Nighthawks

by Lambert Nagle

  Praise for Lambert Nagle

  Cinematic in scope, ambition and execution, Nighthawks zips along at a breakneck pace.

  Pajnewman.com

  Bursting with intrigue. A highly addictive thriller.

  Readandrated.com

  An enthralling read that I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys crime thrillers.

  Splashes into Books

  This novel has strong potential for screen adaptation.

  Norma F, Educator netgalley.com

  Nighthawks

  Lambert Nagle

  Lambert Nagle Media

  Copyright © 2021 by Lambert Nagle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For the other Ginny, our Rocky Bay collaborator and wonderful friend.

  And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.

  And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.

  And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.

  And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

  New Testament (Matthew, 8:23-26)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Lambert Nagle

  Chapter 1

  London, England

  * * *

  When he was ten years old, summoned to see Father Jack and waiting cold and alone in the school corridor, he had felt this way. Sitting outside DCI Reynold’s office, Stephen Connor felt defeated. Through the glass partition, Reynolds was frowning as she dragged angrily on an e-cigarette. This wasn’t going to go well.

  ‘Come in Connor,’ she called. As Stephen went in, he saw her hastily moving a stack of papers from her desk onto a table behind her. She glanced up at him. ‘I hear from your superior officer that organising rosters isn’t your thing.’

  ‘I’m sure there are others better qualified for that than I am, Ma’am.’

  ‘Something’s come up, which might interest you.’

  Reynolds said this without a hint of sarcasm. He half-hoped she was about to offer him a redundancy deal that was too good to turn down.

  ‘I see you got pulled in on a job with Europol.’

  ‘A joint people-trafficking raid in Belgium, Ma’am.’

  ‘Good. I’ll put “has experience working with teams across Europe,”’ Reynolds said.

  It was a slight exaggeration, but he wasn’t about to contradict her.

  ‘We’ve had one of their experts in counterterrorism on secondment. Now it’s our turn to return the favour. You speak Italian, don’t you? The Italian police need help with a case.’

  ‘Can I just stop you there, Ma’am. I haven’t spoken a word of Italian for ten years.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll soon get back into the swing of it. I’ve told them you’ll be there by next Wednesday. Pack for three months. That’s when the money runs out.’

  Three months—and the rest. In all the time he had served on the force not one case had been wrapped up in less than six.

  ‘But I’m getting married in July.’

  ‘You’ll have to reschedule. And if you can’t, they’ve got churches in Italy. By then you’ll be due a weekend off.’

  ‘We’ve booked the reception, and paid—at least her father has. He hates me enough as it is. This is going to send him ballistic.’ And Ginny, he thought.

  ‘Tell him to claim on the insurance,’ she said, barely looking up from her paperwork. ‘If you wanted to play happy families, why did you join the Metropolitan Police, Connor?’

  Stephen’s gaze landed on a small, framed photo Reynolds kept on her desk. It showed a Detective Sergeant, the same rank as him, wearing a uniform long out of date. He’d heard rumours around the canteen about this young officer who had taken a bullet meant for her during an armed siege.

  ‘How are you going to afford a wedding if you don’t have a job?’

  ‘You were going to have me suspended last time we met.’

  ‘If it was up to me I would have done.’

  He drew in a sharp intake of breath. Reynolds didn’t mince her words.

  ‘The only reason I didn’t was because the PR department sent a photo of you receiving that bravery award from the Prime Minister to every bloody school kid who expressed an interest in joining the Met.’ Reynolds sighed. ‘This isn’t personal. I’ve been ordered to axe thirty per cent of my staff, just so the new Home Secretary can put officers back on the beat that her predecessor sacked.’

  ‘If I don’t take this job I’m going to be selected for redundancy?’

  ‘Help me out here, Connor. Who else can I send? I don’t have any spare coppers, let alone Italian speakers. Here’s the personnel spec if you’re interested.’ Reynolds slid the document towards him.

  Stephen read the top line: Native English speaker to assist the carabinieri in an undercover operation to retrieve stolen art and antiquities.

  ‘There’s another reason I can’t do this,’ he said, looking up. ‘My girlfriend works at an auction house. She sells antiquities. It’s a bit too close to home.’

  ‘Then you’ll have something to talk about on your honeymoon, won’t you? There’s more to this case than a few broken pots so it should keep you occupied.’

  ‘And I would report to?’

  ‘The Italian art unit officially. But it depends on what you find out. If the case turns out to be bigger than art looting, then the other agencies will want to know.’

  ‘And when there’s a conflict of interest?’

  ‘You’ll have to make that call. Play your cards close to your chest.’ Reynolds leaned back in her chair and looked directly at him. ‘You’re good at thinking on your feet. Why do you think I picked you?’

  All that stuff about Italian speakers and having no one else to send was a smokescreen. After his last big international case, Reynolds had told him that mavericks like him were more of a hindrance than a help in modern police forces and that she’d be glad to see the back of him. Yet all of a sudden, she was putting him forward for another one. He read on: Surveillance experience. Well, yes, but he wasn’t able to do that alone—he relied on his unofficial IT help-desk, his mate Tariq, for advice.

  But what he was most afraid of wasn’t work related. It was how the hell he was going to tell Ginny. It wouldn’t matter which angle he came at it from—she was going to be mad at him.

  ‘I’ll let you know by Monday.’

  ‘I know you’ll make the right decision. Here’s the rest of the briefing documents. My neck’s on the block as well as yours, so don’t screw up, will you, Connor?’

  He gathered the papers and his dignity and took a deep breath. It was going to be a lo
ng week.

  ‘I’ll do my best not to, Ma’am.’

  As he was about to step out the door, Reynolds looked up from her desk.

  ‘One more thing, Connor. I had a call from the Australian Federal Police this morning. They’ve found clothing and personal items belonging to that missing eco-terrorist.’

  ‘Activist,’ he muttered, the colour draining from his face.

  ‘No forensic evidence. But they’re calling off the search, winding down the case and they've taken her off the wanted list.’

  ‘Very good Ma’am. Thanks for letting me know.’

  He walked out of the office in a trance and had no memory of getting back to his desk and sitting down in front of his computer. He heard chairs scraping and muffled laughter as his colleagues gathered round.

  ‘You alright Steve?’

  ‘Where’s she sending you?’

  ‘Are you going to be our man in Moscow?’

  His phone buzzed. He looked down. Three missed calls from Tariq and a voicemail message. Shit. Tariq must have heard by now. It would be all over social media.

  ‘Steve, you promised me that as soon as you got news about Cara I’d be the first to know. You lied to me, mate.’ He sounded deflated. It was uncharacteristic, Stephen thought.

  Stephen pressed Return Call: no answer. It went to voicemail. He’d go round there, straight after work. If he was lucky, he’d get out by six.

  But by seven that evening he was still at his desk. He’d planned to nip over to Ginny’s office at lunchtime to tell her in person, but she was in meetings all day. He’d left a phone message but immediately regretted it. She’d been on his case about the job offer in a series of increasingly hostile text messages all afternoon. And he’d had to avoid Reynolds for the rest of that day while he tried to decide whether to take the Italian job or chuck the whole thing in.

  Stephen tried Tariq one last time and left a message.

  ‘I’m stuck at work. I heard the news this morning when I was hauled into the boss’s office.’ The phone clicked, and he heard Tariq pick up.

  ‘This morning at eight there was a knock on my door. I thought it was one of my couriers, but no, it was a journalist from one of the tabloids. She shoved a phone in my face asking if Cara Robertson had worked for me as a courier? I was half asleep, so I garbled that not only had she been one of my best bike riders, but that I’d looked out for her.’

  ‘I didn’t know they’d made a statement to the press. I’d have been round at yours like a shot if I had.’

  ‘And then she said, “did I know she was a wanted terrorist in Australia?’”

  He’d never heard Tariq this upset.

  ‘It’s okay. I’ll pull myself together in a minute. Thanks for listening.’

  ‘Go on,’ Stephen said.

  ‘I told her that Cara had been set up and that the real culprit had got off scot-free. But she wasn’t interested in that.

  “Hadn’t I heard? The police had found her clothes in the desert. They were winding down the case. Would I like to comment?” And then the photographers let rip. So your mate here is going to be splashed all over the tabloids tomorrow. And you can be sure that woman will come up with some sob story of a pathetic man in a wheelchair, in love with one of his staff, when all we were was good mates.’

  His voice lowered to a whisper. ‘Cara’s dead, isn’t she Steve?’

  ‘This is doing my head in, believe me. But the one thing I’m hanging on to is that so far, it’s only clothing and personal items.’

  Tariq cut in.

  ‘So you’re telling me she throws away her clothes because she fancies some new ones? This is Cara we’re talking about here—always the first to give us a lecture about the environmental impact of the rag trade.’

  ‘But there’s been no…’ Stephen struggled to find the right phrasing.

  ‘Body?’

  ‘No actual forensic evidence. I’m not giving up hope. I wanted to come and see you earlier, but there’s stuff going on at work.’

  ‘What stuff?’ Tariq was grumpy now.

  ‘Reynolds wants to move me on.’

  ‘You got promoted?’

  ‘No. If I agree to it, it’s a transfer.’

  ‘Like a football signing then?’

  ‘I wish. No Golden Handshake for me.’

  ‘I hope it’s not somewhere out in the sticks.’

  ‘Rome. I have to let the boss know by Monday.’

  ‘What’s the missus got to say about that?’

  ‘I haven’t been able to talk to her about it properly yet. All I’ve had is a barrage of angry texts:

  “Why can’t you stand up to her?” “What’s wrong with the word no?” “Why are you letting her walk all over you?”

  ‘It’s going to be a yes, though. I can tell by the tone of your voice.’

  ‘I’ve not made up my mind. I’m sorry about the way you found out about Cara.’ He could hear the whirr of Tariq’s wheelchair as he moved around his office. Tariq wasn’t about to forgive him. He’d always been protective of his couriers. None more so than Cara. Like it or not, he also believed that Stephen hadn’t done enough to help her when they were out in Australia.

  And now it seemed his best mate didn’t want to know about his move to Rome. It was Stephen’s turn to be grumpy. ‘Better get going. Lots to do.’

  ‘Stay in touch, eh?’

  ‘Maybe you can come visit for a weekend?’

  ‘A wheelchair in Rome? It’d be a nightmare.’

  ‘Think about it,’ Stephen said as he hung up.

  Chapter 2

  One Week Earlier. Northern Territory, Australia

  * * *

  Scrubby trees dotted the landscape. In the distance, a rust-coloured escarpment rose out of the vast flatness. A heat haze shimmered from the roof of an indigo-blue transit van, parked in the middle of the outback.

  On the ground a rusty sign proclaimed:

  YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER A MINING LEASE. THIS AREA CONTAINS SHAFTS AND OTHER MINE WORKINGS. UNAUTHORISED ENTRY IS PROHIBITED.

  Abandoned shovels and pick-axes lay rusting across the sandy soil. Nearby, a faded yellow metal hazard sign with a black triangle and a radiation symbol read: Radiation Area. No Camping. Do Not Drink the Water.

  Stripped to the waist were two men; the younger of them baby-faced with a hairless chest, mid-twenties but could pass for younger. The other, hirsute and sweaty and a generation older.

  ‘Nothing but sand out here and you had to pick the place that’s radioactive?’ the pale one said. The sweaty one examined the rusty tools, picked up two shovels and a pick-axe and threw them on the ground in front of the pale one.

  ‘Who’s going to look for her out here? Now get digging.’

  The pale one sighed. Shovels dug into the soft sand.

  Inside the van was a young woman, gamine, her short, cropped hair dripping with sweat. Bound and gagged, her fingers and lips were the only part of her body that could move. Slumped over, barely conscious, she roused at the sound of metal on stone, faint inside the van, but unmistakable. She heaved herself upright to peer through the front windows and saw the two men. One rested on his shovel seeming to look straight at her with a leer on his face. She shrank back and started to breathe rapidly, in shallow, panicked bursts.

  She wriggled sideways so she could feel along the van’s floor with her fingertips. They touched a metal box, big and bulky. She tried to turn the handle one way. It refused to budge. Then the other. It yielded a millimetre, maybe two. She tried again. One sharp tug and her index fingernail tore off. But the handle yielded, just as the quick where the nail sat started to bleed.

  She felt her way around the toolbox, testing each item. The effort of turning her body sent salty sweat stinging into her eyes. Through the tears she saw a crowbar, pliers, screwdrivers, spanners. And then a mini saw, which she grabbed, then the crowbar, which slipped through her fingers and clattered down beside her. The sound ricocheted around the bare panelling.
She froze.

  Outside, the two men appeared to hear only their shovels digging ever deeper into the soft ground.

  Inside her stifling prison, the temperature over fifty Celsius, the woman adjusted her position, struggling to avoid the metal side panels, the searing heat burning through her thin T-shirt. She started to saw away at the cable ties that bound her, her hands slippery from the blood from her torn nail.

  Outside, the pale one stopped digging and threw down his shovel. His skin was now an angry red. He grabbed a plastic water bottle, took a swig, then moved towards the van, the sweat running off his body. He pulled up his shirt and wiped his face with it.

  ‘Hey, we haven’t finished yet.’

  ‘Just giving her the rest of this.’

  ‘She won’t need that where she’s going,’ the sweaty one said, pointing at the trench.

  ‘It’s better than chucking it. Who knows, I might get lucky.’

  His accomplice shook his head, his hair dripping. ‘Dirty bastard.’

  The desert sunlight caught the chrome handle of the rear doors. The pale one grasped the handle, dropped it and let out a howl. He flicked his hand back and forth and stared at his fingers as the skin started to peel away.

  ‘Bugger!’

  The young woman’s eyes darted left and right before she pushed herself towards the back of the van, wrapping the discarded cable ties loosely round her wrists.