Limit of Exploitation (13 page)

“Then we brief the guys and we get going ASAP. We need to move quickly in case those fuckers move Emma. Do you trust Senka?”

She shrugs and turns the ignition, “Not really, but she’s shit scared so I don’t think she’s bluffing. She’s desperate to get away from Miroslav.”

John’s face hardens. “Yeah? We’ll I’m desperate to meet him.” Sam shoves the Omega into drive and noses her way into the traffic on Piccadilly.

Down in the station Senka enters a foot tunnel. Signs tell her that this is the way to the southbound platform. Billy, a few metres behind follows her out. She clip clops along the platform and stops halfway down playing with her handbag and flicking her hair. Billy stops a few metres short of her and leans against the wall keeping her in his peripheral vision through a line of bodies. To his right Ritchie appears and walks straight past both Billy and Senka making no eye contact with either of them. He stands a few metres to the other side of Senka. They have her bracketed.

Above ground Sam roars down Haymarket. She needs to get over Waterloo Bridge quick smart so they can plot up on the tube exit at waterloo station. John looks up from navigating with the
A – Z
to see a party of school kids in brightly coloured daysack’s moving across the street.

“The crossing! WATCH THE FUCKING CROSSING!” Sam breaks sharply and then kicks down the gears snaking around the school kids. She shakes her head.

“You need to learn to relax.”

Air pressure from an approaching train funnels a rush of wind out the black tunnel exit. Senka’s hair blows about in the breeze as the train barrels along the platform edge. The masses edge forward ready to board, Billy and Ritchie edge in closer, they want to get in the same carriage as Senka but maintain their distance from her.

The train slows and squeals to a halt, doors slide open and humanity surges onto the platform. School parties, couples arm in arm and lots of suits with newspapers looking important. The crowds mingle and blend as people nudge their way aboard.

The two men stand either end of the crammed carriage while Senka gets a seat near the central double doors. She’s partly obscured by standing passengers but fuck it, she’s not going anywhere. Doors slide shut and the train accelerates away. Commuters sit or stand trying not to look at each other; those not reading a paper have their faces glued to their mobiles or Kindles.

Nobody looks at each other on the tube, so nobody pays any attention to the well-built man with a greying military crew cut stood quietly reading his paper.

In the Omega John keeps up the commentary as Sam spins the wheel. “Ok here we go, round Trafalgar Square and into the strand. At the end you’ll have to loop round Aldwych for the bridge”

“We’re gonna be pushing it.”

“Then push.”

Several minutes later the tube train starts to slow again and the PA ping pongs into life. A soothing female voice announces their arrival at Charing Cross. Senka stays sat playing with her iPhone as the carriage doors slide open and more people pile on. The man with the greying crew cut edges towards her, his newspaper folded in his right hand, folded in such a way it conceals the silenced .22 Ruger pistol contained within it. The carriage doors shut and the train pulls away.

Sam is going for it; she jumped a red on Aldwych and is now heading south over Waterloo Bridge.

“I’ll come in by the taxi rank at this end, you hop out and get a trigger on the tube exit. I’ll need to bin this car somewhere.”

She approaches the southern end of the bridge, the huge glass walls of the IMAX cinema flash past as she dodges slower moving traffic and careers onto the roundabout. John tells her what she already knows.

“Keep heading round, third option for the station.”

“Yes, yes, there’s a bloody bus in my way.”

“Under the bridge and first left. Left, left here.”

She pulls up opposite the main entrance of Waterloo Station, John is already pulling at the door handles.

Deep below John’s feet the underground train slows as it approaches waterloo. The soothing voice on the PA states the obvious. People in jeans fold copies of the
Metro
; people with brief cases fold copies of the
Telegraph
. Kindles are closed down and passengers get ready to leave. Senka stays seated.

Doors slide open, the masses surge off. Senka’s still not moving, Billy is looking her way, he’s suspicious. Through the bobbing heads in the carriage he see’s Ritchie doing the same. Passengers pour on, suddenly voices are raised, a woman screams, then more screams.

Billy shoves his way forward to the centre of the carriage. Through the mass of bodies he sees Senka’s head leaning to one side, its not natural, it doesn’t look right. Men shout for help.

Through the crowd Ritchie watches a helping hand touches Senka’s shoulder, her head rolls back, blood pours through her blonde hair and down her face.

A group of young girls go ballistic and scream in panic, an electronic two-tone alarm now adds to the confusion. People are panicking, wide eyed looks of fear on their faces.

Ritchie stares hard, then in his peripheral vision there’s movement. Through the train window he can see the masses on the platform rubber necking towards the train doors. People are getting their phones out, everyone wants to see. Everyone except for one man.

The man calmly edges his way through the crowds on the platform, a bull of a man, powerfully built with a greying crew cut. Ritchie stares hard at Belic, watching his progress along the platform. This is no frightened commuter.

Belic catches Ritchie eye and does a double take, Ritchie doesn’t look like a flapping commuter either. They hold eye lock for a second longer than normal, each recognising the other for what they are. Belic smirks and disappears into the mass of people.

As John arrives on the station concourse groups of Police and Paramedics are moving with a sense of purpose through the crowds. They head for the Underground exit wearing serious faces, heads are turning, people point. John looks on, something is definitely very wrong. More Police arrive, this time in black kit and armed. The crowds are being pushed back, directed away from the underground section of Waterloo Station. John plots up at a café opposite the tube exits of the Northern and Bakerloo lines. He checks the signal on his iPhone and watches blue and white incident tape going up.

As escalators from the underground deposit people on the concourse they are quickly herded away by transport police and station staff in high vis. Groups of rubberneckers with camera phones ignore them and try to get the next big draw for Facebook and YouTube.

John calls Sam but it goes straight to her answer phone. Then in the crowd, he spots Billy and Ritchie getting off the escalator, just another couple of faces in the crowd. He gets eye contact.

“What the fuck is going on? Is all this to do with you”

Billy closes in, his voice serious and steady. “Somebody topped Senka mate, right there on the fucking tube.”

John’s eyes narrow as he looks at Ritchie for confirmation. “Looks like she took a round to the head, a Close Quarter Assassination, we reckon we saw the shooter too.”

Billy cuts in. “Nobody saw or heard a weapon mate. A CQA on the underground? That was a professional hit, somebody took a fucking big risk to get to her.”

Ritchie exchanges looks with Billy. “What’s going on here John? This thing is growing arms and legs all the time.”

“I’m not sure boys but things are definitely taking a turn for the surreal.” John feels his iPhone vibrate in his hand. A text message is coming in. As he reads he speaks to the other two.

“It’s Phil. He says he’s got the shopping, he’s moving to the RV now.”

Billy looks around. “Where’s Sam?”

John’s iPhone suddenly rings. “Sam? Where are you?”

Billy looks at Ritchie. “Speak of the devil.”

John gobs off into his phone. “No, don’t come here now, there’s been a drama, I’ll explain later. Move to blue two and we’ll RV there in an hour.” He nods his head, listening to Sam in his ear. “Okay, no prob’s see you there.”

He closes down the iPhone and turns to the two men. “Right come on, we better fade, there’s fuck all we can do here. Let’s have a chat and then go and meet Phil.”

Sam was already at blue two when John arrived with Billy and Ritchie. She sat on the bonnet of the Omega, takeaway coffee in hand.

The RV was a Thames side car park on the eastern edge of the Isle of Dogs. Across the river and standing proud on the far bank was the O2 Arena and a little further south was Victoria Deep Water Terminal.

While they waited for Phil, Sam had been bringing everyone up to speed on the meet with Senka. It was difficult listening for John.

“Sell her? SELL HER? Is this what this is all about?”

“So it seems. Thieving drugs and money brought Paula to Miroslav’s attention. An arms dealer in the Middle East he does business with wanted something sweet to seal the deal, so when he found out about Paula’s daughter, it fitted nicely. You know the rest.”

A dark green Range Rover sweeps into the car park and pulls up at the group. It’s an older type with a snorkel exhaust system and matt black bull bars fitted to the front. An off roaders wet dream. Phil hops out.

“Will this do? I got the bike as well.”

John nods. “We know where Emma is, Senka spilled the beans, probably why she’s dead.”

Phil raises an eyebrow. “How did they know? How could they know? The time between her leaving the meet and her death? We’re talking minutes here John.”

“I don’t know, not yet anyway. Not unless they were on her when she turned up for that meeting.”

Ritchie shakes his head. “Nah mate. We took into her into the venue and picked her up when she left. There was no third party activity, no counter surveillance.”

Sam’s eyes dart about, she’s getting restless. John drums his fingers on the Range Rovers bonnet as Ritchie recalls the scene.

“However they set it up, it was very quick and very professional. There’s something we’re not seeing here.”

It wouldn’t have been the first professional assassin­ation carried out in London. Politicians, wealthy individuals, industrialists and in particular political dissidents have all been victims of assassination in the capital. Belic’s killing of Senka ranked right up there with the poisoning by radioactive polonium – 210 of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, and more spectacularly Bulgarian Georgi Markov in 1978. Markov died instantly on a London street when a micro-engineered pellet containing ricin was fired into his leg from a modified umbrella.

Phil cuts in. “Ritchie’s right. If she wasn’t followed then someone knew she was gonna be there. There are some unknowns here, but if we know where Emma is, and we do now, then we should be going to get her. That’s what we came for.”

John looks around the group. “Billy?”

“I’m good to go mate.”

“And you Sam?

Sam pauses. For the first time since they got together she seems unsure and hesitant. “You know Belic is moving more men and firepower down to that house in Surrey don’t you? They’re driving down there tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, I know, we’ll get the details back at Paula’s place.”

“Well that, the destruction of his drugs lab and then Senka’s murder, pretty much indicates he knows your coming.”

John slowly nods. “I’m aware of that, that’s why Billy’s going down there tonight; he’ll keep eyes on the target until we get there. We’ll hit the Zemun reinforcements on the move and then RV at the target house.”

Sam stands, surprised at the pace of events now taking shape. “I see you scamps have been doing some planning.”

“Yep, we have friends in low places too Sam.” He turns to Phil. “You manage to get everything you need?”

“Had to pull in a few favours, but yeah. Things should go with a bang.”

“Okay then, let’s get cracking, we have a lot of work to do. Tomorrow morning we go noisy.” He turns to Sam. “Just like you said Sam, we see it through to the end. We’ll meet you back at Paula’s.”

The men follow John to the Range Rover and mount up. Sam is left alone nursing her coffee. As they roar away, Billy asks the obvious question.

“Who’s this Belic guy she’s on about?”

John stares with hard eyes through the windscreen. “Good question. More to the point, how does Sam know he’s moving more Zemun down to Surrey tomorrow?”

Back in the car park Sam stares across the Thames, lost in thought. This is not the way it was supposed to be. She idly watches ships chugging up and down the brown river. Moored alongside Victoria Deep Water Terminal a Dutch flagged bulk carrier was making small mountains of sand and aggregate on the dock.

By the time she reaches home, Sam’s flat is in darkness, she keeps it that way. The only illumination comes from the streetlights outside. In just her underwear she pads across the varnished floor boards into the living area. She sits on her sofa in the darkness. It’s quiet, silent in fact, just the odd banker roaring past outside in his Porsche.

She takes a sip of the large scotch she holds and stares across to the kitchen surfaces. In a pale yellow window of light she can see her SIG, bulky and black, lying on the designer granite worktop. Next to it her iPhone is flashing away in silent mode, she takes a larger sip of her scotch.

Flicking on the table lamp beside her, she picks up a small framed photograph. It’s an old photo; Paula has a copy of the same picture. Although it’s in a frame, its still creased and seen some wear over the years. She stares at the group of scowling Paratroopers standing around an armoured Land Rover in West Belfast.

Slowly, she casts her eye across the faces of John Logan, Phil Bridge and Jack Lyndhurst. Young fresh faced private soldiers striking heroic poses for the camera. Stood with them is their equally young Platoon Commander, Tony Mayfield.

A single silent tear runs down her cheek as she stares at her dead husband. She whispers to herself. “Forgive me Tony.”

With her face contorted in silent anguish she downs the rest of the scotch. Her iPhone flashes again. The caller is persistent.