Search and Destroy (27 page)

* * *

Bush watched the bitch empty her chambers into thin air then start to rifle her pockets.
God bless amateurs
, he thought as he leapt from cover and booted the woman full in the stomach. She folded up coughing and spluttering. He kicked her peashooter pistol out of her hand, then wrapped his hand tight into her hair, yanking her to her feet. Finally, the job was underway.

He frog-marched her back into the sunlight and he smiled at what he saw. The big cowboy had been beaten down and was now in the cheapest of seats. The smaller man, the fucking nuisance who had shot at the minivan, was out cold, his hands and feet secured with silver duct tape, and he was being shoved unceremoniously into the back seat of Chad Casey’s Dodge.

Bush shoved the woman forward then pulled back on her hair. She nearly went to her knees. He pressed the muzzle of his sub-machine gun into the small of her back. “Look what I found.”

“Good job,” said Lincoln. He pointed to the flat tyre on the minivan. “Fix that double time.”

Bush nodded and thrust the woman towards Lincoln, who leant in close to her face.

“If you don’t do exactly as I say, I will douse these two fuckers in gas and make you watch them burn. Understand?”

When Danny awoke he feared he was paralysed. The pressure in his head and chest was excruciating. Something akin to a swarm of angry hornets buzzed inside his skull. A painful throbbing pulse racked his frame with every beat of his heart. He tried to sit up but realised something was very wrong. The world was upside down. He tried to shout for Clay but all that emerged was a stream of blood-tinged vomit. He spat the remnants from his mouth and took in his predicament.

He was dangling upside down, his feet encircled by a coil of multi-coloured mountaineering rope. His body traced a lazy arc as he swung from a rafter overhead. His hands were secured behind his back, and the muscles in his shoulder joints were strained almost to dislocation.

“That’s ten bucks you owe me.” The voice from behind carried a strong American accent. Northern. Maybe New York?

“Shit, man. I thought he was dead for sure. Oh well, now I get to make that so.” The owner of the second voice stepped into view. His right arm was bandaged and strapped in a sling across his chest. Danny recognised him as the driver from the minivan. He looked very big and very mean. “Lincoln’s got the woman secured upstairs and wants us to make sure that nothing has been passed to any unknown third parties.”

The first man laughed as he jabbed Danny in the side of the face. “You know what that means, boy? We get to play twenty questions. Hey, Washington, you want to place another bet? I bet this one’s spilling his guts before question five.”

“How much?”

“Go fifty bucks?”

“You’re on.” Washington tilted his head to look deep into Danny’s face. “This is my friend, we call him Kennedy. I’m gonna ask a few questions and if you don’t give the answers I want he will slice and dice you into filet mignon.”

Danny considered head-butting Washington, but he was just out of range. Not stupid, then. He gritted his teeth, pushing his mind into a different mode. He knew what was coming next. The trick to weathering torture was to try to focus on an object and blank out everything else. But it was much easier said than done. He cast his eyes around the sparse room, which was distorted by his perspective. It looked to be a double garage space, probably attached to the side of a house. Then he reconsidered. No, not a garage; there were no doors that he could see other than the one at the top of a short five-step staircase. Upstairs, they’d said: where Andrea was being held. No roller door for a car, just a small window near the ceiling, looking out to ground level. A basement then.

A grime-stained bucket sat in one corner, the kind a child would use to make sandcastles at the beach. A sticker showing the blue-skinned genie from
Aladdin
stared back at him, a wide smile and happy eyes.

Then the pain began.

“Who did you pass the package to?”

Danny stared at the blue cartoon face.

“I think I need to tenderise the meat before we get down to business.” Kennedy rolled his shoulders then slammed a punch into Danny’s exposed ribs. The punch was well thrown and blasted the air from his lungs. As Danny jack-knifed in pain, Kennedy battered him with another four rapid shots to the gut. White-hot jolts of agony shot through his internal organs.

The genie grinned back at him.

Washington’s voice now carried an air of amusement. “Let’s try that one again shall we? Who did you pass the package to?”

Danny locked onto the blue cartoon face. He knew that the truth would not serve him here. “Your mother’s clap-doctor. Why don’t you go ask him for it?”

Kennedy slapped down hard, catching Danny’s testicles perfectly. Despite his best efforts, Danny bucked against the explosion of pain.

“Tough guy, huh?” said Washington. “That slope out in the Vegas desert thought he was tough as well. Until we turned his ass into deep-fried wonton.”

Danny closed his eyes. Something red and vicious boiled in his head. He hoped it wasn’t true. Tansen Tibrikot was one of the bravest men he’d ever known. If they had killed Tansen he would carry that guilt to his grave.

Kennedy punched him again but Danny blanked out the pain. “Uh oh, I think you struck a nerve. What? Were you and the gook fags for each other? A bit of yin and yang action going on there?”

Washington stepped closer. “My turn. I owe you one for this.” He raised his bandaged arm. “Had to pick the bullet out of the bone.”

Kennedy grabbed Danny and held him steady as Washington sent punch after punch into his stomach, his left arm working like a piston.

“Let’s have this off him.” Kennedy ripped Danny’s shirt from his back. The seams around the arms ripped into his skin before giving way. “Fuck. Look at that. This boy’s been Kentucky-fried already. Now that looks painful.”

“Doesn’t it just.” Washington delivered a vigorous slap to the lattice of pink scar tissue that decorated Danny’s flank. Then he did it again for good measure. And again. And again.

It went on for hours.

* * *

Clay awoke to the muffled but unmistakable sounds of violence from below. He remembered getting dumped into the trunk of a car, then a seemingly endless drive. The trunk had opened and then something that smelled like distilled camel piss had been sprayed into his face. Then it was lights out.

He was stretched out on the floor of a bathroom. His hands were secured above his head, the ropes that bound him wound around the base of a toilet. He could feel the wooden planking of the floor digging into his bare back. His feet too were bare, roped and fixed to the pipework of the sink. He shook his head; all that was missing was an approaching train, like in a silent film. He wondered where Danny was, hoping he was in a better situation. Then he remembered the sounds from below. He tried not to think about Garnett. His friend riddled with bullets… He would deal with that later.

He looked up to see two men gazing down at him with scorn. He recognised the taller of the two as the guy who’d clocked him with the butt of his pistol—Lincoln they called him. Clay felt the swelling tight on the side of his face.

“If we’re gonna have a hoedown, I hope you brought some chips an’ dip. I’m quite partial to guacamole.”

“No, but I did find this.” Lincoln held up a stun gun. “That little woman tried to zap me with it on the ride over here. Can you believe that?”

Clay added that to the growing number of reasons to like Andrea.

“Now, I’ve had a good long talk with the woman and she assures me that you haven’t passed on or sold any intel yet. And I believe her. But I also believe in being thorough, so we’re going to have a little conversation anyway. Also, you’ve got some payback coming for hurting my boys. The woman tells me you’re from Texas. So I guess you like barbecue ribs.” Lincoln scowled as he pressed the stun gun hard into Clay’s torso. Clay bucked and shuddered involuntarily in response to the raw electricity coursing through him. His jaws locked shut, teeth gnashing down. He couldn’t breathe. After a three-second hit Lincoln paused and addressed him again.

“The woman also told me that the flash drive contains no government intel but instead some kind of snuff movie. Some tight-assed Brit psycho getting his rocks off. That may well be the case but my orders remain the same. Recover the package and make sure that no one else has had access or opportunity to copy the intel.”

Clay looked up from the floor. “You dumb shit. Don’t you realise that she’s been set up? Most likely by the man in the video. He’s sent out a false flag on her so the murder on the film doesn’t get out.”

“Not my concern.” Lincoln’s voice was as cold as a winter wind. “I took the pay cheque so I’ll deliver the package.”

“But the woman is just caught up in something way bigger than she can handle. Wrong place, wrong time.” Clay’s stomach muscles twitched involuntarily as the after-effects of the stun gun began to wear off.

Lincoln closed his eyes slowly as if he was addressing a naïve schoolchild. He emphasised each of his following words separately. “Not… My… Concern!”

“Fucking retard!” spat Clay. “You had your chance to do the right thing. I guess we’ll have to do it the hard way.”

Lincoln looked down in genuine amusement. “The hard way? For whom? You’re the one trussed up like a pig at a shit-kicker’s wedding.” This brought a snort of amusement from the other man. Clay recognised him as the operative who had gone after Andrea—Lincoln had called him “Bush”. He held a pair of wide-jawed pliers in his fist.

“Hard for you when I get out of here and strangle you with your own intestines.”

Bush clacked the pliers open and closed like hedge shears. “Wow, the cowpoke’s got a colourful vocabulary. Intestines… you getting that, Linc?”

Lincoln clearly got it. Clay got another shot in the guts with the stun gun. Then he pressed the stun gun tight into Clay’s neck. He squeezed down long and hard on the trigger. Clay pulled against his bonds as the waves of paralysing agony swept through every inch of his body. He fought against the blackness that threatened to envelop him. Unconsciousness would provide brief respite from the unwanted shock therapy, but he might never wake up again.

He heard the sound of a zip being undone, then hot liquid on his face. Bush was laughing.

Clay closed his eyes and mouth instinctively, his fury boiling to a new level. When he was sure that the stream was finished he opened his eyes—only to receive another splash of yellow liquid full in the face.

Bush cackled. “Strike two. One more and you’re out.”

Avoiding his piss-covered head, Lincoln poised the stun gun a couple of inches above Clay’s chest. “Last chance. Have you passed or sold any data from the flash drive on to anyone else?”

“There is no intel! Just that murder video. That’s what they’re trying to cover up. Don’t you get it?”

Lincoln pressed the prongs into Clay’s chest. “Did you know that a charge from a stun gun like this one administered directly over your heart can send it into cardiac arrest? No? Let’s give it a go, shall we? Truth is, we don’t need you or the mac-daddy downstairs… so it really doesn’t matter how you go out. The girl is to be picked up and shipped off in less than an hour. Think about that as you go to the great rodeo in the sky.”

Bush finished adjusting himself and held a hand up. “Wait. I want to try these out. I want to see how many fingers and toes I can squish before Tex here cries like a girl.”

Lincoln removed the stun gun and nodded. “Have your fun. But we need to move in thirty.”

Bush again gripped the pliers, clearly happy. “Thirty minutes will be more than enough time.”

He placed the open jaws over Clay’s left pinkie toe. Then he began to exert a slow but steady pressure.

“You’ve definitely got the woman?”

Lincoln’s voice was a reassuring purr in Topcat’s ear. “Trussed up and ready for shipment. I’ve sent our man in Key West to the pilot’s house to recover the flash drive.”

“How far has it spread?”

“There is only one other player that had a chance to view the file, apart from the two men we’ve got here—the pilot’s wife. If she’s at home Chad Casey will pick up the data and terminate her at the same time. If not, he’ll clip her tonight, just to be sure.”

“Who are the two men?”

“Brothers, Danny and Clay Gunn.”

“Either of them Scottish?”

“How did you know? Danny, smaller of the two. Why?”

“He called me on the last team’s sat-phone.”

Thomas Carter nodded to himself. The mission was nearly done. He would be glad when this was over. Ever since the call from that indignant Scotsman an uneasy feeling had taken up residence at the back of his mind. But he had taken the money so he would see the mission through to the end. “Do it. Call me back when the woman has been loaded.” He had already arranged for a specialist to interrogate Andrea Chambers. Marcus Brightwell was a real oddball but he always got the job done, and strangely the man had rung
him
, saying he was available. Yes, strange that, but a gift horse… He was aware that the brief had been only to recover the flash drive and kill the woman. But that phone call had bothered him. What if there was some truth to what the Scot had said? Was the line about government intel a hoax? The man, Danny Gunn, had said the video showed an MP committing a murder. Best to cover his own ass and find out the truth.

Brightwell would take possession of the woman in just over an hour. Then he would know categorically if there were any more risks.

“What about the men with her?” asked Topcat.

“On their way out as we speak.”

Topcat ended the call. He sat back in his chair for a moment, then picked up the phone again. Enough waiting, it was time to get to the bottom of this. Time for this minister to answer some questions. If it turned out he’d been used, if some low-level politician had tried to use
his
business to clean up after himself… Well Topcat knew how to clean up, too.

Danny was nearing the end of his resilience. Washington had proved remorseless in his assault. When he had finally tired, his second, Kennedy, had stepped back in immediately and begun a new beating. Streams of blood ran down Danny’s face. The scar tissue on his side burned with an intensity that almost matched the flames that had caused the original damage.