Ultimatum

by Simon Kernick

  He caught the eye of the cop sitting directly opposite him, a young mixed-race guy with a ridiculously square jaw and the build and looks of a rugby player. His dark eyes were simmering as he stared at Fox.

  Fox held his gaze, noticing with interest that the cop’s finger was instinctively tightening on the trigger.

  ‘Try anything,’ said the cop in a cockney growl. ‘Anything at all. Because all I need’s the slightest fucking excuse and I’ll put a bullet right through your skull. I’d love that.’

  Fox shrugged. ‘You and a couple of million other people, I’m sure. The point is, most of them wouldn’t have the spine to pull the trigger. They might think they have, but when it comes down to it … I don’t think so.’

  The cop’s lips formed an exaggerated sneer. ‘I could.’

  ‘Really?’ Fox couldn’t resist a small smile. ‘Ever killed anyone? Or do you get your kicks from firing that thing down on the range? Shooting paper targets that can’t shoot back.’

  ‘I get my accuracy from firing it down the range, so when it comes to it, I won’t miss.’

  ‘All right, shut it, you two,’ grunted one of the older cops, who was clearly in charge, which suited Fox just fine. He had no desire, or need, to get involved in slanging matches with slow-witted coppers over whether or not he deserved to take a bullet for what he’d done. Of course he did. He was a bad man. He’d committed terrible crimes. He deserved to die. At least he had the self-awareness to confront it, unlike a lot of people.

  But of course he had no intention of dying any time soon, or even spending much more time in custody.

  Tonight was the night he was going to demonstrate how easy it was to outwit the people holding him. They’d searched him thoroughly as he’d left the prison, put him through a metal detector, made sure there was no way he could be carrying anything that would help him escape.

  And he wasn’t carrying anything. But only because he’d already swallowed it. A postage-stamp-sized GPS unit, made entirely of plastic. If it worked – and Fox was very confident that it would – it would give the people following its signal his location down to the nearest yard.

  He settled back in the seat and stretched his shoulders.

  Checkmate.

  Sixty-nine

  21.23

  ‘RIGHT,’ SAID CECIL, ‘they’ve just left the B158 heading east in the direction of a village called Epping Green.’

  He was sitting with a Macbook Air on his lap watching the progress of Fox’s GPS unit, while Cain drove at a steady fifty miles an hour along the B157, three miles to the south of them.

  Cain nodded, pleased with the way things were going. ‘Good. Then they’re definitely taking him to a safehouse, and it can’t be too far away.’

  Cecil gave him a sideways glance. ‘How the hell are we going to do this, sir? Now that there are only two of us?’

  ‘The same way we’d have done it if there’d been three. By stealth. We get the location, we scope it out, and we move in. We’ll have the element of surprise on our side. They won’t be expecting a thing. If they were they’d never have taken him to a safehouse. And it’s not like we’re dealing with the SAS here. None of these coppers will have ever fired a gun in anger, I can guarantee you that.’

  ‘It’s still dangerous.’

  Cain turned and glared at him. ‘This whole damn thing’s dangerous, Cecil. But that’s the way it has to be. We’re soldiers. It’s how we operate.’

  Cecil sighed. ‘What if we haven’t killed him? Jones, I mean. He can testify against us.’

  He can testify against you, you mean, thought Cain. ‘We shot him at least twice, and it’s freezing cold out there tonight. He won’t survive.’

  ‘We never saw his body, and he’s a tough bastard.’

  ‘Then we’ll take him out later if we have to. Accidents can be arranged, you know that.’

  As he spoke, while still watching the road ahead, Cain could see that Cecil was looking at him suspiciously. Cecil had been in a difficult mood ever since he’d found out that Jones had to die, and Cain knew he had to keep his morale up while he still needed him.

  ‘Look, even if Jones survives, the good thing is that he’s in no position to talk to the police. He shot Dav in cold blood, remember? There’s no way he can spin himself out of that one. His best bet’s to keep his mouth shut, and he knows it.’

  ‘But that’s the thing,’ said Cecil, and Cain could hear the pain in his voice. ‘He shot the Albanian. He did the robbery this morning. He did everything asked of him. So I don’t understand why he’d betray us.’

  ‘Because he weakened, Cecil. Most men do. They take the easy option. We haven’t.’

  ‘Aye, and what good’s it done us?’

  Cain glared at him. ‘Don’t give me that. You know why we’re doing this. And think of the money you’re going to make when we break out Fox.’

  Cecil quietened a moment at the thought of the reward on offer. Like most of the people Cain had ever met, he was greedy.

  ‘And you reckon Fox has definitely got the money to pay us?’ he asked eventually.

  Course he hasn’t, thought Cain. And if he did have it, he wouldn’t pay us anyway. But he didn’t say that. ‘I know for a fact that Fox has got two million dollars stashed away in various foreign bank accounts. We’re going to hold him until he pays us half of it. Us, Cecil. Me and you.’

  In truth, Cain had already been paid by the man he reported directly to, Garth Crossman, to silence Fox once and for all. Cecil wasn’t going to make it out either. Like Fox, he knew too much. Tonight, Cain and Crossman were going to make a clean break from their previous strategy of launching violent terrorist attacks. The attacks had served their purpose. They’d wreaked havoc, harmed community relations, and made the government look weak. Now it was time for Crossman to go political.

  Cecil stared at the screen. ‘OK. Targets have now turned right on to an unmarked road. The road leads down to a farm about half a mile north of us. It’s the only building on that road.’

  Cain felt his adrenalin kicking in. ‘It’s the safehouse.’

  ‘OK, take the next right turn,’ said Cecil. ‘If we move fast enough we might be able to cut them off before they get there.’

  Seventy

  21.25

  BOLT STUMBLED WHEN he eventually got out of the car, and had to grab hold of the door for support. His headache had been getting worse, and every few minutes he was being hit by dizzy spells where his vision would blur and darken, each time for slightly longer. He took a couple of deep breaths, still waiting for this latest one to pass. He was going to have to get himself to a hospital soon, but he owed it to Jones to at least try and see if he was OK.

  He blinked a couple of times as his vision returned to normal, immediately spotting Jones’s old black Renault Mégane parked in the corner. It was too cold a night to be out walking, which meant he was probably here. Bolt felt a smidgen of satisfaction that his hunch had paid off, and turned towards the house, stopping suddenly as he spotted the ground-floor window hanging open, only partially visible behind one of the cars.

  Jones had a ground-floor flat. It was unlikely to be a coincidence.

  Bolt walked towards the window, his pace slow and unsteady, but as he passed a parked BMW he saw a body lying on the ground.

  Even in the darkness, he could see it was a white male in his thirties dressed in a suit, and he felt a guilty relief that it wasn’t Jones. The man was on his side, one arm outstretched towards a briefcase a few feet away. His shirt was heavily bloodstained, as was the car itself, and he had a large hole in the centre of his forehead, where he’d been shot at close range. It was also clear he was dead.

  The sight didn’t make Bolt feel sick. He’d seen too many murder victims for that, but it did make him feel terribly sad. Here was someone who’d come home from a hard day at work and whose life had been ripped from him in what must have been a terrifying last few seconds. It reminded him far too much of his own mortality.


  The moan was almost inaudible, but Bolt turned round immediately, causing his vision to blur again. As it cleared, he saw a second body poking a little way out of a thick leylandii bush that bordered the property, partially obscured by a parked car.

  It was Jones.

  Even as he reached him, Bolt could see he was in a bad way. He was only visible from the chest up, his face buried in the gravel, and he wasn’t moving. The blood was everywhere, drenching his clothes and spreading across the gravel beside him.

  Crouching down, Bolt turned him over as gently as he could, and looked down at his pale bloodstained face.

  Jones tried to focus but couldn’t seem to manage it, and his eyes flickered as he began to lose consciousness.

  ‘You’re going to be all right, Jones,’ Bolt told him, aware that his own voice sounded weak. ‘I promise. I’m going to get help right now.’ He fumbled in his pocket for his phone. ‘Stay with me, Jones. Come on, stay with me.’

  Jones’s eyes closed as Bolt dialled 999, and Bolt slapped his face to make him stay awake, the effort making him nauseous.

  ‘I need an air ambulance right away,’ he said when his call was answered, and gave the address.

  The operator said he couldn’t guarantee an air ambulance, that resources were severely stretched.

  ‘My name is Detective Inspector Mike Bolt of Counter Terrorism Command. This man’s a victim of today’s attack. And he’s the only person who can identify the terrorists. If he dies, you’re responsible.’

  ‘Are you all right, sir? You don’t sound well.’

  Bolt took a deep breath, feeling like he was going to faint. ‘I’m fine. Just get here.’

  He slapped Jones’s face again. ‘Come on, wake up.’ He couldn’t let Jones die. He just couldn’t.

  Jones’s eyes flickered open and he looked up at Bolt, his lips curling in what could have been a smile or a grimace. But at least he was conscious.

  ‘Who did this?’ Bolt asked. ‘Who shot you?’

  Jones opened his mouth and let out a single word: ‘Fox.’

  Bolt frowned. What was he talking about? ‘Did you say Fox?’

  ‘Cain shot me,’ whispered Jones, his words barely audible. ‘After Fox.’

  ‘What do you mean “after Fox”?’

  Jones’s face, white and bloodless, twisted in an expression of pain. It was clear that speaking was a huge effort. His eyes began to close again.

  Bolt slapped him again, and asked him to repeat what he was trying to say. Because it didn’t make any sense.

  And then it hit him. Fox was en route to the safehouse. If Cain was ‘after Fox’, it meant he knew he was being moved, and was almost certainly going to try and break him out.

  Bolt staggered to his feet, the sudden movement almost making him black out once again.

  He had to warn Tina.

  Seventy-one

  21.29

  THEY MOVED SWIFTLY through the woods in total silence.

  Cain could hear the sound of the convoy drawing closer, and was just able to see the first glow of the lead vehicle’s headlights as it came round the bend a few hundred yards further up. He nodded to Cecil, and the two men split up, taking up positions twenty yards apart on the light incline that ran down to the road, using the trees as cover. Cain put down the AK-47 assault rifle he was carrying and removed a Russian-made RK3 anti-tank grenade from beneath his jacket, slipping his forefinger through the firing pin as the convoy made its steady approach along the narrow winding road – sitting ducks heading straight into an ambush.

  He felt the joy of violence building within him. This was it. His final battle. All the months of planning, all the killing that had taken place today, was about to culminate in this last bloody act – an act that would so humiliate the government, it was difficult to see how they could survive it. Cain felt nothing but contempt for the police officers guarding Fox. They were establishment lackeys doing the dirty work of the politicians, and they deserved everything that was coming to them. There would be no mercy. And there would be no regrets.

  A thin smile spread across his face as he crouched low behind the tree, away from the glare of the approaching headlights, his finger tightening on the firing pin.

  It was time.

  Seventy-two

  21.30

  ‘HOW COME YOU always seem to get all the action?’ asked the cop sitting next to Tina in the back of the final car in the convoy. There was a mixture of irritation and admiration in his voice, and enough of a smile on his lips to suggest he was only riling her. ‘I reckon I’ve attended five hundred firearms incidents and you know how many times I’ve fired my gun?’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Tina. ‘None.’

  ‘Exactly. See? It’s not fair. You just have to turn up somewhere and the shooting starts. It’s like you’re a magnet for it.’

  ‘I’m not usually the one doing the shooting, and things are a lot less fun if you’re unarmed.’ Which Tina had to admit wasn’t entirely true. Unarmed or not, she got a huge buzz from the action she’d been involved in, although it also took it out of her.

  As the three-vehicle convoy made its way down the narrow country road leading to the safehouse where she was going to question Fox, she felt exhaustion beginning to overcome her. She’d almost been killed twice that day, had produced a month’s worth of adrenalin in a matter of hours, and only through sheer force of will had she fought off the shock that had enveloped her afterwards in both instances. But now all she could think of was her bed, and she hoped that Fox would give them the rest of the names they needed without further delay. The fact that he’d told her about Cecil Boorman was encouraging, but she doubted if they’d get the more important people so easily. Fox was the kind of amoral egotist who liked to draw things out.

  The cop was still talking and Tina was doing her best to listen, but she wasn’t finding it easy. He was a nice enough guy – good-looking and friendly, which was usually a combination that worked for her – but she didn’t like talking about her exploits at the best of times, and especially not near the end of a long day. She looked out of the window at the gently sloping woodland on either side of the road – the trees bare and forbidding, their branches like swirling skeletal arms – and was suddenly aware of the phone ringing in her pocket.

  It was Mike Bolt.

  ‘Where are you?’

  She heard the stress and exhaustion in his voice and felt a stab of concern. ‘On the road down to the safehouse. We’re almost there.’

  ‘Turn round now. Get back on the main road.’

  The shots erupted out of nowhere – a ferocious hail of automatic weapon fire that tore through the side of the car, shattering two of the windows. A bullet seemed to explode in Tina’s ear and blood splashed her face as the cop who’d been talking to her only a few seconds before tumbled sideways in his seat, already dead, blood pouring from an exit wound in the side of his head. At the same time the driver slumped forward, his hands dropping from the wheel, and the car veered to one side.

  For a split second, Tina thought she’d been hit too, but she could feel no pain, nor the sudden, draining weakness that comes with a bullet wound. Mike had stopped talking and she realized with surprise that she was no longer holding the phone. It dawned on her that it had been shot out of her hand – probably by the bullet that had passed through the cop’s head.

  Jesus! She’d dodged a bullet for the second time that day.

  There was another burst of gunfire, and more glass shattered as a round whizzed past somewhere in front of Tina’s face before exiting through the passenger-side window. The shooting was coming from off to one side of them, and Tina thanked God she hadn’t been where the cop was sitting, otherwise she’d be dead by now.

  She reacted fast, ducking down in the seat, using the cop’s body as a shield. Reaching out, she pulled his pistol – a Glock 17 – free from its holster. She could have gone for his MP5 but, having never fired one before, she decided to stick with wha
t she knew. As another burst of gunfire hit the car, shattering more glass, Tina leaned over and yanked down the door handle before rolling out of the car and landing on her belly, keeping low, because it was still possible there was a shooter on this side of the car as well.

  The surviving officer in the front passenger seat rolled out the same way, taking up a firing position behind the bonnet and cracking off a number of single shots into the gloom.

  A loud explosion shook the ground and Tina saw a ball of flame rise up from the front of the convoy. It looked like it had been hit by some sort of IED and, as Tina watched, a firearms officer staggered into the road, his clothes on fire, before falling to the ground and rolling over and over in a bid to put the flames out.

  The van carrying Fox had stopped a few yards in front of them, but there was no obvious movement inside, and aside from the officer on fire and the one crouching next to her, she could see no one else. The whole thing was happening so fast and dramatically it felt like stepping right into the heart of a nightmare.

  Tina looked round quickly. There were no muzzle flashes coming from the woods on her side of the car, which made her think there weren’t that many attackers, although whoever they were, they clearly knew what they were doing.

  The cop next to her was crouched down beneath the bonnet. He looked over as she crouched down next to him, leaning against the car and holding the Glock in both hands. He was older, in his forties, with the calm demeanour of a man who knew his job well. He asked if she was all right.

  His voice was faint, thanks to the ringing in Tina’s ears. She nodded. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Stay where you are and leave this to me.’ He looked down at the Glock but made no comment. Now wasn’t the time to be worrying about whether she was allowed to use it or not. Slowly, he peered over the edge of the bonnet, scanning the trees for movement.