The Bootneck

by Quentin Black

  They had decided that Louis would drive as not to waste time on

  “You’re an oppo though, why do you think I called you?” asked Connor.

  “Eh, because you don’t got no friends other than me down here, ya northern monkey!”

  They both started laughing before Connor replied, “Not touching that one.”

  He looked out of the window as the Toyota bumped along the country track. The sun had gone, leaving a darkened blue sky illuminating the rolling hills that Connor didn’t even think existed down south.

  He could see in the distance that they were coming to a large farm house with several stables and other huge farm buildings.

  “What is this place,” asked Connor.

  Louis replied with a smile, “It’s for growing plants.”

  Connor shook his head, but he didn’t find cannabis distasteful, although he’d seen people adversely affected by it. One of his friends, sharp and in the top classes in secondary school, had seemed like a stuttering idiot a short few years later when all he seemed to do was smoke pot. Then again, Connor knew high-flying corporate types who smoked it without seemingly any adverse effects. Maybe it was all down to the quality and the frequency used.

  Connor surmised lethargy and lack of ambition came first and the abuse of weed came afterwards.

  Sativas was a strain smoked by a friend of his who claimed it made him more creative and energetic. This was opposed to Indica, which was the cheaper and the more common strain distributed. Indica leaves were short and broad which made it more suitable for growing indoors.

  “How long has this set-up been running?” Connor asked.

  “A few years bruv, we can see for miles here. Anyway, the police might already know of this place but I reckon they aren’t too vexed as long as it’s not in their yard.”

  “You know mate….not to judge but it’s not as if you need to do this, you have that personal training business. You know they’ll get you eventually. Maybe you can grow your PT business and leave this behind?”

  Louis looked at him sideways, “This the same Connor Reed I’m talking to? Robbing, even if it is from drug dealers, isn’t legal either,” referring to some of the work they’d done together, “I am providing a service…anyway, it’s weed gee. It’s legal in civilised cultures.”

  “I know…I’ve just been thinking lately”

  “’bout what?”

  “About the fact that every time I get the buzz from a score and get away with it, it encourages me to do it again. The probability of getting caught goes up each time. I don’t want a buzz for a few years then prison for decades…a pretty face like mine wouldn’t do well in there. Besides, I’ve got a new career now…or I thought I did.”

  “Will be hard to walk away from bruv…believe me.” Louis paused as if thinking. “Besides, don’t you give your money away to charities?”

  “Yeh, but only some of it. I used to think of myself like a Robin Hood. The truth is, it stops me feeling guilty.”

  Louis didn’t say anything.

  The car reached the gates. A hooded black guy ushered them through when he spotted Louis.

  “I don’t know how long it’s going to take with this lad Louis,” said Connor

  “Take as long as you need in’it.” The car stopped outside the warehouse. “Stay in here.”

  Connor watched Louis approach the tall, skinny yardie-looking youth who came out of the entrance to greet him. He speculatenoticed the outline of the pistol under his shirt tucked into his belt. A few words were exchanged with the adolescent looking over furtively. Connor could tell by the body language Louis was the leader of this operation.

  He returned and got back in the car.

  “We’ll go around the back. There’s a small door into a tool room and they’re clearing it out just now. My boys have been briefed to leave you alone and ignore any noise.”

  Louis gunned the car and drove it around the back. The pair got out and Louis took out a Windicator revolver and pointed it at the boot. Connor opened it and took a step back. He saw Nick bound and squinting, struggling to breathe through his broken nose. They took a grip of Nick under his bound arms and lifted him from the car. Nick neither helped nor hindered their efforts before being dumped unceremoniously on the wet gravel.

  “Let’s take his shoes off,” gestured Connor, then to Nick, “Walk to the door twenty-five yards from your eleven o’clock. I hope you give my friend an excuse to knee cap you.”

  Nick began to walk.

  As he stepped over the threshold, Connor’s boot thudded into the small of his back. It sent him face first on the floor with a sound of dropped meat.

  The tape was torn off Nick’s mouth, which Connor had bound all the way around his head. Nick grimaced but didn’t cry out. They threw him onto the single chair. A trickle of blood leaked from his eyebrow.

  Connor turned to Louis, “Can you grab us both a chair, I don’t like not being able to see his hands. An’ a hammer.”

  Louis left the room.

  Nick spoke, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing son or what you’ve got yourself into.”

  “Don’t call me son, we’re about the same age you fucking dick,” said Connor, “but you’re right, I don’t. That’s why you’re going to tell me.”

  Louis came back in with the chairs, sitting one down at an angle in front of Nick for Connor.

  “You having t’is or shall I?” Louis asked, raising the hammer.

  “You, mate. You seen the film ‘Payback’?”

  Louis smiled. He raised his chair over Nick’s head to plant it behind him. He let one of the legs hit him in the face. Connor kept his smirk at bay as Louis set down the seat behind the detainee.

  “I am going to ask questions and if you refuse to tell me, or if I think you’re lying, my friend here is going to hammer your toes one by one. Apologies for the lack of sophistication, but part of me gets a kick out of mutilating you for what you’ve done.”

  Nick scrunched his eyes, “And yet you don’t know what I have done.”

  “You helped someone kidnap your boss, no doubt for money or because they coerced you.”

  “You ignorant fuck, you don’t know anything.”

  Louis’s chair scraped on the ground like nails on a blackboard. Connor sat him back down with a gesture.

  “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

  “Where’re your phones?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to see them switched off before I tell you this.” Connor and Louis looked at one another—was this a ploy?

  Connor removed the pay as you go phone he’d bought the previous day, powering it off and Louis did the same. They showed Nick.

  “Start speaking,” said Connor.

  Nick took a breath. “Bruce McQuillan’s death was ordered by certain people high up within Government.”

  “Lies, you’ve done this for fucking money, no other reason.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Why?” asked Connor, and when Nick didn’t answer. “If you hold back again, a little piggy will go to the market you prick.”

  Nick looked back at him. “The Russian Bratva is taking over all organised crime in London. Probably the UK as a whole after that, with the help of people within the Government.”

  Connor looked at Nick and immediately saw that he was telling the truth—it is too out there to be a lie. He felt his stomach lurch.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s better the devil you know? Too many resources spent trying to track too many different groups.”

  “Or maybe it isn’t the organisation as a whole, maybe it’s a select few they have managed to coerce, you fucking weasel,” Connor spat.

  “We can talk all day long, but my orders were given to me by my superiors.”

  “You sound like an SS Officer.”

  “You heard yersen. Had you completed training, Bruce McQuillan would have asked you to do some questionable things t
o say the least.”

  Connor looked at Louis. “Louis, would you hold him steady and cover his eyes my good man?”

  Nick blanched as the hammer was passed to Connor. One of Louis’s python-like arms whipped around and clamped the struggling Nick’s chest like a vice. Louis covered Nick’s eyes with a tight palm. Nick kept shifting his feet until Connor pressed a gun-mimicking pair of knuckles into his kneecap.

  “Toe or kneecap, five seconds to make your choice.”

  “Why are you doing this?” shouted Nick.

  Connor replied, “I’ll explain in a minute but in the meantime, I suggest you stop moving your feet.”

  Nick stilled his feet. His little toe on his right foot splattered with a clanging thud, leaving Nick roaring. Louis let him go as they watched him take huge swallows of air.

  “Stop crying you fanny. They do worse to themselves on ‘Jackass’,” sneered Connor, “and in answer to your question, Bruce McQuillan did take me on a mission requiring me to kill someone. He made me question why and gave me the reason, so don’t pull that shit with me again. Now answer me this, why did he need to be kidnapped?”

  Nick, still smarting from the hammer, looked at Connor. “He wasn’t, at least they told me that he was just going to be killed in the street.”

  “We’ll get to why he wasn’t later but first, what reason was given for killing him?”

  Connor guessed Nick’s tongue might have been loosened by the toe splattering.

  “They told me that this partnership with the Russians was the future… that Ravil Yelchin was someone they could deal with, that he was a businessman not a psychopath and this ‘relationship’ could cut organised crime in half. You’re talking about millions of pounds that could be funnelled back into the NHS, Education, and public services. Bruce McQuillan would never accept that and to even float it to him would be dangerous given his independent resources. He needed to be taken out.”

  “Who are these superiors? I thought we…you only reported to Bruce?”

  “They have eyes on my family man…I’ll never tell you who.”

  “Which toe now?” said Louis.

  Connor shook his head.

  “Why wouldn’t he accept it?” Connor asked,

  “Because he just wouldn’t. He sees things in black and white and he wouldn’t—”

  “—wouldn’t accept elements of the British Government and its security services being in collusion with Russian gangsters? Yes, he sounds like the nutty one doesn’t he,” said Connor.

  Nick’s head just hung slightly, and Connor continued, “Let me tell you something Nicholas. Let’s say this does go forward and there’s a ‘relationship’—so to speak—with these Russians after a great war with the Turks, Yardies, Chinese and British gangs. Let’s say they overcome them all and bring order to the UK, because this Ravil character is an all-powerful yet reasonable guy. Tell me what happens when he goes. If he dies, if he falls ill, what happens?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that we would have to be pretty fucking fortunate that his replacement would be just as ‘reasonable’ as you say. If he wasn’t, you will have given him an infrastructure that’s nearly impossible to dislodge.”

  “How do you know that? You’re half Royal Marine, half fucking criminal? You don’t know how it’s going to play out.”

  Connor smiled, “It’s because I come from a family of criminals that I know how it’s going to play out. This Ravil character might be the Frodo Baggins of the criminal world but I doubt it. It sounds to me a lot like the Munich appeasement of Hitler. Hypothetically though, let’s say that he is. Once he’s gone, his replacement will have the infrastructure to bring the country to its knees. It’s the classic ‘all your eggs in one basket’ don’t you see? And that’s why we have to stop it.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? There is no stopping it, it’s already taking place. It’s the most influential people in this country and the most powerful Russian mafia boss forming an alliance. Who’s going to stop them? You and Wesley Snipes here playing ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ with guns? You’ll have more chance spit-roasting the Queen, ya prick.”

  Connor and Louis smiled, in admiration at the outburst. Connor thought for a moment.

  “Let me tell you a story. Thailand is the favourite place for Royal Marines to go to relax and I use that term loosely. Anyway, there’s an element in the Marines named ASG—the Armoured Support Group—and they cut around in this amphibious, all-terrain vehicle called the Viking. It’s a great bit of kit. You heard of it?”—Nick said nothing, and Connor continued. — “Anyway, they’d be away six months of the year in Afghanistan, and an oppo of mine, a friend rather, would just go to Thailand any chance he got. I mean, it could be a four-day weekend, and he’d go, and eventually he ended up in over £40,000 of debt. I used to ask him how he was going to get out of it and he’d replied, ‘I’ll think of something’—not bothered like. Just before he went to Afghanistan, he took out a shed load of life insurance with injury cover with various insurance groups. He came back, we went into the woods with a hammer and chisel, he placed his hand against a tree and using the hammer and chisel I chopped his little finger off—at his request of course. It took two whacks. He didn’t take any painkillers as he didn’t want it to look suspicious. He ended up getting around £80,000. Used the excess to start a profitable private security business. So you see, there’s no jam impossible to get out of.”

  Nick looked at him with bemusement etched on his face. “You’re fucking crazy.”

  “That doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.”

  Bruce McQuillan sat back in the room after his stint in the sensory deprivation box. It felt like he’d been in there for hours, unable to see, hear or to move. It was impossible to tell how long. He understood a man could go mad in there. He also knew that wasn’t what they wanted. He would have to be lucid or at least semi-so. It was a mental battle that ultimately he couldn’t win, unless he escaped or a cavalry came. His goal was to draw it out as long as possible.

  The Russian’s words had briefly penetrated his psyche.

  If it were true people high in the security services had orchestrated this, a cavalry would not exist. Still, he knew he would resist until he’d no strength left. Not because of pride but because it was the only way to give him any semblance of a chance of turning this situation around.

  He was lying to himself about the pride part. No way would he go to his grave without tolerating what he could withstand past his absolute limit. This was the life he chose, and he knew the risks. To crack to spare himself pain would be like the Mafia members who swear an oath, only to turn ‘rat’ in the face of long prison sentences. He’d seen more than a few of those types. They’d been extremely useful to him, had indeed helped to save lives, but he still found them distasteful. He remembered one staunch member of the IRA who wouldn’t be swayed by money, the loss of family, reputation, immunity or anything. In the end, Bruce had had to kill him. As he squeezed the trigger, Bruce looked into the Republican’s eyes, feeling a weight of admiration and sadness wash over him. He almost owed it to that enemy to go out the same way. As long as he’d control of his mind, he was winning.

  The door opened.

  “I want any information that will help me get him back,” said Connor.

  “I told you, he’s dead. Those were the orders.”

  “Nah, if they wanted him dead, there’s any number of ways they could have done it—hit and run, poison in his tea, mugging gone wrong, anything. Instead, they put this elaborate plan in place and kidnapped him alive.”

  “Why?”

  “I am guessing that the Russians don’t much trust their new partners and are looking for any leverage they can use against them.”

  “They have all the leverage they need.”

  “How so?”

  Nick didn’t say anything and Connor’s voice boomed, piercing the air. “You fucking stop again and it’ll be your big toe o
n the same foot. You’ll be walking like your mother after a session with Louis and his mates.”

  Louis shook his head straight faced.

  “Ravil owns the computer systems that have been installed in MI6’s headquarters, or at least he has part-ownership. Now he’s coercing some very influential people with this. He has already gleaned information about the inner workings of the Government and UK Security Services.”

  “This doesn’t make sense. Why does the Russian need to interrogate Bruce McQuillan then?”

  Nick said nothing.

  “Be that as it may, you’re going to tell me what you know Nick.”

  “I know they used an arms dealer by the name of Pierre Gaultier. He’s the middle man to hire the assassin who was meant to take out Bruce.”

  “But he wasn’t taken out.”

  “Well, it looked to me like he was shot with a tranquilizer dart.”

  “Why didn’t you fucking say that? Surely that’s enough to convince you it was a kidnap?” Connor stared at his captive incredulously.

  Nick returned the gaze contritely.

  “And this Pierre character can help us how?”

  “He could lead you to them maybe. But you need help—technical support,” replied Nick.

  “From who? You?”

  “No, someone who specialises in these things. He’s more than a specialist. He’s a wizard when it comes to anything to do with computer systems.”

  “Why should I trust you or this ‘Q slash Gandalf’?”

  “I can’t make you believe me, but I’ll say it anyway. This guy would do anything to make sure Bruce is brought back safe. He is your only chance now.”

  Connor processed a few thoughts before asking, “Not that I know him well, but from what I have seen, surely it’s more than a possibility that Bruce will end your life for betraying him?”

  “Yes, but I guess I am dead anyway. I thought I was doing the right thing,” Nick exhaled, “but as you say yourself, why did they kidnap him? Why not kill him as briefed?”

  “Because they don’t want an alliance. They want total control.”

  “Right. So I’ll help yer.”