Hunted: BookShots (6 page)

Inside, what feeble light there was fell through broken windows onto a concrete floor strewn with litter and debris. Looking up, Shelley saw crumbling gantries, a mezzanine floor and walls daubed with graffiti. Water dripped through a huge gash in the roof high above them, and the slamming doors of the people carrier disturbed birds that panicked in the rafters.

Their voices echoed in the cavernous space as the four men led Shelley and Barron towards the pool of light more or less in the centre of the floor.

‘Bag,’ said the snappy dresser, holding out his hand for Shelley’s knapsack.

Before Shelley had embarked on the mission, Claridge had expressed surprise that he planned to go undercover without a
single means of communication. Claridge had even suggested that they sew a mobile phone into the fabric of his knapsack. But as he watched his bag being expertly rifled by one of the twins, the search turning up nothing more incriminating than his sweater, a copy of the
Daily Mirror
and a bread bag containing a few crusts, Shelley was doubly glad he’d stuck to his guns.

‘Clean,’ said the twin, dropping Shelley’s bag to the ground.

The snappy dresser nodded and turned his attention to Shelley. ‘Right,’ he said in his neutral, civil-service tones, ‘I know all about Sergeant Barron here, but you’re a new contender, is that right?’

Barron bristled. One of the twins silenced him with an upraised finger and a practised bouncer’s stare.

Shelley nodded and the leader continued, ‘My name is Tremain. Colin here works for me, and I in turn work for an organisation that arranges what you might call “games”. Diversions, so that our client base can get away from their wives and let off a little steam at the weekends. We’re called The Quarry Company, and for our customers we represent an alternative – an alternative to golf, or motor-racing, or stuffing themselves into Lycra and clogging up country roads on their bicycles, or organising law-flouting fox hunts, or snorting coke off call girls. This is news to you as well, isn’t it, Sergeant Barron?’

‘Sounds good to me,’ snarled Barron. ‘Tell me what to do and when I can start, and let me get on with it.’

‘Well, that all depends on the outcome of this particular encounter.’

Once again Shelley sensed the indignation pouring off Barron and almost felt sorry for the man. Up until twenty minutes ago he’d been
cock of the walk, anticipating a payday. Suddenly he was in danger of being usurped. True, he was a scumbag; it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. But even so, Shelley felt bad for him, especially knowing what he knew, which was that only one of them would be allowed to leave the warehouse alive. There were no winners or losers here, just two losers.

‘One of the most popular activities organised by The Quarry Company is a game based on the paintball model,’ Tremain was saying, ‘where we turn an experienced survivor loose in woodland terrain and our customers, bless their hearts, can experience the thrill of hunting human prey. Make no mistake: it’s proper sport. We encourage a
visceral
edge to the hunt.’

‘Is he allowed to fight back, this quarry?’ asked Barron, saving Shelley the trouble.

‘Indeed he is. The quarry’s objective is to survive. If he can reach a final flag, he wins himself a sizeable sum in addition to what we’re already paying him.’

‘And what are you paying?’ asked Barron.

‘Ten thousand,’ said Tremain. ‘Plus the same again if you can make it to the flag at the perimeter.’

‘So that’s it?’ Barron was unable to keep the excitement and greed out of his voice. ‘I just have to avoid getting shot with paint by a bunch of toffs, crack a couple across the jaw and collect my reward at the end of it?’

‘Exactly. What do you think of that, Captain Hodges?’

Shelley needed to be careful, but didn’t want to appear as credulous as Barron. ‘I think that in order to make decent sport, it might be a little more difficult than this bloke thinks it is.’

Tremain nodded. ‘Our players pay a lot of money in order to experience life on the edge, and we’d be failing in our duty if we didn’t have something up our sleeves – something to differentiate our experience from the average stag-do. Put simply, we have surprises in store for both sides. It’s why we have to provide the management with a constant supply of new quarry, in order to keep the games fresh and the surprises surprising. Any questions so far?’

They shook their heads.

‘In that case, we should let the selection process begin. Don’t get too badly hurt now, will you?’

‘What do you expect us to do?’

Tremain chuckled. ‘I expect you to fight. Winner takes all.’

STRAIGHT AWAY BARRON
wheeled and threw a right, but Shelley anticipated it and stepped smartly to the side. His hips snaked as he whipped his head away and heard the whistle of Barron’s punch as it sailed past his head, and then he countered with a short and nasty extended-knuckle jab to Barron’s groin.

The breath came out of Barron in a whoosh. For a second he was almost bent double and his eyeballs rolled upwards.

‘Strike one!’ called Colin with a short round of applause. The twins chuckled. Tremain stood with his arms folded, impassive.

Barron squeezed his eyes shut, trying to dismiss the pain. Shelley feigned being off-balance, knowing he could have stepped forward and followed up the jab with a closing punch, but not wanting to make his victory too quick. He needed to best Barron, but not easily enough to raise the Quarry men’s suspicions.

Barron drew himself up, raising his fists in a boxer stance. Shelley took up position, Krav Maga style, doing it for Tremain’s benefit.

‘Watch it, Barron,’ jeered Colin, ‘he’s about to get all Bruce Lee on you.’

With a shout Barron lumbered forward and Shelley decided to finish him. But this time he underestimated his opponent. Everything about Barron so far had said street-scrapper, but he had some boxing smarts and dipped his left shoulder, throwing a feint that Shelley fell for, hook, line and sinker.

Bang!
The right hook came fast and from nowhere and caught Shelley clean on the temple – hard enough to knock him to his knees on the warehouse floor. He was too dazed to stop what happened next, as Barron did what Shelley, foolishly, had failed to do, taking full advantage of his opponent’s incapacity and following up fast.

Again
. Bang!
Shelley’s vision went black as Barron threw a left that caught him above the bridge of the nose. A vicious kick to the ribs sent him sprawling.

He cursed his own stupidity, pledged not to make that mistake again and then slapped his hands to the ground to stand. Above him, Barron had turned away, thinking himself victorious.

‘There,’ he was saying to the Quarry men, ‘I think you’ll find that settles it.’

‘No, I don’t think so, Sergeant Barron. Your opponent has a little fight left in him yet,’ said Tremain.

Barron turned back.

‘No ribs broken, I hope, Captain Hodges?’ called Tremain. ‘Is the nose all right?’

‘Here, hold up,’ protested Barron. ‘It’s me you should be worried about.’

‘Oh, I am indeed worried about you, Sergeant Barron. Your opponent looks extremely upset.’

Shelley hated himself for what he had to do next. As well as providing Tremain and company with their sport, he was sending Barron to his death. And though Barron was a scumbag, he was still a down-on-his-luck human being and he didn’t deserve this.

There was nothing Shelley could do about that – nothing except make it easier for him.

The bones of the cranium take almost two years to fuse together from birth. As a result, there are particular areas that stay vulnerable for an adult’s entire life. An index and middle finger jabbed at the precise spot induces instant unconsciousness. You have to know exactly where and exactly how hard; you have to know exactly what you’re doing. Fortunately, Shelley knew what he was doing.

It wasn’t a move he wanted to show the four Quarry men, so he danced around a little, bringing Barron’s back to them before throwing his punch. Aiming at the side of Barron’s head, Shelley’s fist became a two-fingered jab, striking the spot precisely. Barron took three unsteady steps backwards and then, as his eyeballs rolled back once again, sank messily to the concrete.

The Quarry men looked at Barron, until it was beyond doubt that he was unconscious.

Tremain looked up at Shelley. ‘Well, that really is that, then. I hereby declare the selection process at an end. Congratulations, Captain Hodges.’

Shelley indicated towards Barron. ‘What happens to him?’

‘Oh, don’t worry about him. When he comes round we’ll see that he’s adequately recompensed. Who knows? Perhaps your
paths will cross at some point in the future. Now, I hope you have no objection to us whisking you away right now?’

His expression politely dared Shelley to object.

Shelley shook his head.

‘Excellent. If you’d like to step into the car. Colin, if you wouldn’t mind staying here and taking care of Sergeant Barron, that would be most appreciated.’

Colin’s eyes glittered.
At least the unconscious Barron would know nothing about it
, Shelley thought. He climbed into the car, taking a seat beside one of the twins.

The other leaned in and Shelley saw the jet-injector in his hand.

‘Arm,’ the twin said and Shelley did as he was told, baring his arm.

This is it
, he thought as the injector gun came close to him. He had no idea what would happen next. No idea if he’d have an opportunity to alert Claridge. No idea if he’d even wake up from the injection they were about to give him. All he knew for sure was that there was no turning back.

He belonged to The Quarry Company now.

SOME DAYS LATER,
Claridge was at home. His wife and two daughters were in another part of the house, playing Scrabble – or, if what Claridge had witnessed was typical of the game, mainly cheating at Scrabble. He’d taken the opportunity to creep away, installing himself at his office iMac.

He googled for a while, then made more checks. ‘Christ!’ he muttered, then opened his messenger application and sent an IM: ‘:-) SC’.

As he sat waiting for Sarah’s call he thought of her and wondered if she ever regretted finishing with him all those years ago, only to end up with Kenneth.

Claridge had never liked Kenneth. Of course that antipathy was in the process of being entirely vindicated, but back then neither of them could have known what darkness lay within Kenneth Farmer.

What turns a man that way?
wondered Claridge.
What corrupted Kenneth?

Money, perhaps? Kenneth certainly had a lot of that. Even so, Claridge wondered how Kenneth was able to go toe to financial toe
with the likes of Lord Oakleigh or the captains of industry that Claridge was convinced were involved. For something like this, the figures involved would be astronomical.

Maybe Kenneth was able to offer them something in addition to the money, or in place of it? He was, after all, husband to the Home Secretary and had bankrolled her political career. What influence might he wield? Claridge shivered at the thought.

His phone rang. ‘Hello, Simon,’ said Sarah. ‘You have news?’

‘I do. You’ll recall our agent was going dark, and that he hoped to be picked as the quarry.’

‘I do. But presumably there is no way of knowing when that happens?’

‘The last time I spoke to our agent he mentioned he might have to gazump another man for the job, a Sergeant Philip Barron, previously of the Paratroopers.’

‘Yes?’

‘A vagrant by that name was found stabbed to death by the docks the day before yesterday. It looked as though he was beaten up beforehand.’

‘You think our man did this?’

‘If he did, then he would have had no other choice, Sarah.’

‘I see. So if he’s in place, what now? What can we do?’

‘There’s nothing we can do, I’m afraid. We assumed he’d be thoroughly searched for any kind of surveillance device, so he doesn’t have anything on him. His instructions are for us to wait.’

‘Wait for what?’

‘That remains to be seen.’

‘Then God help him,’ she said.

‘If he’s as good as his record indicates, God help them all.’

Outside in the corridor, the Home Secretary’s security pushed down his sleeve and replaced his biro in his inside pocket, moving away to retake his position by the front door.

On the inside of his wrist he had written the word ‘Simon’.

SIR ERIC APPLEBY,
Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was striding purposefully across the lawn in the direction of the Commons when his phone rang.

Not long ago he’d got the hang of programming his phone so that callers had different ringtones, something he was disproportionately proud of having mastered. His teenage daughter had even awarded him an impressed high five. In return, he was able to screen calls from her and her mother with even greater ease. He didn’t even need to look at his phone to ignore them.

Now, however, the hunting-horn ring told him it was somebody else entirely – somebody it would not do to ignore. He stopped and, casting a quick look around to ensure there was nobody within earshot, took the call.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Voiceprint protocol, please, sir,’ came the reply. ‘State your name, if you would.’

‘Appleby.’

‘And your keyword, sir.’

‘Steeplechase.’

There was a short pause, then he heard an electronic click. In the distance the Thames shimmered, and across the lawn the Chief Whip was being pursued by a pair of underlings. The two men exchanged a wave, and Sir Eric wondered if his colleague knew anything of ‘The QC’, as it was called by those in the know.

‘Sir Eric, hello. This is Curtis. Your voiceprint ID check is complete. I hope we find you well.’

He felt his pulse quicken. ‘You do, Mr Curtis, thank you very much. You’re calling with news of an event, I take it?’

‘Indeed, Sir Eric, at a premium location. Our head of security informs me that the quarry is an experienced combat veteran with an excellent record. As a result, this event is open to Gold Club members only.’