Ultimatum Page 8

  The man who stopped in front of me was a mass of physical contradictions. On the one hand he was tall, lean and fit-looking, with the classic bearing of an ex-army officer, but on the other, his complexion was pale to the point of illness, and he had a prominent vein running down one side of his face like a worm beneath the skin, which I had difficulty taking my eyes off.

  ‘Mr Jones, pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Jones is fine on its own,’ I said. ‘And you are?’

  ‘My name’s Cain,’ he said, his voice surprisingly deep and sonorous. ‘Cecil’s been telling me about what happened to you. That you were sent down because you doled out some real justice to someone who deserved it. That’s this country all over.’

  ‘It hasn’t done me any favours.’

  ‘It hasn’t done any of us any favours.’ He looked at me sharply, and I thought I saw the vein move beneath his skin. ‘You were lucky you only got sent down for a year.’

  That was my weak point. The length of sentence. ‘It was long enough,’ I told him. ‘Especially for an ex-cop. I wasn’t the most popular man on the block.’

  ‘I can believe it.’ He gestured towards the holdall Cecil was holding. ‘How much did we make?’

  ‘We haven’t counted it yet,’ said Cecil, ‘but it feels like a lot.’ He handed it to Cain who motioned for us to follow him into the barn.

  Inside, Cain put the holdall down on one of the oil drums and opened it up, revealing a whole heap of cash. He immediately started to count it out, placing each individual wad on one of the other drums. I’m not a greedy man but I felt a slither of excitement as I stared at it. Apparently, LeShawn always insisted that the money was counted before he arrived to pick it up, and it had been divided into single-denomination five-grand wads.

  ‘What happened out there?’ asked Cain as he carried on counting. I was counting too and I’d already got to ninety grand.

  ‘LeShawn didn’t want to play ball,’ said Cecil. ‘He went for Jones’s gun. We had to shoot him.’

  ‘Who pulled the trigger?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘How come you didn’t shoot him, Jones?’

  ‘I didn’t get a chance.’

  Cain gave me another look. His eyes were a watery grey but there was a fierce intelligence in them.

  ‘I shot up a cop car,’ I told him.

  Cain smiled thinly. He was still counting the money. We were at a hundred and forty now. ‘I apologize for all the secrecy, but you were a cop once, and we have to be very careful who we trust.’

  ‘Well, thanks to what happened an hour ago I’m now an armed robber,’ I told him. ‘I think that means you can trust me.’

  As I said this, I realized almost with a shock that I was now just like the criminals I’d been trying to put away. The only reason I’d agreed to do the armed robbery in the first place was because I’d thought we could get away with it, but now I’d compromised myself badly.

  ‘You’re not an armed robber, Jones. You’re a soldier raising funds from some bad people for a good cause. There’s a big difference.’

  Cain finished counting. Two hundred and twenty-five grand plus change.

  ‘Cecil told you how the split worked, didn’t he? Fifteen grand each for you two?’

  I nodded. ‘Seems like you get a very big cut.’

  ‘Firstly, I planned it. And second, the money isn’t going to me.’

  I stared him down. ‘We could have done with some help out there today. The reason it went wrong was because there were only two of us. If there’d been three of us, the whole thing might have run a lot smoother.’

  ‘Come on, Jones,’ said Cecil, intervening. ‘You knew the score when you took the job.’

  ‘But that’s the problem,’ I said, turning back to Cain. ‘I still don’t know what the score is. Because no one’s actually told me. Cecil said there might be an opportunity for me to make some money and get involved in fighting the government, but so far all that’s happened is I’ve risked my neck and taken part in a very public murder, all for the price of a mid-range saloon car.’ I gestured at the wads of money. ‘So, where’s all this going?’

  Cain and Cecil exchanged glances. Then Cain turned back to me. ‘Let’s take a walk.’

  I followed him outside. Beyond the barn, a fallow field stretched away to some trees in the middle distance, and we started towards it.

  ‘We’re fighting a war, Jones, and in a war you need weapons. The other side have got weapons. Did you hear about the bombs this morning?’

  I shook my head. We hadn’t had the car radio on at all on our way up here. ‘What happened?’

  ‘A bomb went off near Victoria Station three hours ago. Nine dead already, but the toll keeps rising. And then another two less than an hour back at a block of flats in Bayswater, which looks to have been aimed at the police. Four dead in that one so far. The Islamics have already claimed responsibility.’

  ‘And is it them? I remember in the Stanhope attacks there were white guys, ex-soldiers, involved.’

  ‘The coffee shop bomb was delivered by a suicide bomber who, according to the news, got spooked at the last minute and ran off. Ended up under the wheels of a lorry, but word is he’s a local Asian.’ Cain stopped and looked at me. ‘This country’s under attack, Jones. The Islamics are going to keep launching attacks like this because the government hasn’t got the backbone to fight back. They’d rather innocent British civilians died than stop people who don’t belong here pouring into the country and trying to destroy us. Cecil tells me you’ve got a family.’

  ‘I’ve got a daughter,’ I said carefully, reluctant to have Maddie dragged into this.

  ‘Do you want her to grow up as a minority in her own birthplace? Because that’s what’s going to happen if the government keep going with their multicultural experiment. The whites are going to end up outnumbered. There’ll be mosques on every street, and the government won’t do a damn thing to stop it because, like always, they’re too interested in showing how PC they are, and lining their own pockets. Look at Tony Blair. He’s a multimillionaire now on the backs of all those soldiers he sent to war.’ Cain’s vein was throbbing angrily in his cheek. ‘Cecil tells me you’re interested in fighting back.’

  So, this was it. If I answered him correctly, I could be joining what was possibly the most dangerous terror cell in the country. I thought of my family. Thanked God they weren’t anywhere near central London. ‘Yeah,’ I said, looking him firmly in the eye, ‘I am.’

  ‘Cecil says you killed in Afghanistan.’

  I shrugged. ‘I fired my gun at the enemy plenty of times.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said quietly. ‘He said you killed.’ He emphasized the last word, stretched it out.

  So, Cecil had told him the secret that we’d carried since Afghanistan, something we’d all sworn we’d never repeat.

  Cain gave me a predatory smile, his upper lip curling to reveal a perfect row of white teeth. ‘Your secret’s safe with me, Jones. But I want to know how far you’re willing to go in this war.’

  ‘I’ll do whatever it takes, Mr Cain,’ I said steadily. ‘You know my background. You know the shit I’ve been through. I only want two things. Revenge on the system that ruined my life and career, and humiliated my family. And money. I need money, so I can pay for my ex-wife and my kid. I don’t much care what I have to do to get either.’

  So that was it. I’d laid my bait.

  Cain was silent for a long few seconds before he spoke again. ‘I can get you both, Jones. I’ll put you on a retainer. Three grand a month cash. For that you need to be available at short notice for jobs which may involve guns, like today. Every time you do a job, there’ll be a serious bonus paid up front. How does that sound?’

  I nodded slowly, not wanting to appear too enthusiastic. ‘It sounds OK.’

  ‘Good. Then do we have a deal?’

  I said we did, and we shook on it.

  He pulled a phone from his jacke
t and handed it to me. ‘Keep this on, and keep it with you. The only person who’ll phone it is me. Have you got any plans for today?’

  ‘Nothing that I can’t put on hold.’

  ‘Good. I’m trying to set up a meeting with some business associates on neutral ground. It may well happen later today, and I want you and Cecil there to back me up. I’ve done business with them before, and they’re generally pretty reliable, but there’s money involved, and money can sometimes make people do stupid things, so you’ll both be armed. The bonus is another grand.’

  ‘Who are the people we’re dealing with?’

  ‘The prisons are full of people who talk too much, Jones. With us, everything’s on a need-to-know basis. It’s a lot easier for everyone that way.’

  I turned away from him, looking across the field to the woodland. ‘Still don’t trust me, eh?’

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ said Cain, lighting a cigarette with a gloved hand. ‘When I was in Lashkar Gah a few years back, we had an interpreter called Abdul. He came from a good family. Not exactly pro government, but not exactly anti it either. One of his brothers had been murdered by the Taliban, so he was considered safe. He was a nice guy too. Well educated, even quite enlightened by Afghan standards. He often used to eat with the men, and would ask us all these questions about England. What was the Queen like? Did the police really not carry guns? He liked talking about football too.’ Cain chuckled. It was an odd, artificial sound, as if he’d been practising it but still had some way to go. ‘I remember, Abdul supported Liverpool. He could name their 1978 and 1981 European Cup-winning teams. We used to test him, and he was never wrong.

  ‘One day, he was chatting with a couple of the privates over tea in one of the sangars. The next thing we heard a burst of gunfire, followed by screams. We rushed over there, weapons at the ready, just in time to see Abdul come walking out. At first we thought he’d been hit, and then he lifted up one of the private’s SA80s and pointed it at us. His expression was totally calm, almost dreamy, as he started firing. I always remember that. He wasn’t a bad shot either. He hit one of my corporals who made the mistake of hesitating a couple of seconds because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, before the rest of us opened up and finally shot Abdul dead.

  ‘When we got inside the sangar we found the two privates Abdul had been talking to lying on the floor. One of them, a Geordie called Peterson, was already dead. The other was this big Fijian with an unpronounceable name who we used to call Hula and, although he was in a bad way, he was still conscious. He told us that one minute they’d all been chatting away like good friends, and the next, Abdul had grabbed Peterson’s gun and opened up on them. No rhyme. No reason. Hula never made it. Neither did Abdul, so we never did find out what motivated him. Whether he was a sleeper agent all along, or whether the Taliban had got to him somehow.’ Cain shrugged. ‘Personally, I believe it was the former. Not that that matters to either Peterson or Hula. Either way they’re still dead. But the point of the story, that’s easier.’ He gave me a hard stare. ‘You can never be too careful.’

  And that was what was worrying me.

  Fifteen

  11.22

  TINA CALLED MIKE Bolt from an empty interview room. She’d asked the warder if she could smoke since the prisoners seemed to do so with impunity, but was told she couldn’t, which pissed her off no end.

  ‘Jetmir Brozi,’ she said when he picked up. ‘Apparently he was involved in procuring the weaponry for the Stanhope siege, and Fox reckons he may well be involved in the attacks today too.’

  She gave Bolt a brief rundown of the details of the interview.

  ‘He’s sure the attacks this morning are linked, and by the way, Mike, it would have really helped me if I’d known there’d been a second bomb before I spoke to him. I felt a right fool when he told me about the Bayswater attack.’

  ‘I called you as soon as I had the chance, but your phone was on silent.’ He sounded stressed and tired, which wasn’t like him at all.

  ‘How many casualties have there been so far?’

  ‘Nine dead from the first bomb. Five from the two in Bayswater. The Bayswater attack was designed to take out police officers attending a flat where they’d traced the phone used to claim responsibility for the first explosion.’

  ‘So it was a sophisticated attack, and similar to the bombs set off prior to the Stanhope siege.’

  ‘Very much so. But that doesn’t mean they’re connected. Our one suspect is a British national of Pakistani origin. The ID he was carrying says he’s Akhtar Mohammed, aged thirty-one and married with three children. He’s not on any watchlists, but then neither were the 7/7 bombers. But the point is, nothing links this man to any previous attacks. I’ll get our people to find out what they can about Jetmir Brozi, but I reckon it’s going to be a long job to gather any evidence against him.’

  ‘We’ve got to do it though, surely?’

  ‘We’ll do what we can, but right now everyone in the Met is focused on what’s going on in central London. The terrorists are threatening a much bigger attack, and if their track record so far’s anything to go by, God knows what they could be planning. I need more from Fox. If he’s serious about cooperating, we need the names of everyone involved in these attacks. And we need them now.’

  ‘He wants to be moved to a safehouse first.’

  ‘We can’t do that, Tina. He’s an extremely dangerous and high-profile remand prisoner.’

  ‘He says his life’s in danger.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  Tina thought about this for a moment, remembering his injuries. ‘Yes, I do. And after what happened to John Cheney, it’s possible the people he worked for are trying to silence him. If it’s OK, I’m going to stay round here to interview the man who attacked Fox. See if I can find anything out that way.’

  ‘Good idea. Keep me posted. And thanks, Tina. You’re doing a good job.’

  They ended the call, and Tina put the phone back in her pocket, a familiar excitement in her gut.

  Sixteen

  11.28

  MIKE BOLT TOOK a deep breath. It was a strange feeling being back working with Tina after all this time. He’d always had feelings for her. One time, four years earlier, when they’d last been working together at SOCA – the soon-to-be-disbanded Serious and Organized Crime Agency – he’d made a pass at her. They’d kissed, but things hadn’t gone any further, and it had ended up souring their friendship. As a result, she’d transferred back to the Met. Since then he’d stuck his neck out for her on more than one occasion, even though at times it had seemed as if Tina was on a mission of self-destruction, and it had almost cost him his job.

  Most people, and not just those in the upper echelons of the force, thought Tina Boyd was bad news. And in many ways she was. She wasn’t a team player, and she did things her own way, often with very little respect for the law she was meant to be upholding, and that made her dangerous. Yet it felt good to have her on the team, even if it was only temporary. She’d squeezed a name out of Fox, which was something. Bolt had a vision of her grabbing him by the hair and battering his head on the interview room desk, demanding answers. It brought a smile to his face, even though he knew it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibilities. That was the thing with Tina. She always brought an energy to everything she did. She also brought something to Bolt’s own lonely life, a spark that had been missing a long time – although he preferred not to think about that right now.

  He went down to the next floor and found one of his team, DC Nikki Donohoe, a fiery-looking woman in her late thirties with short, fashionably cut red hair and the first sign of a bump where her third child was, due six months down the line. Nikki was their IT expert, a woman with an uncanny ability to dig up any information, however obscure.

  ‘Hello, boss,’ she said with a tight smile. ‘Any more on the attacks?’

  Nikki was usually a livewire, but like everyone else in London that morning what ha
d happened had shaken her. Her two kids went to school barely a mile from where the last two bombs had exploded.

  ‘We’ve got a lead.’ He told her about Jetmir Brozi. ‘Drop everything and find out anything you can about him, particularly his current location.’

  ‘You think he might have something to do with the attacks?’ She looked hopeful.

  ‘Tina Boyd got the name from Fox, so it’s worth prioritizing.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ said Nikki, turning back to her PC.

  ‘So the Black Widow actually got something, did she?’

  Bolt looked up to see DC Omar Balachi come into the room. Balachi was a tall, lean black man of Somali origin, in his late twenties, with finely sculpted features, who looked like he should be modelling sharp suits on the catwalk rather than wandering round in jeans, trainers and a hoodie, as he was now. He’d been with the team for most of the past year, and he was a good worker, albeit one with an attitude. He’d already made it known to Bolt that morning that he was annoyed that he’d spent so much of his time on the team doing donkey work while Tina had simply breezed in and been asked to interview the one man they’d all been wanting to talk to.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Bolt, turning to face him. ‘And I told you already, the reason she went there is because Fox insisted on it. I don’t like it either, but that’s the way it is.’

  ‘But you’ve still seconded her to the team.’

  ‘Temporarily yes, but only while she’s dealing with Fox.’ Bolt didn’t like having to justify his actions to members of his team – it set a bad precedent – but he knew what a sensitive issue this was.

  Omar nodded slowly, clearly still not liking the situation. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he asked. ‘With all this stuff going on, it seems a bit of a waste of time trawling through bank statements and phone records for the thousandth time.’ He was currently looking into the backgrounds of all the ex-soldiers who’d worked for the security company Fox had run for some years prior to the Stanhope siege. It had been a long and time-consuming task, and Bolt knew Omar was bored stiff by it.