by Darren Dash
I stared at Haine, appalled. Toni was a killer who’d done a dumb, savage thing in the pub, but she didn’t deserve that. Nobody deserved anything like that.
Haine coughed and looked away. “It’s a terrible thing, man. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst –”
“When were you supposed to take your turn?” I interrupted quietly.
His face turned an even whiter shade. “Me? Hey, not me, I wouldn’t –”
“When?” I barked, knowing what men like Haine were like, knowing that’s the only reason he would have asked for the address, knowing that’s why he’d been so eager to share the news with Mickey Goodnews — in case Goodnews wanted in on the action. I didn’t blame Mickey for not sharing that with me. I wouldn’t have wanted to break it to a friend either.
Haine was trembling wildly now, shaking his head in vehement denial.
“Just tell me,” I said calmly. “You haven’t gone to Smurf’s, so there’s no harm done, but I need to know when they were expecting you.”
“Later,” he mumbled. “Gary said I should wait until there was a crowd, so that Smurf wouldn’t spot me. As much as Smurf wants everyone in town to fuck her, there are some people he won’t want to see.”
A flame of hope flared inside me. “So they haven’t started on her yet?”
Haine shrugged. “The plan was to hold tough until all the guests of honour on Smurf’s list had gathered, but Gary got out of there quick after they dropped her off. He’s nervous. Smurf thinks she acted on her own, just her and the cabbie, but Gary isn’t sure. He said it won’t surprise him if another gang crashes the party, especially with Smurf issuing an open invitation to rapists of any kind, not hiding the fact that he has her, or even where he’s keeping her. He wished me luck if I wanted to take a turn, but he wasn’t sticking around for it. I doubt they’ll have started, but without Gary there on site, I’ve no way of checking.”
I said nothing for a long time. I was sorely tempted to blow Craig Haine away, but for what? He was a nothing junkie, just keen to cash in on an open offer of a dirty good time. There would be dozens, maybe hundreds like him, crawling out of the woodwork in response to Smurf Mironova’s seedy summons. If I opened fire and kept going until I’d dealt with all of them, I’d be at it until Christmas next year. Or the year after that.
I stood and put the gun away. “Thank you, Craig. You’ve been a great help.”
“Yeah,” he said sulkily. “Whatever.”
“I’m going to leave you now,” I went on smoothly. “And I know you’re going to keep our little chat to yourself.”
“Of course,” Haine said quickly. “I won’t breathe a word. I don’t care about –”
“You’re going to keep quiet,” I broke in, “because if you tell anyone, Smurf will kill you for telling me about him. Even if you go to Smurf himself, to warn him in person, that won’t win you any favours. No one likes a grass, and you’ve grassed him out big time. If you keep your mouth shut, you’ll be fine, but if you talk, the best you can hope for is that he slits your throat. Alternatively, he might throw you to the sickos, the same way he’s given them the girl.”
Haine flinched at that, but I could see he was on the same wavelength as me. No profit in it for him if he talked. I’d kill Smurf or, more likely, Smurf would kill me, but as long as Craig Haine kept his peace, no one would come to kill him.
“Just one more thing,” I said.
Haine blinked at me, confused, wondering if maybe I’d changed my mind about letting him live. I squatted beside him and gave one of his thin, spasming knees a squeeze that was half comforting, half threatening.
“Where is she?” I asked.
With a moan of relief, he began to fill me in.
TEN — TOOLING UP
Wallace Keane had served with the Royal Engineers, part of their bomb disposal unit. I had huge respect for those guys. Everyone who sees action in the Forces puts their life on the line for their country and deserves admiration, but those guys have to deal with extraordinary levels of stress. I like to think I had a cool head, but I wouldn’t have cut it with the Engineers.
I’d got to know Wallace a little in the desert. He was older than me but we’d come from the same neighbourhood and knew some of the same people. We kept in touch after our respective discharges. Most of my old comrades severed ties with me when I retired early – they viewed me as a quitter for not seeing out my contract – but it didn’t matter to Wallace, who’d got out several months before me, having served a lot more time than I had. He allowed me to lean on him for support and guidance when I was back home, made himself available when I most needed a friend who understood some of what I was going through and had an idea of how to best direct me. I thought it strange at the time — we hadn’t been that close in the desert. Later, when he took me into his confidence, I found out he’d transferred his skills into private enterprise and was hoping I’d go in with him as a partner. I declined – I’d never wanted anything to do with explosives – but we remained friends and stayed in contact, got together every now and then for a few drinks and to reminisce.
Wallace sold his wares to anyone who could meet his price, no questions asked. He had no political opinions or allegiances. In his view, warfare was an economic necessity, and it would be a crime if only our governments and major, established military manufacturers profited from it. He passionately believed that there should be room for the smaller arms dealers too, that crumbs were going to fall from the various tables, and it would be a crying shame if no one was there to sweep them up. Did it disturb him that some of the devices he built were used to kill innocent women and children? Sure. But he was a small fish in a very big pond, his input negligible on a global scale. While he was the first to admit that he didn’t make the world a better place, in his view he didn’t make much of a negative difference either, so all in all he slept fairly well.
I didn’t share Wallace’s cynical brand of realism, but I could understand it. His work had never been an issue between us. I had blood on my own hands, and one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, so I’d have been a hypocrite if I’d tried to take the moral high ground.
Wallace lived in a rundown, largely deserted, once-industrial area, perfect for his purposes. He was pleasantly surprised to see me when I turned up unannounced and asked for a tour of his yard, though I could tell he knew in an instant that I hadn’t come to shoot the breeze.
He’d put on a lot of weight since I’d last seen him, even though it couldn’t have been more than a year. A bulging stomach, face lost to layers of fat. He caught me looking while we were walking and laughed. “I drive my doctor mad. He says I’m a heart attack waiting to happen.”
“What’s behind it?” I asked. “Are you eating more? Exercising less?”
He sniffed. “A bit of both, but mostly it’s just old age. Sometimes time hits quickly and hard, turns you into a broken-down replica of who you used to be, almost before you realise it’s happening.”
We came to a small shed, one of many in Wallace’s maze of a yard, and he pulled out a couple of chairs for us, along with a half-full bottle of tequila, still his favourite tipple after all these years. “So, what are you after?” he asked as he poured a large shot for himself and a smaller glass for me. “I assume it’s not to ask about my health.”
I told him everything. Wallace Keane was a man accustomed to keeping secrets. His livelihood – his very life – depended on his discretion.
He listened intently as I talked, sipping his tequila, only interrupting a couple of times to seek clarification on minor details. When I finished, he stretched and considered it for a few minutes, his gaze distant, then tossed back the last of his tequila.
“I know Smurf Mironova,” he said. “An unpleasant man. A violent, reckless man. A dangerous man.”
“You don’t think I have a chance?”
He puckered his lips thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t say that. He’s vicious and fast, hard to stop when he’s on
the attack, but more of a Tyson than a Muhammad Ali, all brawn, not that much brain. Will he be expecting you?”
“No. To him, I’m just a cabbie.” I winced. “Hell, I am just a cabbie. No reason he should think I’ll come after him. No reason why he’d be frightened if he did.”
“And you’re truly alone? Nobody at all who could back you up?”
“Not unless you fancy teaming up.”
He shook his head. “You know I don’t get involved in matters such as these. It’ll be tough by yourself. With a few good men you’d have an advantage. A quick assault, create chaos, grab the girl and run while others cover your retreat. As a sole agent… tricky.”
“Impossible?”
He hesitated before answering. “If he’s keeping her where you’ve been told, and he doesn’t have any special security measures in place… you could very credibly do it. You’ll need to be precise. Swift. Can’t afford any mistakes. And you’ll need luck. But yes, it can be done.”
I started to smile, but he raised a finger to stop me.
“Two questions you should ask yourself before you commit,” he said. “One, do you think there’s a genuine chance that she’s still alive? And two, even if she is, do you think she’ll want to live after something like that, assuming Smurf and his crew have already gone to work on her?”
I flinched, trying not to picture Toni surrounded by a gang of eager rapists.
“I’ve got to hope they haven’t set about her yet,” I said.
Wallace raised an eyebrow.
“I know,” I groaned. “Hope is a fool’s banquet, and the fools who sit down to dine on it usually die of starvation. If I knew for sure that they’d started, that she’d been destroyed, that she was lying there praying for death, it might be different. But from what the junkie told me, they really might not have gone into action yet. If they haven’t, the saving will be a true saving.”
Wallace sighed. “I can’t tell you what to do. It’s your show. Me, I’d get out of town, hit the bottle hard, try to forget all about it.”
“I can’t do that,” I said.
“Too noble?” he asked.
“Too stupid,” I grinned.
Wallace laughed. “Are you going to drink that or not?” he asked, nodding at the tequila, which I hadn’t touched.
“Not tonight. I need to keep a clear head.”
“Waste is a sin,” he said, picking up the glass and finishing it off himself. “So, how can I help?”
I shuffled forward. “Two things. First I want to discuss my plan with you. Tell you what I’m thinking. See if you’ve anything to add or suggest.”
“No problem. Glad to help. And second?”
“Second,” I smiled tightly, “I want to buy some gear.”
Wallace half-heartedly approved of my plan. Thought it was the best I could come up with, given the circumstances. “I’m not saying it’ll work,” he stressed, “but the way things are, working solo and with time against you, it’ll have to suffice.”
He recommended I keep things simple on the equipment front, some Semtex and basic timers. Took me to another shed where he began unpacking the materials and organising them.
“We’ll set the timers here and number the blocks before you leave,” he said. “It’s straightforward enough, but you’d be amazed how easy it is for an amateur to fuck it up. The first few will detonate together. The rest will go off one after the other, every thirty or so seconds, for about five minutes. That enough time?”
“Should be. I’m screwed if it’s not.”
“Catch!” He tossed me a slab of Semtex, trying to frighten me, but I wasn’t that ignorant. I knew it was safe in this state, so I caught it and lobbed it back at him like a cricket ball. He kissed it, then grew serious. “Let’s say you get in. Stick the explosives in place, behind machines or under tables, priming them as you go. Most important thing is to make sure you lay them in the right order. You don’t want number six going off before number one.”
“I’m not that dense,” I growled.
“Even the smartest of us can make the simplest of mistakes,” he warned me. “Don’t get cocky. Double-check at every step. When you’ve set them all, note the time, sit back and wait, then make your move at exactly the right moment.”
“You’ll synchronise the timers with my watch?” I asked.
“Of course. And I’ll give you a spare watch too, in case yours breaks — don’t smile, that sort of thing happens all the time.”
I stared at the soft material in Wallace’s hands. It always amazed me how something so innocent-looking could be so destructive.
“Nobody gets killed?” I asked softly.
He shrugged.
“Wallace…” I growled.
“I’m not going to make any promises,” he said. “They’re minor charges, enough to blow up the machines, turn the tables over, give people a scare. But there will almost certainly be injuries — flying glass, metal, wood. I can’t say for sure that a shard of glass won’t jab through someone’s eye and pierce their brain. I can’t say with certainty that there won’t be a guy poking round the back of a machine when it goes off.”
He registered my look of unease and offered a supportive smile. “While I can’t make any guarantees, I’ll be very surprised if there are fatalities. As long as you get the order right, and set them far enough apart, they should shake the place up, nothing more.”
I felt very mixed about this and would be sickened if I walked away with the blood of innocents on my hands.
Then again, how many innocents turn up for a non-consensual gang bang?
“How much do I owe you?” I asked.
“Give me a minute,” Wallace muttered, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen. He began scribbling quickly, finished in seconds and handed me an itemised bill.
My eyebrows lifted. “I thought you’d tell me it was on the house. A gift from one old pal to another.”
“In your dreams,” he snorted.
“Want me to transfer the money now?”
“Well, given that you probably won’t be around to do it Monday…”
I laughed and used my phone to log in to the Lewis Brue account again. The way the night was going, there wouldn’t be much of it left by the time I was done, but that was far from a worry right then.
Wallace prepared and numbered the bombs, synced the timers with my watch and the spare, which I slipped onto my other wrist. He checked everything one last time, then zipped the goods into a canvas bag.
“My role in this is ended,” he said as he passed me the bag. “All that I can do now is wish you all the luck in the world.”
“Do you think I’ll need it?” I asked.
“You and me both, my friend,” he sighed, patting his oversized stomach.
Wallace led me back to the gates, shook my hand and bid me farewell. He didn’t say anything corny, like Take care, buddy or Make sure I see you later, OK? That sort of claptrap was for the movies.
I put the bag in the trunk of Mickey’s car, then got in and started the engine. Drove away without looking back, fully focused on the task that lay dead ahead.
Time to dance with the devils and hope I didn’t get burned.
ELEVEN — INFILTRATION
The casino was a low-key, grungy affair set in a converted warehouse on the outskirts of Shoreditch, as few lights as they could get away with, no neon signs, little to draw your attention to the place. I’d passed it in my cab a few times over the years but never taken much notice. The gamblers hadn’t taken much notice of me either — the clientele in this sort of shoddy establishment rarely bothered with black cabs, unless it was to deface them and steal their wheels. Mickey Goodnews had probably whiled away a lot of hours here, as it was built to appeal only to the most pitiful, hardcore gambler.
I parked round the side, outside a perimeter wall, near a small steel gate that Haine had told me about. A couple of scummy figures were watching porn on their phones. They eyed me closely as I got o
ut, wary of anyone who wasn’t a regular. I ignored them and made my way to the door at the front of the building. They didn’t challenge me. Figured I was here for the Toni Curtis show. Which I was, just not in the way everybody else was.
There used to be a name over the door but it had fallen off or been dismantled a long time ago. Craig Haine had referred to it simply as SMURF’S PLACE. An ancient, weathered sign on the wall read NO UNDER 18s. Maybe the bouncers were illiterate, because they let through a couple of kids ahead of me who couldn’t have been more then fifteen.
The two thugs in cheap suits glared at me as I approached. I wasn’t their usual customer, and would have warranted closer attention another time, but I was sure they’d seen a lot of unfamiliar faces tonight.
“All right?” one of them grunted.
“Yeah,” I grunted back.
“Haven’t seen you here before,” he said.
I forced a leering smile. “I’m here for the special.” That was the code phrase that Haine had shared with me.
The guard returned the smile. “Have fun.”
And I was in.
The teenagers who’d preceded me weren’t alone in the crowd. At a guess I’d have said at least half of the jackals roaming the aisles would have had trouble convincing a cinema usher that they were eighteen. This was a popular spot with the local yoofs.
The others were a miserable mix of no-hopers, many middle-aged or older, wearily feeding coins into the battered slot machines. They never smiled, even when they won, just went on rolling in the coins, like assembly line robots.
I walked past the first few rows of slots. Video games were mixed in with them, and these were popular with the pimply teenagers smoking joints and swigging cheap beer that they’d probably swiped from a supermarket. (I’d never understand why they didn’t steal the good stuff.)
