London Large: Blood on the Streets (27 page)

H followed and marked his
movements. Through the door and left. Thirty seconds later H saw the ungainly
silhouette pass several windows. A door opened at the far end; there was a
conversation by the door with somebody he couldn’t see. The door closed.

Through the door, left, up
some stairs, door at the end.

H had got it right. After all
the reconnaissance he’d done in the area he knew there were only a few places
Amisha might be. He and Ronnie had pulled up half a mile down the road, scouted
the area around the riverfront and found a bunch of moody looking types hanging
about. H and Ronnie were now tucked in on the banks of the Thames watching the
activities around the warehouse, seventy or so yards away.

With part one of the plan
coming to fruition H’s brain was moving as fast as it had done in that fateful
moment in the south Atlantic.

Option 1: Wait it out. The
sentries had no idea they were here. They could stay hidden, wait for the
changing of the guards so they knew how many were inside, and then strike with
a fuller knowledge of their enemy.

But there
was
no time.

Option 2: Scale the fences
from the rear. Ronnie was a lifelong gym bunny and could maybe make it if he
could avoid impaling himself on the railings. But H knew the chances were not
great, and he didn’t want them to split up; they needed to provide cover for
one another.

Option 3: Full frontal
assault. The option H preferred, once he’d discounted all the others.

‘What’s the plan then H?’
whispered Ronnie.

Old Father Thames, murky and
laden with sewage, rolled on behind them, H turned and stared at his friend.
They’d been here before, the two of them: outnumbered, outgunned and alone.
Falklands images flashed through his mind and he remembered the young men he
had killed there. He’d spent a lifetime coming to terms with it. They were men
like him, under orders and ready to die for their country, protecting and doing
the bidding of their politicians. But Falklands images didn’t incapacitate him
this time round. He was too zoned-in to the present danger and the scum in
front of them had made a choice. In H’s world that made them fair game.

Ronnie’s piercing blue eyes
sparkled with life from inside his balaclava. He was all charged up and ready
to go, fuelled by a burning hunger for revenge.

No fucking pep talk needed
this time.

‘We charge up out of here.
You go left, I go right. I’ll toss a grenade into the courtyard. You take care
of the two on your side and I’ll do the same on mine. Through the door, left,
up the stairs. Whoever’s inside gets the same treatment. Bob’s your uncle.’

Some fucking plan.

The two blood brothers burst
forth from the riverbank. The four sentries outside the warehouse could hardly
believe their eyes as two oddballs dressed in trench coats and balaclavas came charging
up at them, like two new life forms emerging from the primordial soup, raw and
untamed.

‘What the fuck is this?’ said
one of them, unsure whether he should laugh or be afraid. He would have
laughed, if not for the fact that a hand grenade exploded behind him and a
bullet ripped through his throat. In the aftermath of the illuminating light
thrown out by the explosion, rifle shots were being discharged with devastating
accuracy, and the four men went down before they could put up a fight.

H and Ronnie entered the
compound and rushed the warehouse door. But they’d missed a trick: behind them
a fifth guard appeared from the shadows and started firing. They’d had no idea
he was there and were now no more than target practice, like sitting ducks at a
funfair. They hit the deck, but it looked like there was no way out of this
one; they had pushed their luck too far. Ronnie started to say something…and
there was a flash from a weapon being fired by someone coming up from the
river.

H and Ronnie swivelled as the
guard fell to the floor, and saw smoke emanating from the gun in Graham
Miller-Marchant’s hands.

Fuck me, saved by the
Manbot. What a turn up.

‘How the fuck did you get
here?’ said Ronnie.

‘You’ve been causing absolute
havoc all over London; following you two is not exactly rocket science.’

‘No time for niceties
now, boys,’ said H as he continued his surge towards the warehouse, rifle at
the ready.

Through the doors turn left -
No problem.

Up the stairs to the second
floor - No problem.

Into the warehouse area - Big
Problem. Very big problem.

H scanned the large, open
warehouse area as he emerged at the top of the stairs, and was immediately
aware of the positions of all remaining seven sentries; they were hunkered down
behind overturned tables, weapons at the ready. He launched a grenade as he
dived into the exposed area at the top of the stairs. Ronnie, close behind him,
dived and rolled across the floor, spraying bullets left, right and centre.
Their enemies, whoever they were, were stunned by the sheer audacity and speed
of the attack.

Most were dead by the time
Miller-Marchant stopped at the top of the stairs. He wasn’t about to dive into
the line of fire but made a useful and necessary third man as he took careful
aim and picked off a shadowy figure coming back for more.

The warehouse went quiet. H
and Ronnie lay on the floor, their eyes scanning for movement of any kind. All
was silent and still. Then Ronnie looked at H, and realised the big man had
been hit. He crawled to his friend’s side.

‘It’s a flesh wound, H. Nothing
to write home about. I’ll stick a tourniquet on it, you’ll be as right as
rain.’

He started to tear strips off
his shirt, but H shouted ‘Door Ronnie, door at the end.’

Ronnie signalled to Graham to
finish the tourniquet and checked the door. Locked from inside. He charged at
it and gave it everything he had. It didn’t budge.

‘Stand back,’ said Graham. He
aimed his pistol and blew the lock. The door opened and H moved as if the
bullet in his leg was no more than a splinter, leading the newly formed gang of
three into the torture room.

H poured into the room
like pent up water bursting through a dam, ripping off his balaclava as he took
the situation in: waterboarding gear, a snivelling little plump man cowering in
a corner and, in the middle of the room Amisha, naked, bound and bloodied.

She’s alive, she’s fucking
alive.

He felt a rush of emotions he
found impossible to process and control. Relief. Joy. Love. Hatred. An almost
overpowering sense of guilt. He had got her involved and then failed to protect
her. This was on him. No doubt about it.

Amisha came to and their eyes
met. H felt like his heart was going to explode. H walked over to her, laid
down his rifle and loosened her straps. He took off his coat and lay it over
her. She wrapped it around herself and stood up; a single tear rolled down H’s
face as they embraced.

He didn’t know what to say.
Whereas danger spurred him to action, the kind of emotions he was feeling now
left him speechless and frozen. He kissed Amisha’s forehead tenderly and
squeezed her tight, letting her know she was safe now, that they couldn’t hurt
her anymore.

She was weak and shaking and
barely had the strength to talk, but she needed to say something, to get it out
in the open straight away.

‘Guv, I’m sorry. I’m so
sorry. He broke me, I gave him your names. You and John.’

Later, whenever H thought
back to this moment, it filled him with admiration and respect for her. After
all she’d gone through the first thing she thought of was saying sorry, apologising
because these bastards broke her, these experts in torture, this merciless
fucking scum.

But for now her words turned
a switch on in his brain. It was the switch marked KILL.

You’re sorry. You’re
fucking sorry.

Despite his injured leg H now
moved swiftly across the room, retrieved his rifle, surged towards the corner
and smashed the butt of his weapon into the plump man’s face. Teeth clattered from
his gums as his cheek bones crumbled like chalk.

Fucking coward. Snivelling
little fucking piece of shit.

H smashed at his face twice
more with the butt and then pointed the business end of the rifle at his head.

‘Harry, no, not in cold
blood,’ shouted Graham. H gave him the look, but Graham swallowed hard and
stood his ground. The Little Manbot had come of age.

Fuck me, he really has
grown a pair.

‘Look H, I know you have a
strange code that I don’t purport to understand, but gunning a man down in cold
blood, is that really part of it?’

H ignored him. He lifted his
rifle and took aim.

‘No’ shouted Amisha.

But this was not another plea
for clemency. ‘Let me do it,’ she said.

H and Ronnie looked at each
other. They were both in a state of mind in which the old rules no longer
applied. H pulled the revolver out of his belt and gave it to her.

‘Only one bullet left Ames.
An eye for an eye or the justice of the courts. Bear in mind it was Skyhill who
put you here. It’s down to you.’

H, Ronnie and Graham stood
frozen to the spot. Amisha released the safety catch and pointed the gun at her
defiler’s head.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Malcolm’ said the snivelling
sadist, shaking with fear and curling up into a ball. Blood oozed out of the
wounds in his shattered, gurning face.

‘Mercy, please, mercy,’ he
whimpered.

Mercy. Amisha was no longer
sure she knew what that meant. What mercy had he shown her? He had tortured her
to within an inch of her life. Raped her. Defiled her.

Yet she was an officer of the
Metropolitan Police Force. The first of its kind in the modern world. She had
sworn to uphold the law and to protect the people of this great city. She had
taken the oath seriously; it meant something, something deep and necessary. She
had sworn to help keep the law of the jungle at bay.

For a full 45 seconds she
pointed the gun at her defiler’s skull, trying to resolve the moral conflict
raging inside her. She had always believed revenge should play no part in
justice. But then she had never been raped or tortured.

She turned her gaze to H,
looking for some kind of inspiration, some direction on which path to take, and
realised the choice was hers.

‘Down to you,’ he’d said.

She returned her gaze to the
grovelling lump on the ground before her.

He had no doubt what he would
do, in the same situation, and his life flashed before his eyes; the prelude to
his final moment on earth. But Amisha had already made a different call. She
reset the safety catch and passed the pistol back to H without taking her eyes
from ‘Malcolm.’

‘You’re pathetic,’ she said,
‘fucking pathetic.’

She sat down. ‘Malcolm’
whimpered. Graham gave a sigh of relief. H stood brooding.

Ronnie was agitated. ‘Still
one more bit of business to conclude tonight H,’ he said.

‘Yep’ said the big man,
holding his leg.

‘We have to sort this out’,
Ronnie continued, ‘before Skyhill hears about Old Shitbreath and Blunt and
surrounds himself with what’s left of his little army.’

H wanted to stay with Amisha,
to take her home to Olivia. To care for her.

‘Listen,’ he said as he gave
her another hug, ‘things are going to be tough, really tough. I know that much.
But you’ll get through it.
We’ll
get through it.’

Sirens wailed in the
distance. H turned to Graham,

‘Graham, will you look after
Amisha, and clear this fucking mess up?’

‘How am I going to explain
all this away?’

‘You’ll think of something.
You’re a clever boy... a good man. Thanks.’

And with H and Ronnie turned,
quickly, and disappeared into the night.

The reception began at
eight o’clock sharp. One of the sexy, super-high, glittering skyscrapers dotted
across London’s new skyline. A star-studded charity event; penguin suits and
evening dresses, big-name after dinner speakers.

The great and the good in
attendance, among them Lord Timothy Skyhill; showered, shaved, suited and
booted, fresh from the airport. It was business as usual for Lord T: the cover
up was in motion, and it was now time to hide in plain sight, in the most
public way possible. This was going to be a big night. A very big night.

The bullshit train began to
roll: five lavish courses, and the world’s best wines; the purring, preening hubbub
of the global city’s social and political elite; the self-congratulatory
speeches, the competitive charity-donation pantomime; the climactic highlight
of the great peer of the realm’s speech.

His stomach full, Skyhill
leaned back into his chair and scanned the room, nodding at familiar faces,
searching for others. No Basil. No Peregrine. But other friends, new and old,
were in attendance - from people he had known at school, and through every
stage of his glittering career and public life, to the nouveau riche types from
all over the world who had cultivated him more recently: his friends from the
East, the Gulf; the bankers, the property developers, the oligarchs, the
princelings, the money getters and launderers of the new global economy.

His sense of control, of
achievement, of wellbeing, was complete. He was the daddy here - the sparkling
room, filled with movers and shakers, waited expectantly for his after dinner
turn. His routine was one of the most popular on the circuit. No one could
touch him.

H and Ronnie pulled up and
parked in a side turning off Borough High Street just before nine thirty.
Ronnie checked the boot and readied the gear; he reloaded for both of them and
got their bits and pieces together. He looked back inside the car. H was
breathing hard and looking woozy. Ronnie tightened the tourniquet around the
big man’s leg and said: ‘All set then H?’