Fightback (6 page)

When Kier arrived at the villa Jackson was sitting on the lawn beneath a large cream-coloured sunshade, sipping tea from a china cup.

‘You look different,' he said by way of a greeting. As Kier joined him at the expensive hardwood table, Jackson clenched his fist and held it up for emphasis. ‘Sharper. More toned.'

‘More prepared?'

‘Quite.' Jackson poured another cup of tea and handed it to Kier. ‘So now perhaps we should finish our conversation. Do you recall it?'

Kier took a sip of tea and watched a plane scratch vapour trails across the sky. ‘You wanted me to help you find the people who killed my father.'

Jackson nodded. ‘Your father was trying to infiltrate a gang of drug dealers when he died and we're pretty sure they're the ones who killed him.'

‘You know who they are?'

‘Not exactly. But thanks to your father's work we
know they're part of a London-based operation, concentrated in an area south of the river. They're dumping thousands of pounds' worth of cocaine on the streets every day of the week.'

‘So why aren't the police dealing with them?'

‘Who knows? Maybe they can't find where the stuff's coming from. Maybe they've got too many forms to fill in. But that's where you come in.'

‘Me?' Kier frowned. ‘What can I do?'

‘You can be invisible. Our biggest problem is that the gang knows about us. They caught one of our operatives trying to infiltrate their organisation and forced him to tell them everything he knew. Then they threw him off a cliff. It wasn't good.'

‘You're not making this sound very appealing.'

‘It'll be different this time, Kier. We've learned from our mistakes and we need someone with no history. Someone like you.'

‘But they saw me at the hospital.'

‘Close up?'

‘No.'

‘Then trust me, they won't remember you. They only went after you because you happened to be there.'

Kier realised Jackson was right. The reason they'd tracked him down was simply that they knew his father's address.

‘OK. So what do you want me to do?'

‘Just before he was killed, your father sent back some information about a planned bank robbery. Latest intelligence says it's due to take place in three days' time. We just need you to stay out of sight and take a few photos of the suspects.'

‘That's it?'

‘For now, yes.'

Jackson opened a white A4 envelope and handed Kier a grainy black and white photograph. It showed a wiry man of about fifty in a dark suit and tie, the angular face, short haircut and neatly trimmed moustache giving the impression of someone who had led a disciplined life. An ex-soldier perhaps. Kier studied it for a while before placing it back on the table.

‘Who is it?'

‘We don't know. But it was one of the last photographs your dad took, so there's a strong chance he's involved in some way. If he shows up when it all kicks off, I want you to get some pictures and follow him. Forget about the others. I want to know who this man is. He's our number one priority.'

Kier frowned. ‘OK. So I sit outside a bank, take a few photos and follow this guy if he shows up. No problem. But if that's all you want me to do, what was the point of all that training?'

‘This is only the beginning,' said Jackson, pouring another cup of tea and sliding it across the table. ‘Your training is for what comes afterwards. And of course you won't be working alone. Another of our operatives flew out there today. Says she's very much looking forward to working with you.'

As Jackson leaned across the table and offered Kier his hand, Kier imagined Saskia sailing through passport control and disappearing into the crowd.

‘Welcome aboard, Kier.'

‘Thanks,' said Kier, shaking his hand. ‘I think.'

Later, as he packed his new leather holdall with the neat little phone-camera and selection of crisp new clothes that had been left out for him, he felt a tingle of excitement.

He was going back to London.

He was going to see Saskia and track down the people who had turned his life upside down.

But this time things would be different.

This time he would be ready for them.

Kier sat outside the cafe off Baker Street and watched the steam rise from his cappuccino. It was already mid-August and people were out in shorts and T-shirts, eating ice creams and trying not to think about the jobs and offices they would soon be going back to.

He watched the two men walk by on the other side of the street, held the phone-camera to his eye and used the powerful zoom function to take a few quick shots. Then he swung it nonchalantly forty-five degrees and took a couple more of some pigeons on a rooftop. To anyone watching, he would just be some tourist taking holiday snaps with his phone.

‘Excuse me?' Kier held up a finger at the waitress who was wiping down the table next to him. ‘Could I get a blueberry muffin here?'

‘Sure,' she said. ‘Won't be a second.'

Kier took a sip of coffee and imagined Saskia
stepping off a tube somewhere, walking through the shadows into the light. Not looking directly at anyone, seemingly lost in her own little world. But he knew she would be noticing everything, storing it away in case she needed it.

‘Here you go. One blueberry muffin.'

The waitress smiled, put it down on the table and placed the bill underneath the plate. Kier noticed that she was pretty and reminded himself to focus. Picking up the muffin, he put a five-pound note in its place.

‘Thanks. Keep the change.'

Ten minutes later the two men were still there, walking nervously up and down. But there was no sign of the man in the photograph.

Kier took a couple more pictures and then turned to see the waitress, who had now finished her shift, walk across the road and turn left towards the bank.

‘Oh no,' whispered Kier under his breath. ‘Don't do that. Just keep walking.'

The waitress stopped outside the bank. Then she opened the door and went in.

Kier stood up and saw one of the men peer through the bank window, shielding his face against the sun. As the other one walked back to join him, Kier reminded himself that he didn't even know the girl.
Don't get involved
, he told himself. But then
the two men ran into the bank and suddenly Kier was dodging through traffic, standing outside and scanning the street for signs of police activity.

He breathed deeply, not because he was nervous, but because that was the way he had been taught. Get the oxygen to the muscles, keep the heart rate steady and don't let the adrenalin fire until the last moment.

Three minutes tops
, he thought.
Three minutes and I'm out of there
.

He opened the door a fraction and slipped through, pressing himself against the wall and letting the information wash over him. The men had already squirted the security cameras with shaving foam, which was good news. They were both holding shotguns, one wearing a black balaclava and the other with a pair of tights pulled over his head. The waitress lay on the floor with six other people and a woman who was screaming. The smell of cordite filled the air and chunks of plaster lay on the carpet where one of the men had already fired his shotgun into the ceiling.

Nervous
, thought Kier.
Probably their first time
.

‘Give me the money!' Balaclava was yelling. ‘Give me the money now!'

Tights turned and pointed his shotgun at the people on the floor.

‘Stay down!' he screamed at a man in a grey suit who had made the mistake of looking up. ‘Kiss the carpet or I'll blow your head off!'

Kier concentrated on keeping perfectly still while he considered his next move. The men were so fired up they hadn't even noticed him yet, but he knew that any sudden movement could spook them into shooting up the place. Probably easier to deal with them than to try and move the girl. He thought back to the nights when Chiang had made him stand motionless, hour after hour, waiting for the hungry mosquitoes to settle.

It is the strength of their desire that makes them steal from you. So the strength of your desire to stop them must be stronger
.

It had taken six weeks. Six weeks of enduring bites and Chiang saying,
No
, listen with your skin. But then, finally, he had understood. He had felt every touch, every cool whisper against the heat of his skin, and his hands moved lightning-fast, fingers plucking the insects away at the moment of landing, sometimes even before. After three hours he didn't have a single bite.

The strength of your desire to stop them must be stronger …

‘I said give me the money!'

Kier looked at the white-faced woman behind the
counter and saw that she was brave, because brave meant being scared and still doing what you had to do. He saw how her left shoulder dipped just a couple of millimetres, hardly noticeable unless you were looking for it, but enough to let her press the silent alarm beneath the counter.

The man placed the shotgun barrel against the glass.

‘I won't tell you again,' he said.

‘This glass is bulletproof,' she said. She tried to speak calmly, but her voice was shaking. ‘You do know that, don't you?'

The man moved the barrel of his gun around until it was pointing at the man in the grey suit.

‘How about him?' he asked. ‘Is he bulletproof too?'

As the man covered his face, the cashier's lower lip trembled.

‘I'll get it for you,' she said. ‘But don't hurt him, OK? Just don't hurt him.'

‘You!' Balaclava shouted at the other cashier. ‘Go and help her! Now!'

As both cashiers made their way into the back room, Tights began pulling black bin bags from his pocket and Kier decided it was time to make his move.

‘Hi,' he said, taking three steps forward. ‘Are you guys making a film or something?'

The man's head jerked up in surprise and Kier saw how his nose was squashed out of shape by the tights, making his face look as though it had been moulded out of Plasticine.

‘Get on the floor!' the man yelled.

‘Hey,' said Kier, ‘that's really good. Can I have your autograph?'

As the man pulled back the mechanism of the pump-action shotgun, Kier heard the cartridge thump into the chamber and cursed himself for not noticing that it wasn't already loaded. But then he saw the way the man's hands were shaking and guessed he probably shouldn't spend too much time thinking about it.

‘I won't tell you again. On the floor!'

‘OK, OK.' Kier held up his hands and smiled apologetically. ‘No need to get upset.'

But the man was getting very upset, and Balaclava was turning round to see what the fuss was about.

Time to begin.

Still smiling, Kier transferred his weight to the balls of his feet, shifting his centre of gravity until his legs buckled at the knee. At the same time he spread his fingers slightly, hands a shoulder width apart as he moved towards the floor. All this in around one-tenth of a second. When he was at
roughly a forty-five-degree angle to the ground he allowed himself a final glance to check the man's exact position, then took all the tension out of his muscles and let gravity do the rest. In the split second before he hit the floor he pushed back with the tips of his toes, ducked his head down and pressed his hands into the carpet. The resulting momentum carried him into a brief handstand before flicking him forward so that the soles of his feet landed hard and square in the centre of the man's chest. As the man went down, Balaclava raised his shotgun and Kier brought the heel of his palm up under his chin so that he crashed back into a table, flipping it sideways and sending leaflets fluttering through the air. The gun skidded across the carpet and Kier flicked it up with his foot, catching it and aiming the barrel at Tights, who was reaching for the other shotgun.

‘I wouldn't if I were you,' he said.

But Tights wasn't listening, so when he brought the gun up with his finger curled around the trigger, Kier took aim and blew it out of his hands. As fragments of wood and metal pinged off the walls, Kier reloaded and spun around to face Balaclava, who was crawling across the carpet towards him.

‘What was it again?' he asked. ‘Oh yeah, that's right.'

He smiled and pointed the shotgun at him.

‘Kiss the carpet.'

As the man lay down, Kier glanced around and decided that things weren't looking good. He'd put two armed robbers on the floor in less than a minute and he hadn't even broken sweat. Not quite the low-key observation Jackson had in mind.

Time I was gone
, he thought.

He had just decided to slide the shotgun through the door handles on his way out when his phone rang. As he pulled it out to answer it and saw Saskia's name flash up on the display, the doors of the bank flew open and he was faced with three armed policemen, all aiming their guns at him.

‘Armed police!' one of them shouted. ‘Drop your weapon!'

Instead, Kier dropped the phone, lowered the barrel of the shotgun and pulled the trigger. As the phone exploded into a thousand pieces he dropped to the floor and lay still, waiting patiently for the three policemen to jump on his back with their heavy boots on and cuff him.

Which, three seconds later, is exactly what they did.

When Kier arrived at the police station the two bank robbers were already there, swearing and struggling with their handcuffs, which made lifting the driver's car keys a whole lot easier. As Kier palmed them into his pocket, he watched the arresting officer tap a code into the security lock and then he was ushered down a corridor into an interview room. The room was empty apart from a table and two plastic chairs.

‘Have a seat,' said the police officer.

Kier thought about dropping him right there and then, but in the end he decided against it. After all, the guy was only doing his job. He walked around to the far side of the table, pulled out the chair and sat down.

‘So, introductions. My name is Police Constable Doyle. Do you want to tell me yours?'

‘It's Richard. Richard Smith.'

‘Address?'

‘Er, 5 Station Road.'

‘Whereabouts?'

Kier thought about the names he had seen on the tube map.

‘Finchley.'

Doyle looked at him.

‘Is that true?'

‘You can check it if you like.'

‘Oh, I will.'

Go on then
, thought Kier. But Doyle stayed where he was and wrote
Richard Smith, 5 Station Road
in his notebook. Kier wondered idly if such a place existed.

‘So. Do you want to tell me what you were doing in the bank?'

Kier shrugged.

‘I was walking past and I heard a bang, so I went in to see what was going on. You know. Just curious.'

‘OK. So how do you explain the fact that, when officers arrived at the scene, they found you standing in the middle of the bank holding a shotgun?'

Kier turned his hand over and studied his fingernails.

‘I can understand how that must look.'

‘I'm sure you can. Particularly as you then went on to fire it.'

‘Acci
dentally
.'

‘That's not the way I heard it.'

‘No? How did you hear it?'

‘I heard you dropped your phone and fired at it deliberately.' Doyle shook his head. ‘You realise you were seconds away from getting killed?'

‘Wouldn't be the first time,' said Kier, and then immediately wished he hadn't. Chiang was right. He really did have to learn the value of silence.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Nothing.'

‘You're a part of this gang, aren't you?'

‘No.'

‘That's what you meant, isn't it?'

‘No.'

‘Come on, Richard, stop playing games with me. It will be easier for everyone concerned if you just start telling the truth. What was your role in all of this? Were you the lookout?'

‘Like I said, I was just walking past.'

‘We have witnesses, you know.'

Kier closed his eyes and revisited the moment when he had first made his move. Everyone had been face down on the carpet, except for the cashiers collecting the money out back. The guy was definitely bluffing. No one would have seen what had happened.

‘So go ahead and ask them. I'm sure they'll tell you the same thing.'

‘Then how do you explain the fact that you were holding the gun when the officers arrived?'

‘I can't.'

‘OK,' said Doyle, putting his notebook aside for a moment. ‘You know what I think, Richard? I think that you're not like those other two out there. The truth is, I can't figure you out. You seem like a bright kid who's somehow got mixed up in all this. But the problem is, you're holding something back from me and I don't know what it is. And unless you tell me, I'm not going to be able to help you.'

Just for a moment, Kier was caught off guard by this unexpected kindness. He could tell that Doyle was being sincere, that he genuinely wanted to throw Kier some kind of lifeline. But there was no way Kier was going to take it, so he stayed silent.

Doyle sighed.

‘Listen, Chief Superintendent Tyler is on his way over here and he doesn't see things the way I do. Believe me, the only things he's interested in are his crime figures. He's not a man you want to mess with. So here's the deal. Either you talk to me now and let me try to help you, or you wait until he arrives and get yourself in a whole lot more trouble. Now, which is it to be?'

Kier thought about this and decided he had met enough policemen for one day.

‘I'll talk to you,' he said. ‘But can I tell you a secret first?'

Doyle frowned.

‘What do you mean?'

Kier leaned forward, beckoning to him across the table.

‘I need to whisper it.'

Still frowning, Doyle sat down and leaned across the table.

‘Sorry,' Kier whispered, ‘it's nothing personal.'

Then, tucking his thumb carefully beneath Doyle's neck, he tapped him on the temple just the way Chiang had shown him. As the man's eyes flickered shut, Kier lowered Doyle's head gently down on to the desk.

‘Sweet dreams,' he said.

But he knew Doyle wouldn't be out for long.

Two minutes was all he had.