding, and badly.
‘What the fuck’s going on over there?’ Payne shouted. ‘Joey, it’s time to move.’
Neither Ethan nor his brother moved, continuing to stare wordlessly at each other. Payne cursed and, unable to hear what the hold up was, began to cross the garage floor, dragging Sam along by her neck. It was a mistake. Forgetting about Ben sitting unobtrusively against a concrete pillar, he came too close to the prone man. Like a viper, Ben uncoiled and, reaching across the floor, grabbed Payne’s foot, pulling it viciously from under him. Sam, ready for the move, twisted her body sideways and away from the gun at her head. Payne hit the floor with a grunt, the pistol spinning away.
At that moment, Joey had every opportunity to gun down both Sam and Ben, but was rooted to the spot, staring at his brother. His face had taken on a greasy pallor with the raised scar on his cheek glowering angrily. Ethan tore his eyes from Joey and looked across at Payne as the man smashed his fist into the side of Sam’s head and scrambled free of her grip.
Joey shook himself as if remembering where he was. He raised the gun and a single shot reverberated around the garage. Ethan heard a car engine start somewhere far off before a gurgling sigh made him turn to Joey. His brother had collapsed to the floor, a stark, gaping hole gushing frothy bright red had appeared in his neck. As he bent to him, three more shots rang out in the distance. He saw Joey’s eyes flicker towards his pistol lying a few feet away and then return his stare. He coughed up a mess of blood, swallowed painfully and then smiled.
‘You could do the right thing and finish it,’ he said.
When Ethan shook his head, Joey grinned.
‘I didn’t think so. It won’t be long and you were always better at patching up. Sorry we lost touch, Eath. I should have been a better brother, but I was ashamed to face up to you.’
‘I missed you,’ was all Ethan could find to say, a vision of the last time they’d seen each other flashing through his mind. Joey, heading out the door with a wound clumsily stitched with his Mom’s sewing kit, telling him about the enormous stash of money.
‘Why Joey, w
hy did you go this way?’ Ethan asked, gripping his brother’s hand. It felt terribly cold, but he felt a squeeze in response.
Joey groaned, arching his back in pain, and then his mouth twisted bitterly.‘Fuck it, Eath,’ he said, ‘it just started with a few local stick-ups and, you know how it goes, I got to like the money. I didn’t want to be a poor shmuck all my life—I’d seen the better life when Pop was still alive and wanted it again.’
Ethan couldn’t begin to tell him of his own fabulous wealth built on Joey’s blood money and decided to stay silent.
Joey winced and grabbed his arm.
‘Listen! What you’re looking for is in Payne’s ring. It’s a one-time algorithm in some kind of chip, set in the diamond. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s got the end of the world in it.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Ethan asked, watching his brother cough an impossible amount of blood up and then gasp for breath before forcing himself to continue.
‘I didn’t until today. I overheard him telling Corsfield about it before he had me kill him,’ Joey whispered. ‘He didn’t know I’d turned the sound monitor up. Watch out, Eath, he’s ready to pour the books onto the market from a hundred different places.’
‘What does the algorithm do?’ Ethan asked, quickly. He could see his brother’s eyes beginning to soften and lose focus.
‘Joey! Joey!’
Reluctant to hurt his brother, Ethan shook his shoulder gently.
Joey groaned and looked up at him. For a second the dying man’s eyes shone with the bright, mischievous enthusiasm that Ethan remembered from his childhood.
‘Great scam,’ he smiled, ‘everybody addicted … narc … smokes …’
Suddenly, Ethan saw boots and uniformed legs everywhere and he was lifted gently to his feet. He turned and looked into Ben’s face, seeing his bitter disappointment. Ben nodded at him, dropped his gaze, and walked away without a word.
‘Are you OK?’ Sam asked, appearing at his side.
Ethan shrugged.
‘Is Ben disappointed he didn’t get his chance to kill him?’ he asked.
The Last Book. A Thriller Page 25
