Christopher Brookmyre - Parlabane 04 (46 page)

'Hmm. I think if you reverse the sequence you could probably sell it to the government for their next anti-racism initiative.'

'I wouldn't be looking to sell it. It's about time I gave something back. I've 283

only ever taken responsibility when it actually served my interests. Can you believe that I remained sober on Christmas Eve from the age of twenty one to thirty-four?'

'And what's irresponsible about sobriety?'

'Depends why you're sober. It was a Christmas tradition among some friends and myself. Started when I got my first Porsche, a twenty-first present from mater and pater. We would meet up at four in the morning at a carpark next to the Kelburn roundabout, just outside Port Glasgow, everyone sporting their best wheels and fake plates. Have you ever noticed how little traffic there is on Christmas Day?'

'Practically deserted.'

'Believe me, the most you've seen during the day is rush hour compared to four a.m., and where there is no traffic, there are no cops. The pubs and clubs have all emptied, the night buses have finished, the streets are dead.'

'I see where this is going.'

'Abington Services is where it's going, where the M74 meets the A702. That was the finish line because from there we could head back up through Biggar and on to Fair Edina. We'd race along the M8 through the city, then down the M73 and M74, or A74 as it was when we started. You've never known a rush like it, between the speed, the overtaking what few other cars were around and the lingering fear of flashing blue lights. You drove as fast as you dared, given the aforementioned considerations. Risking the lives of innocent fellow drivers, you may note, wasn't one of them.'

Emily looked at Rory's self-flagellatory expression. She knew she was supposed to be appalled, that Rory needed her chastising disapproval for purposes of confession. Instead she found herself wishing she was on a deserted M8

before dawn, pedal to the metal over the Kingston Bridge, past the Mitchell Library and down beneath Charing Cross.

'I jacked it in because Reflected Gleam won a Scottish Executive account for devising an anti-speeding campaign. I knew that if I got caught - and to be honest, those roads were getting less quiet every year - it would be a major disaster. The campaign would be tarnished, Reflected Gleam would be tarnished and HMG would make damn sure nobody they had any influence on hired us again. I only gave up my festive thrill-ride because it threatened my meal-ticket.'

Emily couldn't help but smile. He looked like a wee boy owning up to his mammy, expecting punishment but honest enough to take his licks. She wanted to give him a hug. Actually, she wanted to give him a bit more, but didn't imagine she was exactly Rory Glen's fantasy, even if she had caught him ogling her tits. She was a woman who hosted parties and made sure everybody
else
was lightening up, while she was endlessly worrying. Worrying 284

about the guests, worrying about the party, whether it was having the impact the client wished; worrying about the worthiness of the client's enterprise (and her own) in the grand scheme; and of course worrying that she's making a living hosting soirees in restaurants while in Africa etcetera etcetera etcetera.

'Rory, here's a promise you
can
make to me if we get out I of here. Give something back, absolutely. Just make sure you don't give it all. I could do with somebody to show me how to have a good time.'

'You don't call this a good time?'

285

The Trap

Parlabane's eyes began to sting as he approached the end of the corridor. The smoke wasn't exactly billowing, yet, but there was still more hanging in the air than he'd seen since fags were banned from tabloid newsdesks. He pulled his shirt tails from his trousers and ripped away a length of material, holding it over his nose and mouth before venturing into the reception hall. The barricades and corpses were still blazing and the fire was threatening to spread. He looked at the balustrades and the wood panelling lining the walls on three sides around him. The highest flames were waving a couple of feet below the underside of the gallery at the front. It would be touch and go whether they climbed high enough before consuming the materials that were sustaining them, but if the gallery did catch fire, the whole place would go up. There was a narrow path through the flames where the truck had smashed its way in. The big reception desk had been driven to one side and now formed a blazing avenue pointing to the exit. Fragments of wood still clung to a sole iron hinge, mangled and dangling where the front doors had hung. Beyond them, the storm doors had been thrust asunder, deadbolts and locks ripped from the wood to force them apart. He could see the front of the truck out on the concourse next to three bodies: two blackened, one headless. Headlights smashed in and bumper crumpled, it looked like a beaten-up face, but its expression said, 'You should see the other guy.'

Across in the far corridor, the armchairs burned with a laziness that was a credit to their kitemarks. Their advertised flame-retardant properties were presumably not supposed to withstand that kind of test, but it did look like it was mainly the petrol that was burning. He'd still have to get past them though: walking straight out the front door would be making himself kind of obvious, even if, according to Ger, the substation lay in that direction. Narrowing his eyes and taking a deep breath through the shirt material, he ran to where the reception desk had originally stood and grabbed the fire extinguisher strapped to the wall. Fortunately, it was a proper, full-on foam number and not one of those glorified soda-streams. It extinguished the armchairs with a few sustained blasts, though they were still far too hot to touch, so moving them out of the way was not an option. He lobbed the rapier over 287

them first, then drew a few steps back before taking a running dive over the top.

From there he made it outside to the rear through the kitchen, then ran flat-out towards the end of the building, retracing his earlier route at a lower altitude and a far greater velocity. He skidded slightly on some matter, the nature of which he was glad to have no time to contemplate, before regaining his balance and treading more lightly over the last few yards. Upon reaching the corner, he knelt down and waited, tight to the cold stone, peering around to look towards the front concourse and the single-track road leading away from it. Again, the direct route was void; he'd have to take the path less travelled by.

There was a clicking sound in his earpiece, the only interruption to a sustained radio silence. He had a look across at the position of the truck, calculating the angles by which it might provide cover. There weren't many, but enough to dictate his route.

Another breath, then he ran from the corner on to the concourse, keeping his body as low to the ground as carrying the sword allowed.

'That's far enough,' said Baxter's voice, this time audible in both ears. Parlabane pulled up, stumbling, then slowly turned around. Baxter stepped out from against the wall, pointing a dart gun with his left hand. His right arm was clutched to his side, bloodstains soaking through a bandage around his shoulder. The bad guys had brought a first-aid kit. And there was him thinking they'd been complacent.

A second figure emerged from the rear of the truck: squat and balding as Ger described. What was it with short-arses and rampaging militaristic ambition? He also carried a dart gun, though Parlabane noted neither had night-vision goggles. Bollocks. He and Vale had given them too much credit. Cutting the power had never been the plan; Baxter had merely trashed the generator to keep them believing it was.

'Is this it?' Parlabane asked Baxter. 'The Minister of Vigilance who's gaunny save Blighty from her enemies? This wee fanny?'

'Says the man with two guns pointed at him,' observed Shiach. 'Perhaps you should think before you sound off.'

'Perhaps you should engage the grey matter yourself. Have you considered how boring the conversations are gaunny be once you've killed everybody who disagrees with you?'

'We don't have to justify ourselves to you, Mr Parlabane,' Shiach replied.

'That's always been your type's tactic. Get the authorities to justify every slightest action they take in defending this country, while our foes are running rampage in our midst.'

'Ach, your maw's got baws and your da loves it. Save it for the judge, baldy.'

288

'Told you he was a charmer,' Baxter remarked.

'It's okay, David. Insults are all he has left, and he knows it.' Shiach smiled, cruel and smug. 'There's two ways this can end, Mr Parlabane. And in both of them, you die.'

Parlabane reluctantly swallowed back a retort to this quite unsurpassed display of cheesy machismo, and eyed Baxter instead.

'Do I get to know why I made the list, or should I take it as a general compliment to my investigative journalism?'

'Oh, you get to know,' Baxter replied, enjoying the moment. 'Your reputation was part of it, yes. The police have to follow rational and logical lines of inquiry, but a paranoid prick like you with the bit between his teeth. . . This would have been victuals and drink. You made quite a nuisance of yourself the last time somebody left a pile of bodies in a Scottish country-house hotel, didn't you? And that's what I want you to know, before Mr Shiach here takes your head: my old acquaintance George Knight says hello. . . and goodbye.'

'You knew Knight?'

'A kindred spirit, you could say. We still correspond. He warned you he would have you killed one day, didn't he, and I believe you gave him the impression you were just too clever for that to happen. But if you were that clever, you'd have remembered your own trick from the game on Friday.' He pointed to his ear. 'No use eavesdropping if the other side know you're listening in.'

'True,' Parlabane conceded. 'But do you remember how the game ended?'

'Same as this one. With you getting shot just when you think--'

The realisation hit him a fraction of a second before Vale's volley, Baxter's eyes suddenly widening all the better to let in more liquidised chilli. Shiach was hit by a second round from the paintgun less than a heartbeat later. Parlabane dropped to the deck to avoid any desperate, blindly aimed darts, but the pair of them had discarded their guns, each staggering and screaming as he clutched his hands - or one hand, in the injured Baxter's case - to his acid-burning eyeballs.

Vale and Ger came sprinting from their positions on the opposite side of the concourse, from where Vale had notified Parlabane of his readiness with a pre-agreed signal: a single click of the tongue relayed by the sub-vocal. Yes, no use eavesdropping if the other side know you're listening, but neither is it wise to try selling your opponents a dummy if they
know
you know. A minute of total radio silence, not so much as a 'What do we do now?', then straight out with all the details of your next plan? Come
on
. Parlabane helped Vale wrestle Shiach to the ground, the Minister of Vigilance thrashing and bucking more in agony than resistance. Vale grabbed his head and cracked it off the stone beneath, giving him a merciful uncon289

sciousness the bastard didn't deserve, then set about the more daunting task of pulling Ger off of Baxter.

'Come on, you've got more important things to do,' Vale persuaded him.

'We need to get the others out before the fire spreads.'

Ger sent in one last kick then stepped back, while Parlabane patted Shiach down and located what he was after in a buttoned thigh pocket.

'Got a mobile,' he announced. 'And a signal.'

'Who you gaunny call?' Ger asked.

'Nine nine nine for the deluxe package: fire, police and ambulance.'

'But how are they gaunny get here if the bridge is doon?'

'Who said the bridge was down?'

'Baxter,' Ger replied. 'Ah,' he added, getting it.

'On the strength of what we've seen, do you think these fucking idiots would know how to handle explosives?'

'What about the bang?'

'That's all it was, I'd bet. A sound effect. Fireworks at most.'

Vale picked up one of the discarded dart guns and examined it. 'Still loaded,' he observed, walking towards where Baxter was writhing on the stone.

'Aw, naw, no way,' Ger objected. 'You're no' knockin' him oot. That cunt doesnae get to miss any of this.'

'We need him restrained while we evacuate the others,' Vale pointed out.

'And we've no rope.'

'Give me two seconds,' Parlabane said. 'I've got just the thing.'

290

Later

In the end, they departed the estate much as they had arrived: driven in a minibus along the meandering track, through the ancient darkness of the woods and over the conspicuously unexploded bridge. The experience was not quite so neatly bracketed once they reached the other side, partly because their cars had indeed been uniformly sabotaged, but more pressingly because they were being driven by the police to a hotel in Auchterbuie. There they would be allowed some shut-eye and a shower before having a crack at explaining individually to the polis precisely how McKinley Hall had come to be ablaze, and why there were headless and chargrilled corpses lying all about the place.

Not everyone was on board. Toby, Liz and Sir Lachlan had regained consciousness but left in an ambulance on the advice of the paramedics, who said they'd need to be kept under observation, the latter pair also requiring proper treatment for their wounds. Sir Lachlan went along under protest, claiming nothing he had sustained overnight would match the assault he'd be facing when the missus got back.

'I can hear her now,' he lamented. '"I leave you in charge for
two
days. . . "'

The fire brigade had been on the scene with impressive haste, in time to assist with the evacuation of the tower and well ahead of the first cops. All three emergency services having been called at the same time, it transpired that the local firemen had needed the least information or directions for finding the place.

'We long had this place doon for the maist likely insurance fire in the Highland region,' one of them explained to Parlabane. He almost seemed disappointed that there was a less mundane cause for the blaze. The arsehole formerly known as Baxter was bundled along with the unconscious Shiach into a police-escorted ambulance. The polis were awaiting armed reinforcements before they attempted to arrest the subterranean contingent, and rather unsportingly rebuffed Parlabane's suggestion that they cut the electricity supply down there in the meantime.