The Bootneck

by Quentin Black

  The MI5 chief straightened up. “Let’s take a walk.”

  The man who fell into step alongside him was a bespectacled man of average height, early forties, wearing a tweed sweater. His physique frail and his hairline a touch receding. His demeanour was every bit the University Professor that he was. James Fisher taught Computer Sciences at the London Metropolitan University and had done since the early nineties. However, that wasn’t all he did. Professor Fisher also provided tech support to Stanton personally for off the book operations.

  “I have a problem that I need your help with,” said Stanton cautiously.

  “OK,” replied Fisher.

  “Ravil Yelchin has been taken by an unknown team. An exchange has been bartered for. It’s due anytime.”

  “Yes?” said Fisher.

  Stanton found professor’s way of processing this kind of information without emotion startling.

  “The individual in question is Bruce McQuillan.”

  Fisher remained silent for a moment or two and Stanton observed him—this wasn’t processed without emotion. He knew the academic was piecing it together. Stanton was taking a gamble now. He recognised Fisher understood that he’d broken the rules and lined his own pockets, but this was different. He was going to have to tell him the story, maybe not the full story, but at least some of it. He knew, as did a lot of men, the best lies had a high degree of truth to them. He would leave out the vast sum of money Ravil Yelchin had paid him. Stanton would add, when the Russian Bratva had wanted to rid the UK streets of the most dangerous criminals, he’d fully intended to clear them out too. Fisher didn’t necessarily have to believe it entirely— he just needed to believe it enough to allow his mercenary side to overtake his conscience. Stanton always paid him well.

  “Well,” replied Fisher, “you best tell me the story.”

  “Why doesn’t he just tell the PM and have done with it?” Connor asked. He was on the encrypted phone to Jamie. He rode in the front passenger seat of the Mitsubishi now with Nick driving. Louis had switched into the back with Ravil.

  “He cannot just accuse the eight-year head of MI5 of treachery. You need evidence. Besides, he does not know how deep this thing goes. None of us do.”

  “He’s about as far as it can go, isn’t he? Unless you’re suggesting the PM is in on it.”

  “No, anything is possible, but I doubt the Prime Minister is in on this. No western political leader wants to risk their term of office ending in that sort of…of escándalo.”

  “I guarantee you, if you cut the head off the snake, the body will die. It doesn’t matter how long the snake is.”

  “We cannot just murder him in a shoot-out. This is the head of MI5. No matter how corrupt he is, he is not just some European arms dealer.”

  Connor thought of the adage, ‘It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.’

  “So, how can Henry Costner help us in a practical sense?”

  The unknown number lit up Makar’s phone—This was it. Whatever happened, in less than twenty-four hours this would be over.

  “Yes?” he answered.

  “One A:M…That means one o’clock in the morning. There’s a warehouse on the Thames. You’ll be sent the exact location and grid via text, once this conversation ends. I’ll allow you a security detail of six men to help with your nerves, but no more,” said the confident voice. The phone call cut off. He expected the call’s brevity, but the allowance of a security detail surprised him. After a moment, Makar got it. Six men present were six men accounted for—they were not able to remain in the shadows. If Makar didn’t provide the allowed number, then the voice on the phone would know he was planning something. He felt his phone vibrate and looked at the message that read the location and the grid reference. He turned to the seven men in his presence. The men were all compact and sharp looking. They wore civilian attire. Uniformity would have attracted attention. There was a relaxed alertness in their eyes. They were all Vors.

  “That was them. I have the location. They’ll change the venue at the last moment but check it out anyway.”

  The men dispersed.

  27

  Nine men alternatively stood or sat in the empty warehouse preparing for battle. Connor Reed went through the familiar routine of oiling his assault rifle. In basic training, they taught the recruits to buy cheap, plastic spray bottles for the Ox24 gun oil. He sprayed the oil over the gas parts of the weapon system. He pulled the cocking-handle back, exposing the breech and the extractor, spraying them from inside the magazine housing. Keeping the trigger depressed, he used the cocking handle to move the bolt back and forth, spreading the oil through the inside of the rifle. The action was familiar and relaxing to him. He looked around at the rest of the men and felt a sense of unease.

  In addition to Carl, Louis and himself, Jamie had provided a half-dozen Dutch mercenaries. One of Louis’s men had taken Nick to the hospital to have his injuries treated—but he wasn’t told the location or the details of the plan. The mercenaries had originally been members of a Dutch Special Forces unit nicknamed ‘the Black Pyjamas’, who specialised in house clearing and urban combat. Connor knew why the mercenaries weren’t British. Dead foreign mercenaries were easier to cover up than domestic ones. When Jamie told him he was to command these men, he felt an initial fleeting sense of inadequacy. He hadn’t been in the SBS or SAS, and these men were the Dutch equivalent. He quashed this sense.

  He’d had operational experience in the Royal Marines, an elite albeit conventional force. He’d undergone months of training under MI5 instructors. He’d helped assassinate one of the world’s most prosperous arms dealers and managed to capture one the Russian Mafia’s biggest crime lords. He was more than equipped for this.

  In a few hours’ time, this would all be over one way or another.

  Makar drove in the bouncing rain that became visible in the rushing street light as it came out of the dark. He’d insisted he’d drive the new Mercedes S-class. He trusted his operatives, but not as much as he trusted himself. Besides, Makar had the feeling something finite was about to happen. He was very impressed. The handling was smooth with the car almost driving itself. Yet he knew he would have gotten bored after a long while. Material possessions weren’t his poison.

  It was now 00:48. Maybe the oncoming warehouse was the place. As this faint feeling of hope settled, his phone rang.

  “New location. Pausedon Docks. I’ll text the details. You have twenty-five minutes exactly, or in a few months bits of him will be delivered to different Russian Embassies,” said the caller’s clipped voice, before hanging up. Makar pushed an intercom button.

  “They have changed the location. Pausedon Docks. We have twenty-five minutes. Yuragi, start looking for any possible sniper position from across the water. Andrei, begin a clearance patrol that encircles a 150-metre space around the area of the meeting.”

  Sometimes you could only play a poor hand as well as you could.

  Connor looked out onto the black water as the street lamps cast their electric, yellow shadows across it. He doubted Makar would be on time. It would be a game to probe how far he could push him. He’d already decided to give Makar a three-minute window before he began to peel parts of Ravil off, starting with his ears. A part of him knew it was inhumane and wrong. Another part of him began to wish that Makar was overly late, so he’d have the excuse. If he were to die tonight, then he would have at least done something to the Bratva crime lord.

  Connor was self-aware enough to see the irony in his distaste for Ravil’s criminality. He was a criminal himself. Even in the Marines he’d taken part in armed robberies, drug-dealer taxation, and assaulted those he considered ‘bad’ people. He always used to have to rationalise each one until recently—until I set that paedophile politician on fire in the boot of the car. That was real justice, and he doubted he’d ever feel guilt over it. It had set off a chain of thoughts, which made him question just how ‘Robin Hood’ his crimes were. ‘Every action
has a reaction’ Bruce had said. Connor just hadn’t look that deeply into it before. He did give a lot of the stolen money away but not all of it. Also, the armed robberies he’d committed or helped to commit would have an adverse effect on the economy. Not a major effect, after all, the most Connor ever got from a heist was £60,000, but he was still contributing to any downturn. The drug dealers he ripped off, he knew some of them would be embarrassed enough to keep silent. Others wouldn’t. Others would burn with humiliation— and what does a thug do to get over a seared ego? Violence begets violence, and there would be innocents, directly or indirectly, caught in the crossfire. There were the two men he crippled for making threats against his cousin. He remembered seeing one in a wheelchair in the centre of Leeds, being pushed by his poor, caring mother. What had she ever done to him? Apart from raising a stupid, misguided, violent kid. Maybe like his own mother had.

  Connor wasn’t too hard on himself, though. He wasn’t a drug dealer, a pimp, a rapist, a murderer of innocents or anything else of that ilk. He had a code of honour. He’d had it ever since his father had taken him to face that lovely, upstanding couple whose house he’d burgled. That’s why he could feel angry about all of this. It wasn’t the bound and now hooded figure in the back of the car he was angry about. The Russian was a criminal doing what criminals do.

  It was Roger Stanton. The man swore to protect these isles from threats to its security. The man who put in place a plan to help the most ruthless organised crime syndicate entrench themselves here. All for fucking money. The treacherous, self-serving, repugnant cunt. Connor was surprised by his own sense of emotion towards this man who he hadn’t even met. He might—if forced—have to let Ravil go this time in exchange for Bruce McQuillan. However, he would never rest until he’d put Roger Stanton in the ground. He didn’t care how long it took, and he would take the first opportunity to do so.

  The thought faded as the black SUV came into view, on time.

  Roger Stanton locked himself away in his large house in Surrey. He couldn’t sleep and so sat in the large dining room, nursing a neat scotch with his wife dismissed to bed.

  The radio on low provided a distraction. He looked out into the huge black shadows of the trees dancing on the back lawn. Time now was going to feel like an insect crawling between his brain and skull as he awaited a phone call.

  Makar slowed the car to buy time—anything to give Yuragi and Andrei even an extra minute. He began to pick out the men—four of them, all wearing skull masks over their mouths and nose alongside plain black baseball caps. They were spread out with hands by their sides, but no weapons in them yet.

  Makar slowed the car and stopped with a thirty-metre distance from the other car, as instructed by the message he’d received from the voice. Bruce McQuillan was slumped in the back unconscious, with his hands cuffed onto the roof handle. A silenced pistol pressed into his side. The windows of the other vehicle were blacked out, as were his.

  Makar got out of the vehicle. He had his first look into the eyes of the man who he instantly recognised as the leader. The man’s youth surprised him. He looked in his mid-twenties. The man’s eyes weren’t on his at first, presumably because he hadn’t expected Makar to be driving. Makar wondered how recent any of the pictures they had of him were. The man’s eyes snapped on to him and held them for a moment or two. His voice cut through the air.

  “I’d want to drive it too.”

  “Have to take your pleasures when you can.”

  “My thoughts exactly. He in there?” said the man indicating to Makar’s car.

  “Wouldn’t be much of an exchange if he wasn’t. My man in there?”

  “He may or may not be. You’ll have to release Mr McQuillan to find out.”

  There was a palpable tension that rippled among the surrounding men on both sides.

  “A little unfair I think. An exchange is an exchange.”

  “True, but you know that I want Mr McQuillan alive. I can’t be sure that’s your intention for Mr Yelchin here.”

  The intelligence of a fox, thought Makar.

  “You have a suspicious mind. However, I fail to see how that affects our agreement.”

  “You’re not having him until I have McQuillan alive, so I know that he’s safe.”

  “The obvious question is, why should I trust you to hand Ravil over?”

  “My vehicle is boxed in here. It would be difficult for my team to remain unscathed. Now, we both know my hand is stronger. McQuillan to me is a ‘nice to have’, Ravil Yelchin to you is a ‘must have’. So, stop fucking around and get him out.”

  Makar knew his stalling was up. He jutted his chin to one of his men who turned towards the vehicle.

  “He’s unconscious, and his knee is shattered,” said Makar.

  “Why did you feel the need to do that?”

  “Don’t be naïve.”

  The man nodded.

  Makar raised his left hand seemingly to indicate that Bruce was to be taken out of the car. The man’s eyes were averted to Bruce McQuillan as he was lifted out. One of Makar’s men lifted Bruce McQuillan in a fireman’s carry. When he was within a few feet of the man, he made a run at the enemy leader. Just as planned, his man obscured the protagonists’ vision and Makar made a dive into the driver’s seat of his car. The bullet smashed into his right hand, at the base of his little finger.

  Carl cursed. His finger still depressed on the trigger of the sniper rifle as he watched Makar escape into the car. It seemed his entire upper left torso throbbed painfully. He should have been in a hospital bed resting. There was a huge bruise covering the left side of his chest. The Ultra High Molecular Weight Polythene had spread the impact of one of the rounds fired by the Pole, mercifully preventing it from penetrating his breast plate or even fracturing it.

  Connor had managed to stitch the shoulder surprisingly well. Carl was reminded of how in an action movie, if one of the good guys were shot, it was always a flesh wound to the shoulder. He had often lamented it was unrealistic. Luckily, the wound and bruising were on the side of the hand that supported his rifle, not the side that squeezed the trigger.

  There are a few techniques a rifleman, let alone a sniper, needs to employ in carrying out a good shot. His position and hold should face naturally onto the target. If there’s time, the shooter will take his shot in the natural pause following an exhale. He will squeeze the trigger without anticipating the shot as opposed to snatching it. He will make sure the shot is fully followed through with his trigger finger, not relaxing it too early.

  The Russian’s swift movement put paid to all of this. Carl Wright had had to take a snap shot. He fired a few more, knowing it was useless. The windows didn’t smash. The vehicle started towards Connor and the unconscious Bruce McQuillan.

  “Lock the doors,” Connor screamed, as he pulled out his Glock 17.

  As the Russian tried to throw Bruce onto him, he shot the gangster through the stomach. He outstretched his arm to break Bruce’s fall. He pumped another few rounds into the Russian. The car came towards him. Connor hurled himself and Bruce to one side as gunfire disintegrated the quiet of the night around him. The car smashed into the vehicle that contained Ravil. Its engine whirred in reverse.

  He was up, dragging Bruce a distance with him to get behind a large steel rubbish skip. Half the Dutch mercenaries leapt to the boot of the car to grab the assault rifles. The other half covered them with their now drawn pistols. The compact area erupted in noise and light. He knew what had to happen now—he had to brave exposing himself to suppress the enemy. That was the only way to win a fire fight. As he looked to his right, he saw the Dutch mercenaries and Louis doing that. Louis had his own M4 assault rifle which he was firing in a three-round burst mode.

  Connor’s task was helped by the fact the Russians couldn’t move due to the American’s sniper fire. However, Makar had reversed the vehicle so as to give his comrades cover.

  The former marine was wearing an earpiece linked with the form
er Ranger. The American’s voice sounded in his ear, “Half left, forty-five yards.”

  Connor, like a meerkat, poked his head out and the pistol jolted his hand. He shot the Russian taking aim at one of the Dutch mercenaries. He snapped back behind the cover. The side of the steel skip reverberated with a hail of return fire.

  “You’re obsolete now. The Russians have pulled back, so your pistol is ineffective, but their assault rifles are not. Hang tight,” said sniper’s calm voice in his ear.

  Connor knew that all he could do was to stay and wait. His morale took a dive as Carl’s voice came back on the line.

  “Two more vans are about to pull up.”

  “Two more vans are about to pull up” warned Carl, as they screamed around the corner on the Russian’s side. They pulled up, throwing out several smoke grenades. Smoke needs time to build for it to become an effective screen.

  In their haste to enter the affray, the armed men poured out before the smoke could mask them. Their heads detonating into a red and pink mist as he picked them off.

  The rest positioned themselves behind the vehicles, making it difficult to get clean shots. The smell of propellant filled his nose.

  He caught a Russian shoulder blade as he was taking aim at the Dutch security team. He fell, exposing his head. It exploded across the floor like a red paintball as he put a round into it. All he could do from this vantage point was to suppress them and hope they exposed themselves again. It was difficult to tell which side was in ascendency as the fire fight raged. He thought he heard a sound behind him and began to turn to look. Before he could, everything went a thudding black.

  As smoke built, Connor could see Makar’s car creep forward. The rest of the Russian criminals fired and manoeuvred in pairs behind the various boxes, metal containers and tips dotted around the area. The Russian’s car smashed into the sedan, trapping a screaming Dutch mercenary underneath it and dispersing the rest.