Exit Wounds (18 page)

“Well, what does it say?” Zeddemore asked, impatiently.

Sharon looked down at her various print-outs and snatched up the one she was looking for, triumphantly. “Aha! It says... after the initial who to and who from... Paul and I have been taken to see Giacometti by a man named Dean. He has established a sizeable drugs factory in the docks and he is building a heavily armed force here. He has instructed me to hack into the M.I.T. server and they have taken Paul somewhere, saying they need his help to do some work. I don’t know where and I don’t know why. M-T-F.”

“Why would a drug lord want access to a murder taskforce’s servers?” Zeddemore thought aloud.

Colgan shrugged, “It has to be to do with the killings. Maybe he wants to see how close we’re getting to him, or maybe we’ve picked up some evidence we’re not aware of and he wants to destroy it before it leads us to his operations?”

Zeddemore nodded, contemplating.

Colgan tilted his head towards the print-outs Sharon had scattered on his desk. “There an address to go with that?”

“Yes, it’s down in the bay.”

“Okay then. We send in the Armed Response Teams. We know where Giacometti is, it’s time to move.”

Zeddemore raised a hand, “Woah, woah, woah! It’s not time for anything other than thinking at the moment, Andrew. We don’t know jack shit. I’m not about to authorise a major attack on the word of some computer virus! And neither are you.”

“John, Richard and Paul are still in there! They need our help!”

“Richard can take care of himself and we don’t even know where Paul is, let alone if he’s still alive. Hell, we don’t even know if Richard is alive. How do we know this isn’t just Giacometti jerking our chain and they’re both dead already? Richard’s got your number, why doesn’t he use it?”

“Don’t be so naive! If they’re watching him, then this would be the only way he could get a message to me!”

“Yeah, and even if I believe this virus, we’re still faced with the fact that we have no other Intel and absolutely no reconnaissance. Nothing to plan an attack operation on this alleged drug factory, and if Giacometti is building an army and our units go in there without proper info, it will be a slaughter!” Zeddemore shook his head and sighed, “I’m sorry, Andrew, I really am, but until we know more, we’re
all
staying put.”

HM Prison Cardiff, Adamsdown

Danny led Paul, Gary and the others through the prison with the other man from the cell. He was a short man in his sixties with a layer of thin, white hair across his spherical scalp and a face scarred by age spots and freckles. He smiled broadly as they walked quickly down the long, tiled corridor.

With a swipe of Danny’s security card, a steel door swung open. The room before them opened up into a large parking bay. In front of them was a prisoner transport vehicle, facing a closed shutter door.

Danny reached into his pocket and pulled out a car key. “Here’s the key to the van.”

Mullet Man’s friend snatched them up and headed to the driver’s side. Gary clutched the prisoner by the arm and led him to the back door.

“I did what you asked, please. Please just let me see my family,” Danny pleaded.

“Your family’s already dead,” Mullet Man said. In one move he pulled the silenced pistol from his jacket once more and squeezed off a round into Danny’s torso.

Paul threw his weight into Mullet Man, knocking the gun from his hand. He curled his fingers into a fist and swung hard, his knuckles hammering against Mullet Man’s jaw.

Gary turned quickly and rushed over, pushing himself between the two men and wrestling to break them apart. “Paul! Paul! Calm down!”

“You didn’t have to kill him!” Paul shouted over Gary’s shoulder.

“What the fuck do you care?” Mullet Man sneered, wiping the blood from his mouth.

Gary pushed Paul away. “Look at me. Look at me!”

Reluctantly Paul shifted his glaring eyes to Gary.

“This had to go down this way, okay?” Gary told him. “There’s nothing anyone could have done about it.”

“You could have done something about it.”

Gary stared at Paul for a moment, and then nodded towards the transport, “Get in the van.”

Paul slowly turned away and climbed into the front of the van.

Mullet Man scooped up his gun and glared after Paul. “Vicious cunt.”

As the engine of the van started and Gary went to hit the shutter doors switch, Danny, barely clutching onto life, crawled along the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He reached up, shaking and weak, and with his last breath, hit the panic switch on the wall and sent the prison into lockdown.

10.04 BST (British Summer Time)

Present Day

Cardiff. Wales. Great Britain.

HM Prison Cardiff, Adamsdown

Red light bulbs that had previously lain dusty and dormant flared up into a scarlet strobe. A repetitive electronic siren rang out of the speakers in the ceiling and echoed off the stone walls.

Mullet Man spun, his eyes darting around the room. “What the fuck!? What’s going on!?”

Gary hit the shutter door switch three or four times in quick succession. Nothing.

Paul jumped out of the van. His eyes fell on the thick trail of blood and he followed it to where Danny lie dead, his hand still outstretched. Paul turned back to Gary, who had already spotted what he had and joined his side.

“He’s sent the prison into lockdown,” Paul told him.

“What the fuck does that mean?!” Mullet Man yelled over the constant wailing.

“It means none of the doors or gates will open until Armed Police arrive,” Gary answered.

“Fuck! Fuck!” Mullet man screamed, pounding his fists into the side of the van. He kicked the tyre and punched the metal again. “How much time have we got before they get here?!”

Gary turned to look at Paul.
“Not a lot.”

An Abandoned Warehouse, Cardiff Bay

It had been over an hour since Giacometti’s men had taken Paul away with them. As they had left, Paul had mouthed one word to him, “Go.” Richard had no intention of going anywhere without his brother. He had gotten Paul into this mess, now he had to find a way of getting them both out of it.

There was no way for Colgan or anyone else at M.I.T. to communicate back to him, but at least he could give them as much information as he could and hope they put it to good use.

Richard was busying himself typing up a follow up report to the first virus he had sent when Thomas burst into the room. He was whistling loudly but completely out of tune and smiled broadly at Richard. He turned to pull up a chair, giving the undercover officer a split second to change the screen to something less conspicuous.

“How much longer do you think ‘til you’re done?” he asked.

Richard pushed out his bottom lip and shook his head, “Hard to say. Their detection software is far more advanced than I was led to believe and to be honest I’d usually take at least a couple of days to properly research and analyse the system before I even attempted to-.”

Thomas practically jumped out of his seat, his eyes wide with horror. “No! No, no, no! No, we-we need this today. Mister Giacometti is expecting access to the serve-sever-ever for twelve!”

It was Richard’s turn to flash the wide eyes. “Twelve? I don’t understand, what’s all this rush about?”

“T-Trust me, Mister Giacometti is not the kind of man you fail. Just make s-sure you have it done by then.”

Richard nodded silently and watched Thomas leave the room. His stutter had come back sharply when Richard had suggested hacking the server might take longer than a day. Thomas was afraid of Giacometti and everything they knew about the man told him that he had good reason. Richard had less than two hours until Giacometti would be expecting his work to be complete. Time was fast running out and Richard couldn’t even be sure that M.I.T. was getting his messages. He hoped his brother was having better luck, wherever he was.

HM Prison Cardiff, Adamsdown

Flashing lights flooded every corridor with red. Paul’s ears had grown accustomed to the recurring moan of the lockdown alarm and he barely heard it anymore. Mullet Man, however seemed intent on vocalising his increasing annoyance at every turn.

“Will someone please shut that fucking noise off!?” he screamed, spraying his friend with salvia.

Gary grabbed him suddenly, pulling him up tight against the wall in an archway with him, a hand clasped around his mouth. He struggled back instinctively but quickly noticed that Paul and the others had taken up position flat against the wall behind the arch on the other side of the corridor.

Two prison officers ran past them, ignorant of their presence. Mullet Man broke free of Gary’s grip, stepped out into the corridor and shot one in the back.

The second officer spun round at the sound of his colleague’s lifeless body hitting the tiled floor. Mullet man levelled the weapon at the guard’s chest but before he could squeeze off a round, Paul pushed the barrel to the wall, sending the bullet into stone instead of flesh.

Mullet Man pushed hard against Paul, “I swear to god
, if you fucking touch me again!
”

“We’re never going to find a way out of here if you keep shooting everyone!” Paul shouted, pushing back, harder.

Mullet Man pointed his gun at Paul’s forehead, “Yeah? Well maybe the only person I should just fucking shoot is yo-”

Before he even had time to finish the last syllable, Paul’s right foot crashed into his chest, knocking every last drop of air out of his lungs in one strike. At the same time his left hand shot up and snatched the gun clean out of his hand, passed it over to his right and aimed its sights between Mullet Man’s eyes.

His friend who had been busy watching both the prison officer and the prisoner they had just freed, spun on his axis, his weapon honed in on Paul.

“Enough!” Gary shouted. “Everyone just calm the fuck down!”

“You best give me my fucking gun back, or my blood’s going to blow your fucking shit clean out your head,” Mullet Man told Paul.

“I’ll fucking kill you!” Mullet Man’s blood insisted.

“Whitman, shut up!” Gary snapped. He raised both his hands up. “Paul. Paul, listen to me.”

Paul stared at Mullet Man’s eyes down the barrel of the silenced colt. He had no qualms about killing an unarmed man under the right circumstances, or when he had hair as bad as this guy.

“Paul,” Gary started, tilting his head as he tried to make eye contact. “Paul, give him his gun back.”

Paul could see Mullet Man’s friend, Whitman, getting itchy around the trigger in his peripheral vision. Gary’s left hand was outstretched as he tried to calm the situation, but his right was closing the distance to his holster.

There was no way he’d be able to take down all three of them without receiving a metal slug to the head. And even if by some miracle he did, it still didn’t get him out of the prison lockdown or get his brother out of Giacometti’s drug factory.

“Paul, just give him his gun back.”

Paul lowered the weapon and tossed it at Mullet Man’s chest. He turned towards the surviving prison officer, knelt down beside his dead companion. Paul crouched down to his level, trying to make eye contact.

“Please, please don’t kill me!” he begged.

“No one’s going to kill you,” Paul told him, resting a hand on his shoulder. He did his best not to think about the last man he had made such a promise to. He helped the prison officer to his feet. “What’s your name?”

The Prison officer’s eyes remained on the dead body lying next to them.

“Hey. Hey, look at me. What’s your name?”

“Luke,” the man answered finally.

“Okay, Luke. Here’s the deal. We need a way out of here, and we need one now. Help us find a way out of here and we’ll just leave you be.”

Luke shook his head. “There’s no way out! We’re in lockdown! Everything’s sealed!”

“There’s always a way out,” Gary said.

“No, no, there isn’t! None of the exits will open until the Armed Response Unit has the perimeter secure. They only open them when they’re ready to move in!”

Mullet Man sighed, “We’re wasting our time. I’m just gonna ice this guy.”

“Wait!” Paul pushed himself back into Luke’s wandering eye line. “You hold people on remand custody from the local court across the road, right?”

Mullet Man waved his gun in the air. “What the fuck has that got to do with anything?”