The Phoenix Series Books 10-12 (The Phoenix Series Box Set)

by Ted Tayler

  The drive to the Chiswick safe house this morning had been sobering. Rusty wasn’t in the mood to talk; Phoenix didn’t want to listen to his favourite music channel. There was a job to do. Athena’s words yesterday still rang crystal clear.

  No matter what they found in the garage workshop today, nobody walked away unscathed.

  *****

  Collen O’Riordan was right. Tyrone had a sore head this morning. But not entirely due to the excellent red wine they shared with their meal last night. It had been months since the two of them spent an evening together. In truth, she preferred her own company these days.

  Tyrone preferred younger women. The type he could guarantee he took to bed after spending lots of money on them. It seemed odd to be dropped at their respective homes by a taxi driver. It was so bloody typical. Perhaps, she should give that Tinder a try?

  It was the news he’d received this morning that annoyed Tyrone. She had only surfaced ten minutes earlier. Her first strong cup of coffee was going down a treat. Her phone had rung. She didn’t care who it was; it was too loud and far too early.

  “What?” she asked.

  “They only set the bloody cars on fire, didn’t they?” Tyrone spat into the phone. Colleen held the device away from her ear. She knew it was impossible, but she felt something, despite a check with her finger telling her different.

  Tyrone was still shouting.

  “They got the bodies out and away, doused the interiors with petrol and torched them,” he yelled. “Not a bloody thing for the police to find when they waltzed up, late as usual.”

  “What? You’re telling me the police don’t know who died, or even how many?” said Colleen. “Nothing? Can’t they identify the cars, even though burnt? What about the motorway cameras? Surely they can help?”

  “Would you believe they were out of action? No, nor do I. Olympus must have hacked into the systems and erased any incriminating footage. They’ve not said as much on the news yet this morning, but my informant fed me this half an hour ago. Those bastards are as slippery as an eel.”

  “Take the positives, son,” said Colleen, trying to reach the coffee percolator. It would take another cup to get over this. Heaven knows what Tyrone needed.

  “Yeah, you’re right, mum. We put eight into coffins, didn’t we? It wasn’t a total loss. I thought we had a great chance of opening the lid on what goes on at that bleeding headquarters of theirs. I’m going to think. There has to be another way.”

  *****

  In his office in Bath, Callum Wood had half a dozen new cases to tackle. His trip to London yesterday had been on his own time. Although crimes in the Roman city were fewer than in the capital, villains didn’t take the weekend off, despite their beautiful surroundings.

  He saw the news last night when he got home. Ronnie was in bed. Callum and Debbie had been shocked at the violence and total disregard for members of the public.

  “It makes you wonder who’s running this country,” said Debbie. “These gangs have no boundaries they won’t cross.”

  “Warfare between rival gangs has been going on for decades,” Callum replied, “but it never used to be carried out in public. Their chances of getting caught are low. When they are the sentences are often a joke. It’s no surprise they think they’re untouchable. We’ve brought it on ourselves.”

  This morning, as he read through reports on a spate of burglaries on a rundown estate in Twerton, his mind drifted. It was old news, even the name of the road concerned conjured up images of old freezers and sofas cluttering the estate’s car parks, rather than the properties themselves.

  He tossed the report aside. It was a job for one of the kids. He spotted the newest recruit to the squad of detectives he supervised.

  “Damien,” he called, “this one’s got your number on it.”

  The laughter from poor Damien’s colleagues in the outer open-plan office convinced the young DC his parents did him no favours when selecting first names.

  Callum watched Damien strolling back to his desk with the report. The slumped shoulders told their own story. As soon as he’d read the location, Damien knew he had handed him a shit job. We all had to do our fair share, thought Callum.

  Before he picked the next report from the top of the pile, he thought of Erica. The funeral was still a week away. Shaun and Tracey were due back at school this morning, but Callum imagined they were at home with their mother. Compassionate leave, or whatever schools called it these days. Something bothered him from his conversation with Dinesh yesterday, but he couldn’t get a fix on it. Time to switch focus. He should call Erica, to remind her everyone at Manvers Street was thinking of her.

  The phone rang half a dozen times before Erica answered.

  “Hello,”

  “Erica, it’s me, Callum. How are you? How are the children?”

  “Hello, Callum,” replied Erica, “as well as can be expected, I suppose. The neighbours have popped round with offers of help. The vicar is due tomorrow morning to go through the order of service. I’ve got so many sympathy cards to open; it’s unreal. The postman hasn’t even delivered yet. Cars pull up outside, and the letter-box opens and closes.”

  Callum let her ramble. None of that stuff mattered, but while it occupied your mind, you avoided facing reality. The man you loved, the father of your children, had been murdered. He was never coming back.

  Erica was in limbo. She had dealt with the shock of discovering Phil’s body hanging in the hallway. There was no point denying it happened. People dealt with grief in different ways. Callum decided that because of Phil’s police background, Erica believed she could rely on people such as him to provide answers. Why was he killed? Who did it? Will they ever leave prison?

  “Have you got any leads in the case, Callum?” asked Erica.

  “We’re pursuing several lines of enquiry,” he replied.

  “Nothing then,” said Erica, “there’s no point kidding me. I’ve heard Phil trot out that excuse a hundred times.”

  “How was he getting on at Larcombe Manor,” asked Callum, “did he enjoy the work? What did he do, can you tell me?”

  “He was busy. I can tell you that. He didn’t go into detail. It was great to have him home at a reasonable time in the evenings, and the kids loved having him here at the weekends.”

  Callum didn’t think this was leading anywhere.

  “It made a change from his security services firm, I guess? Phil travelled a fair bit with that business, I remember.”

  “Phil only had one job that took him away from home,” said Erica. “Out of the blue, they sent him up to Edinburgh. He was searching for a missing person. Phil reckoned she was dead.”

  “When was that?” asked Callum. “Did he have any luck?”

  “The last week in October,” said Erica, “well, it wasn’t lucky for the woman. Phil said he’d been proved right.”

  Callum made a note. Dead body discovered, near Edinburgh. Female. Late October. How did that relate to what he had imagined the charity handled? It didn’t gel, somehow.

  “I suppose he made new friends, even in the short time he worked there,” Callum continued to probe. “Phil got on with most people.”

  “You-know-who worked there, of course,” said Erica, “but apart from that Phil said he was on a short leash. A man called Hayden was his supervisor. The chap in the next office, Hugh was friendly. Other than that he was isolated from everyone else who worked there. There was a strict timetable for when he should arrive and leave.”

  “Who do I know that works there?” asked Callum, caught unawares by the comment.

  “Zara Wheeler,” said Erica, “didn’t you know? She’s not Wheeler now; I don’t know her husband’s name. She went to Larcombe straight from Portishead. Phil had a shock when he bumped into her on his first day.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Callum. “Look, I’ll keep in touch. If you want Debbie and Ronnie to drop in, give them a call.”

  “Thanks, Callum, you’re a good
friend. We need to keep busy. It’s the long hours in between that are the worst. Especially at night.”

  Callum sat at his desk, staring at the notes he scribbled. What was behind that Scotland trip? Why didn’t Zara tell him she and Phil worked at the same place? They had been so close. Lovers, if the rumours out of Portishead were right Why was Phil denied access to parts of Larcombe Manor? His copper’s nose twitched. He was onto something, he knew it.

  *****

  “I wonder why other businesses on this street haven’t reported what’s going on here?” asked Rusty.

  “Afraid of having their place torched?” suggested Phoenix.

  The garage workshop they targeted stood on a corner lot of a street on the trading estate. Its external workspace surrounded by high fencing and razor wire.

  Teams closed in on the garage workshop. Scaling the fences would have been tricky. Phoenix had decided to burst in through the front doors. Olympus wasn’t after the car thieves who kept providing a steady supply of high-performance cars for these villains. They wanted to shut this part of the organisation for good.

  The teams entered through the side door, next to the roller door running the width of the premises. A steel enforcer separated the door from its hinges. Phoenix, Rusty, and twelve Olympus agents ran through the gap.

  Twelve vehicles lay in varying states of disassembly in the centre. Multiple vehicle parts such as engines, transmissions, fuel tanks, seats, doors, wheels, and tyres stacked against the outside walls. There was heavy lift equipment such as hoists in use in several spots. Rusty wasn’t surprised it took several seconds for the men inside to realise they had visitors.

  The noise inside the workshop was loud and constant. Music blared from speakers in the roof space. Many of the mechanics in the centre wore ear defenders. Those using the acetylene cutting torches wore masks. It was a slick operation, which Rusty knew went on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It must pay well. These guys weren’t skimping on Health and Safety.

  Phoenix reckoned the men inside the main building thought the authorities were raiding them. The Olympus uniform confused them long enough that they offered no resistance. Some even carried on working.

  He kept running through the workshop; as a team of four agents followed him. They headed for the offices in the Portacabin in the car park at the rear. That’s where their documentation lay—the vital links from the initial theft to the eventual destination of the car.

  Behind him, Phoenix heard the shouts and screams as punishments were delivered. None of the men would die, but they wouldn’t be much use in this line of work for months.

  As the agents ran out of the rear entrance, they saw the rest of the gang emerging from the Portacabin. There were five men. Three carried baseball bats, and one carried a machete. The man bringing up the rear looked the sort who thought he didn’t need a weapon. He was a giant of a man.

  “The Grid’s killers showed no mercy to your colleagues,” Phoenix reminded his team.

  The chop shop gang leaders stopped in their tracks and raised their weapons. A series of staccato bursts from the automatic weapons of the Olympus agents cut them down. Even the man-mountain crashed to the ground. The sound echoed around the enclosure, and then there was silence.

  “Rusty must have turned off that music,” said Phoenix.

  The team leader by his side grinned.

  “Good job too. I can’t stand that electronic UK garage stuff, can you?”

  Phoenix led the team into the Portacabin.

  “Everything in here needs to go, files, laptops, and mobile phones; it will give you leads to pursue in both directions. You can follow the trail along the supply chain to the thieves that lifted them off the streets. Then you can follow the cars on their onward journey to Africa and the Far East, or trace who’s in the market for these spare parts. It will keep you guys busy for a while. With luck, Larcombe will reward you for your efforts, and you will get the nod to carry out the direct action against the rogues you identify. Good hunting.”

  “Cheers, Phoenix,” said the team leader. “Not a bad morning’s work. A few scores settled.”

  The other teams rounded up the crew in the workshop when they arrived.

  “Take them outside and lock them in the Portacabin,” said Phoenix. He watched as the men hobbled and stumbled their way towards the roller door. They wouldn’t get any sympathy from him. After the agents returned, the door closed.

  “We’ll leave the rest to you,” he said. “Every piece of kit in here needs to be put out of action, whether it’s hand-held or on wheels. The Grid will get another team to keep this trade going, but this site must need a fortune spent on it to get it up and running again.”

  “Understood, Phoenix,” said a team leader. “Come on, lads, let’s do some damage.”

  Phoenix and Rusty returned to their van. Time to head back to the Chiswick safe house.

  “We should be there in an hour,” said Rusty. “Do we have time for a bite to eat, or do you want to drive straight on to Kettering.”

  Phoenix checked his watch.

  “We do not need to rush,” he said. “I vote for a visit to that takeaway we’ve used before. You never know when we’ll get the chance of a decent meal again. The next mission won’t be as easy as this.”

  Rusty smiled at his mate’s idea of a decent meal, but he was hungry, and a large pizza would satisfy that hunger just as well as a slap-up meal.

  “A trading estate that size would have security, don’t you reckon?” he asked.

  “I saw a kiosk on the corner when we drove onto the estate,” said Phoenix. “No more than a token presence. I know what you’re thinking. Loud noises of people using machinery at inappropriate hours. Vehicles that enter a location but never leave. All those high-valued cars at the rear of the garage and big cargo vans or trucks coming and going throughout the week.”

  “Yeah, security here leaks like a sieve,” said Rusty. “We drove four vans onto the estate, and nobody took a blind bit of notice.”

  Phoenix called the team leader he left ransacking the Portacabin.

  “When you finish there, visit the security guy in the kiosk on the way out. Lose any record he may have of our van registrations.”

  Rusty heard the guy on the other end ask a question.

  “Don’t hurt him too much, just enough to convince him not to mention having seen anything unusual today. He’s used to it.”

  Rusty parked the van outside the row of shops that housed a string of fast-food outlets.

  “What topping do you want?” he asked, as he got out.

  “We’ve got to start eating healthier foods if we want to reach fifty,” said Phoenix. He pointed to a new place two doors up from the pizzeria that had opened since they were last in Chiswick. “I’ll have a grilled chicken Caesar salad wrap, please. There are plenty of options on the menu, I’m sure. Don’t bring back any rubbish for yourself.”

  Rusty swallowed hard and walked inside. He searched the menu. Phoenix’s choice was on offer, and there were vegetarian options. No thanks. He wondered what a Vietnamese BLT wrap was when it was at home. Nothing ventured, he thought. If only they did a bacon roll.

  *****

  The Heath twins made it home to the Midlands without mishap. Paul dropped his brother off in Sutton Coldfield before riding on to Burton. The town straddled the River Trent and had a reputation for its breweries. That was its charm as far as Paul Heath was concerned. He found it as useful as any to lay his head while waiting for the next job to appear. Paul wasn’t attached to the place so much he couldn’t grab his gear and up sticks. A spell in warmer climes seemed just the ticket, especially on a cold day such as today.

  “Are you ready?” he asked when his brother answered the phone. It was now mid-afternoon.

  “Leaving now, mate,” replied Graham. “I’ll see you at the airport. Did you get the money?”

  “It’s in my account,” said Paul. “I’ll transfer fifty grand to you when we
get out there. Got to give the bank a few days to clear the funds.”

  Graham ended the call and slipped his mobile phone into his flight bag. He checked his passport and boarding card for the fourth time and then took a last look at the flat he rented for the past three years.

  Outside, the taxi waited to take him to Birmingham Airport, a twenty-minute drive away. Paul’s trip from Burton took an hour. The flight to Malaga left in three hours. Before the end of the day, they would start a new life in the sun.

  Graham was in a relaxed mood as soon as he took his seat in the back of the taxi. He had always been someone for whom the holiday began from the minute they left home. This trip was more than a holiday, but he still had that familiar buzz he had as a kid. Paul was just the same.

  Birmingham International had a free drop-off point for taxis less than a quarter of an hour walk from the terminal. Graham paid the driver, grabbed his bag and set off across the car park. Not the place to be in the cold and dark alone, but it was well-lit, and he could see other passengers a hundred yards ahead of him. He skirted around a dark van that had pulled into a parking bay.

  “Excuse me, it’s Graham, isn’t it?” a voice called.

  Graham Heath was surprised and turned back.

  Two dark shapes were on him in seconds; strong hands bundled him into the van through the side door. He heard the door slam and felt the prick of the needle in his neck. As he slipped into unconsciousness, he put a face to the voice. It reminded him of Hayden Vincent, one of the agents in the group he trained with when he joined Olympus.

  “Will his brother be coming to this car park, too?” asked Henry Case.

  “Giles suggested we cover the premium taxi drop-off site, just in case. Graham didn’t mind a short walk. Paul always was a lazy sod, according to his brother. Are you glad you came along, Henry?”