The Pandemic Plot

by Scott Mariani

‘I have no answer to that.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to find the answer myself,’ Ben said.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Whatever I need to do to finish this,’ Ben said.

  Miles shook his head. ‘How far do you think you can keep pushing before you end up just like everyone else who stands in their way? How long before they send their killers after you, too?’

  ‘It’s been tried before,’ Ben said. ‘And I’m still here.’

  Miles said nothing. Ben looked at him and saw someone consumed with loathing and anger, but too paralysed by fear and his own sense of powerlessness to climb up out of the ditch and do something about it. He was a man trapped in his own private hell, and he always would be.

  They had talked late into the night. It was raining harder than ever outside. Ben stood up. ‘Thanks for the tea. Good luck, Miles. Get some rest. And stay out of trouble.’

  Ben left the dingy flat without another word and walked outside into the downpour. He barely felt the cold rain as he headed back to the Land Rover. Because now he had all the pieces to determine who really had killed Carter Duggan – all bar one. It was time to pay a visit to Mr Gregory Clarkson, CEO of the Galliard Group.

  Back in the damp, leaking Land Rover, Ben turned on his phone and found the number and address of the Galliard corporate HQ across the other side of the city. That was where his hunt would begin.

  He was setting his sat nav when the phone rang.

  ‘You thieving bastard,’ said Tom McAllister. ‘That’s how you repay me for trusting you? By stealing my frigging warrant card? What the hell are you up to? I’ve been calling and calling.’

  Ben replied, ‘I did what I had to do, Tom. When this is over you can arrest me for theft, for impersonating an officer, for whatever you like. But first I’m going to get the proof to set Jude free.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’re a bit behind the curve, pal. Jude’s already free. He escaped from Bullingdon Prison three hours ago.’

  Chapter 37

  Three hours earlier

  It was after ten when the prison erupted.

  With the facility locked down for the night, nobody would ever know how an inmate somehow managed to get past the guards, slip inside Mickey Lowman’s single cell and garrotte him so brutally with a home-made cheesewire that he was almost beheaded. But once the deed was done, the cell floor awash with blood and the killer vanished like a ghost, the alarm was raised and sirens were soon sounding all through Bullingdon. As guards rushed here and there, two of them were expertly snatched and dragged into a storeroom where their throats were slit from ear to ear. The killers grabbed their keys and quickly, efficiently, set about opening cell doors.

  Within minutes, Bullingdon was in the grip of total chaos as guards resorted to violence to subdue the torrent of raging inmates who overran the hallways and corridors, wreaking destruction all across the facility. A number of fires broke out and more alarms joined the cacophony. Several more guards were locked in cells, cornered and savagely beaten while others drew back and hid. Before anyone could do anything to get things in hand, disturbance had escalated into a full-scale riot such as Bullingdon had never seen.

  Jude and his cellmate Big Dave had been relaxing in their bunks when it began. ‘What the hell is going on out there?’ Dave said, jumping up and going over to press his ear to the cell door. At first they thought it was an emergency like a fire, and Dave thumped against the door and demanded to know what was happening. But when they heard the urgent rattle of a key in the lock and the door swung open, it wasn’t a prison guard standing there but one of Luan Copja’s men. ‘You come,’ he said, stepping inside the cell and grabbing Jude’s arm. There was blood on his clothes, but not his own.

  Big Dave bristled and got between them, defensive. ‘Hey, hey, leave him. What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Is okay, he is one of us,’ Copja’s man said, placing a palm against Big Dave’s chest. ‘He come with us.’ Big Dave didn’t like being touched and considered snapping the man’s hand off at the wrist, but given who these people were he quickly thought twice. Copja’s guy turned to Jude. ‘You come with us, yes?’

  ‘What are you talking about, come with us?’ Jude asked, fazed. ‘Come where?’

  Copja’s man grinned. ‘You will see. Now come.’

  ‘You okay with this?’ Big Dave asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jude replied. Which was a true enough statement. But it was dawning on him that he was being offered a way out of his locked cell. And that didn’t seem like a bad thing. Something his father often said came into his mind. Fuck it.

  ‘Must move quickly. There is no time.’

  And before Jude really had time to think about what he was doing, he was being whisked out of the cell and found himself in the middle of the violent chaos. He and the Albanian quickly joined up with the rest of the gang, seven men in all, Copja among them. There was a glint of merriment in the crime boss’s eye as the gang hurried through the prison, evidently heading somewhere in particular.

  ‘I thought maybe you want to leave here, little man,’ Copja rumbled, clamping Jude’s shoulder in a massive, vice-like grip. ‘You never think it happen so soon, eh? Your uncle Luan is full of surprises. You not worry, I look after you now.’

  Jude hadn’t asked for this, but they were giving him little choice. He was so confused that he barely understood what was going on, until he realised with a shock that Copja had been planning this jailbreak for some time. Past the inert and bleeding shapes of two guards; through a crowd of wild, baying inmates ransacking an office; finding one corridor blocked by fire and smoke and diverting along another, up a flight of stairs and then a second: they were heading for the roof. Through the tumult Jude thought he could hear the thump of a helicopter somewhere up above.

  ‘Come! Hurry!’ Copja’s henchmen were hustling their boss along like presidential bodyguards, with Jude in his wake. Getting closer now. The roaring thud of the chopper was loud. They crashed through a door and pounded up a metal stair that led to the roof – a rush of fresh air – and Jude was blinded by lights and deafened by the noise and wind blast. The helicopter was touching down on the prison roof, its pilot skilfully avoiding the various antenna masts that jutted up into the night sky. The aircraft’s skids flexing as it settled briefly; a hatch opening; the hurricane blast tearing at their hair and clothes as the gang rushed to meet it and clamber aboard. The chopper was small for the number of passengers cramming themselves in. Jude found himself squashed up between Copja’s bulk and the man who’d freed him from his cell. The rotors clattered and howled. The hatch slammed shut. Then they were off, and it was only then that Jude felt the exhilarating thrill that this really was happening. He was escaping from this place!

  Down below, the lights of the prison shrank away and then were shrouded behind a bank of low-drifting cloud and Jude saw no more. The Albanians were all high-fiving one another, whooping and laughing raucously. Copja patted Jude’s shoulder and yelled in his ear, ‘Easy as a pie. What you say to that, my friend?’

  ‘Why me?’ Jude asked over the roar of the chopper.

  ‘It is like I tell you. You do something for me, I do something for you.’

  The noisy, cramped flight lasted only ten minutes or so before the chopper came down to land and everyone hustled out. Jude had no idea where he was. They’d come down in a field, with not a single house or road in sight. Wasting no time, the chopper pilot gunned his throttle and took off again, disappearing into the night and leaving Jude and the gang alone in the middle of the dark field. Jude was uncertain what was coming next or what was expected of him, but it seemed to him that to say, ‘Well, thanks for the lift, fellas. I’ll be on my way now. See you around’ wasn’t quite what the Albanians had in mind. The gang were all talking in their own language, voices full of anticipation. One of the men pointed, and Jude looked around and blinked at the approaching headlights of four vehicles that had emerged from behind a thicket o
f trees and were bouncing across the field in their direction. Copja smiled in the lights and strode confidently towards them. There was a van, two SUVs and a saloon car. They pulled up four abreast and killed their engines, leaving their lights on as more men piled out.

  Jude hung self-consciously around in the background until Copja turned and pointed him out to his associates, saying in English, ‘Meet our new friend. He decided to join us.’

  There was laughter. Jude thought, ‘Hold on a minute. Join us in what?’ He felt a slight chill as it occurred to him that there might be an unexpected price to pay for his ticket out of Bullingdon.

  Two of the newcomers busied themselves unloading some large holdalls from the van, set them on the ground and unzipped them as Copja and his men gathered around to look. The blaze of headlights revealed spare clothing, stacks of cash and a small arsenal of automatic weapons. Copja nodded and muttered his approval. It was clear that the plan was to divide up the money and weapons and split into different vehicles.

  That was Copja’s plan, at any rate. It might not have been everyone’s.

  Jude perhaps didn’t possess as well-honed a sixth sense as his father, but was anything but unperceptive and now, even as he stood there wondering what the hell he’d got himself into, he could see something was wrong. Something about the way that several of the newcomers were stepping back as Copja and his henchmen’s attention was taken up with inspecting the contents of the bags. Something about the looks passing between them. The hands slipping furtively inside jackets.

  Jude felt a sudden tingle of alarm as he understood that the bags were a decoy. Luan Copja was being double-crossed. Jude drew back out of the blaze of the lights, into the shadows.

  A voice said, ‘Hey, Luan, Armir Bajrak says hello.’

  The blast of gunfire shattered the night. Luan Copja bellowed like a bull as bullets slammed into his chest and shoulder. Two of his men were cut down next to him, left and right. Another one dived to the ground and rolled under the van.

  If his rivals couldn’t get him inside prison, out here was the perfect opportunity to assassinate Copja. Jude could only guess that this Armir Bajrak had managed to infiltrate the enemy gang. But his hired thugs had done a clumsy job of it. Very clumsy, because a smart man would have ensured that the guns in the bag were loaded with dummy rounds. Copja staggered two steps, went down on one knee and snatched a small machine carbine from the holdall. White flame sputtered from its muzzle as he hosed a spray of bullets at his attackers. There was a scream. Car headlights shattered and went dark. More gunfire punched into Copja’s body but he kept on firing until his gun was empty. Two of his loyal men who were still on their feet hurled themselves at Bajrak’s guys. The one who’d freed Jude from his cell managed to twist a weapon free and turn it against them. Shots rattled out; then he was shot, too, and fell.

  Jude dropped to the ground and flattened himself into the long grass as the firefight exploded wildly and bullets flew in all directions.

  When he dared to look up again, there was dead silence. He clambered to his feet and peered cautiously through the gunsmoke swirling in the car headlights. Bodies were lying all over the ground. Nobody was moving. Stunned, Jude stepped through the scene of the massacre. The cars were riddled with bullet holes. He could smell burning and something fizzled under the bonnet of the van, as though it were about to burst into flames.

  The body of Luan Copja lay sprawled face-down next to the holdalls. Jude went over to them. He ignored the guns, wanting no part of that. But the wads of banknotes crammed into bricks in the money bag were another story. If he was to go on the run, he was going to need all the cash he could carry. He rummaged in the bag of spare clothing until he found a few items that looked as though they’d fit him, crammed them in with the money and zipped the holdall shut. His legs were as shaky as jelly and his heart was pounding.

  He was probably in much deeper trouble than before. But he was too excited to care. He was free.

  Jude hoisted the heavy bag over his shoulder and ran like hell.

  Chapter 38

  Despite himself, on hearing of Jude’s escape Ben’s reaction after his initial shock was a tingle of pride that his son had managed to beat the system that had unfairly imprisoned him. It was the same grudging admiration he’d felt after Jude’s performance at the bail hearing. But something told Ben this was far more serious.

  ‘How the hell did this happen?’

  Tom McAllister described the riot at Bullingdon, now under control. Jude’s cellmate had reported to the authorities that Jude was removed from their cell and taken away by an inmate called Luan Copja and his gang of Albanian organised crime thugs, who had incredibly pulled off a daring helicopter escape during the disturbance.

  ‘Last time anything like that happened was when the IRA boys got out of Mountjoy Prison using a hijacked chopper in 1973,’ McAllister said. ‘What Jude was doing mixed up with that bunch is anyone’s guess. But he’s not with them now, that’s for sure. Copja and his boys were found shot to death an hour ago in a field near Chedworth, forty miles east of the prison. A local farmer heard gunfire and called the police. Looks like some kind of inter-gang warfare deal gone tits-up. They found a pile of dead Albanians, some shot-up vehicles, and a couple of holdalls. One full of clothes and the other full of guns. The thinking is that there might’ve been a third bag, that one full of walking-around cash for the escapees. But no sign of your boy. He’s vanished into thin air.’

  Ben listened grimly. His feeling of pride had been short-lived. Jude had done himself real harm by running like this, and getting mixed up in ugly business with criminals made it even worse. He was no longer the innocent citizen wrongfully accused: that trump card had just been thrown away, by making himself a fugitive and a criminal.

  The plan to pay a visit to Gregory Clarkson was now shoved aside. Ben looked at his watch and said to McAllister, ‘I’m on my way. Don’t do anything until I get there.’

  McAllister gave a sour laugh. ‘Chance would be a fine thing, in these exciting times we live in. On top of everything else someone’s left Boars Hill looking like the Battle of Chalgrove frigging Field and guess whose job it is to pick up the pieces?’

  Ben said nothing.

  ‘I know that was you,’ McAllister said. ‘These things don’t happen on my watch except when you’re in town. You were the last person Emily Bowman called on that burner phone of yours before she died. That puts you in the frame. If Forbsie had the first notion of anything, he’d have launched a nationwide manhunt. Lucky for you, I’m the only person who’s put two and two together. But my patience is wearing thin, Ben.’

  ‘You’re my kind of cop, Tom. I wish they were all like you.’

  McAllister grunted. Not happy. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d think you flew your kid out of jail and shot up Copja’s boys yourself. Where are you now? Let me guess. Norfolk?’

  McAllister would have heard the reports of the happenings, there, too. ‘London,’ Ben replied, managing to be truthful and evasive at the same time. ‘I can be with you in a couple of hours and we’ll figure this out. We have to find him before the police do.’

  ‘What are you talking about, we have to find him? I am the police.’

  ‘I know what he’s like, Tom. Now that he’s free he’ll go to ground and he’ll do anything to prevent them from retaking him. He’ll end up getting himself shot.’

  ‘So what am I supposed to do, hold off the troops while you and I go hunting the length and breadth of the country for the wee skitter? Every hour that goes by, he’s getting further and further away. By daybreak he could be on the Isle of frigging Skye.’

  Ben sighed. The timing couldn’t have been worse. ‘I’m so close, Tom. Another day and I could have put an end to this whole mess. I think I know who really killed Carter Duggan.’

  ‘Aye, well, I’d like to see you prove it,’ McAllister said. ‘Especially with your boy on the lam. He’s just hung a great big guilty sign around his o
wn neck.’

  Ben drove hard out of London, or as hard as the ancient wreck of a Land Rover would let him. As he hacked across the city it started making ominous sounds from under the bonnet and the power response was feeling more and more sluggish. By the time he was on the motorway the damn thing wouldn’t go more than fifty and the temperature gauge had pushed deep into the red.

  The old banger’s final voyage ground to a halt altogether on a stretch of quiet country road, somewhere in Oxfordshire at four in the morning. Ben tried and failed to rouse a taxi driver from his bed at that hour. Giving up, he hunkered down in the back of the dead Landy, tried to grab some sleep for himself and failed there too. He rolled the vehicle down an incline into some thick bushes, abandoned it and started walking.

  Jude, where the hell are you?

  It was dawn by the time Ben finally got to McAllister’s cottage. The cop was already up and dressed in the dark suit he wore for work. He greeted Ben with a mug of hot black coffee and the surly words ‘Give it back.’

  Ben took the warrant card from his wallet and returned it.

  He’d been expecting McAllister to be in a foul mood with him, but the cop seemed particularly irascible this morning. ‘You ever do that again and I will arrest you,’ he warned as they carried their coffees into the cottage’s sitting room. ‘If I haven’t already it’s only because you’re in deep enough shit already.’

  ‘That doesn’t concern me right now. I’m more worried about Jude.’

  ‘Then you’d best crack on looking for him, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Have you had your people check the vicarage?’

  McAllister scowled. ‘Do I look like Forbsie? I’m not stupid, you know. Of course we have. Every inch of the house and grounds. But beyond that, frankly I don’t have a clue where the silly bastard could have gone. Does he have a girlfriend he might have gone to lie low with?’

  ‘In America. She’s history anyway.’

  They spent a while throwing ideas back and forth, but to no avail. McAllister’s dirty mood only seemed to grow worse as they talked. Now and then he turned a shade paler, and twice he pressed his palm to his right cheek and let out a low groan. At first Ben thought he was just stressed out, but it dawned on him that there was more to it.