Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) (25 page)

“No. You might as well kill me right here and now.”

Dillon’s instinct told him to put a bullet in Latimer’s thick skull and save the tax payer a whole lot of money trying to bring him to trial. But he knew better than to rush these situations.

“Okay. Then I’ll tell you what I think. It’s all very simple and obvious, really. Each name and address represents a safe house where stolen goods can be covertly deposited prior to redistribution at a later date. I think that each location is different in size and level of security. Lyme Regis, I would say, is of the highest level of security. Some of the locations and names have been crossed off, indicating that these properties, and possibly their caretakers, may have been compromised in some way, or simply their usefulness expired. And then there are the new additions that appear to take their place. These safe houses have obviously been built up over many years and I daresay that under close scrutiny their ownership would make interesting reading.”

Dillon was watching Latimer closely, but the politician was showing no obvious reaction other than distress at what was happening to him.

He went on: “Now the question is what happens after the stuff leaves the safe houses? They’re spread out across southern England, and the most obvious reason for this is ease of access to and from the coast. Which leaves only the why?”

“You seem to have all the answers, Dillon. Surely you’ve worked that one out.”

“Come on, Latimer, your manners are slipping. Or is this the real Latimer I’m seeing? The street brawler? The boy from a lower-class background who rose to greater things?”

“You reckless bastard. Don’t you realise that there are men outside who are going to blow your head off?”

Latimer tailed off almost to a mumbled sob. Then he slowly lifted his head, his jaw now so swollen and bruised that his face was distorted.

“That’s a crazy notion. There isn’t a safe house safe enough to hide gold of the supposed quantity that you’re suggesting. You see, it’s the yellow fever that makes it so difficult – sends even the most honest person over the top. And why have all of those properties when one large vault would do the job?”

“That’s what I thought,” Dillon agreed. “So what’s the catch?”

Latimer sat, his legs crossed and both hands deep in his dressing gown pockets. He appeared to be sinking deeper into the void of despair. Looking up at Dillon, he said, “You really are a foolish man, aren’t you? Up to this point we were thinking that you had been unsuccessful in locating the underground strong room. It’s possibly why you’re still alive. But now that you’ve made it clear that you did find it, I’m afraid it puts a completely different slant on things.”

He smiled maliciously at Dillon, adding, “You see, I will be able to tell Trevelyan something he doesn’t already know.”

Latimer suddenly jumped up and went towards the telephone located on an occasional table by the side of an armchair. He stopped abruptly and turned back towards Dillon, the hatred in his eyes showing through as he remembered that Dillon had disconnected the line from outside. Dillon raised the silenced Glock and pulled the trigger. The phone disintegrated as the hollow point hit the cradle and smashed it into a thousand pieces, sent it flying around the room and crashing to the floor. Latimer jumped back in fear.

“It’s my party trick,” Dillon said with a boyish grin. “You’re not going to be able to worm your way out of this at my expense, Latimer. And that’s exactly what Trevelyan will think if I’m dead and unable to corroborate what I’ve told you. Think about it.”

Latimer’s confidence was waning again. He had never been so close to a bullet before. It was made worse because he’d not even heard the shot.

Dillon continued to point the Glock at Latimer’s stomach.

“Come over here,” Dillon ordered. “Come on, hurry up. I’ve decided that I don’t like your company anymore, so I’m leaving.”

Latimer’s legs had turned to jelly and as he walked back towards Dillon, he had to hold on to anything that would support his weight. He stood facing Dillon as he came forward from the door.

“Now turn around.”

Latimer hesitated. The thought of a bullet through the back of his head made him feel nauseous again. Dillon didn’t bother waiting for a reply. He roughly grabbed his arm and as he spun him around, struck him across the back of the neck with the outside of his open hand. Latimer fell heavily onto the carpeted floor and was then dragged behind the door and out of sight.

Dillon didn’t waste any time, moved in a low crouch to the hall door and peered through the spy hole. He couldn’t see anyone out on the landing and could hear nothing either. He believed that Latimer had told him the truth about ringing for help – his telecom engineer’s disguise had not been as convincing as he would have liked. It was midmorning; surely they wouldn’t try anything in broad daylight and in full view. He ran back through to the stairs, up to the top floor and the bedrooms, and went into the master suite, which overlooked the rear of the building. He carefully opened one of the French doors, quickly scanning the roof garden. Satisfied that there was no one about, he moved quietly towards the gate leading to the fire escape. And there, at the bottom, two figures in the street below were dressed in painter’s white overalls. They both looked up at Dillon as he peered over the edge. As Latimer had said, that route was sealed off.

He went back down to the living room. Latimer was still out for the count and would be for some time. At the front door Dillon thought he could hear movement outside. He peered through the spy hole again, but if anyone was there they must be either at the side of the door or crouching low out of the angle of vision of the spy hole. As there was someone at the bottom of the fire escape, he knew for sure that there would be others positioned both inside and outside of the building.

He stepped back from the door, aimed the Glock low and central of the panel and fired off three silenced rounds into it. He quickly moved to the side as someone groaned with pain. The next moment the door started to splinter as shots were fired from the other side of the door. A series of holes started to appear, and then the whomp of bullets slamming into plaster and woodwork on the far side of the hall.

Dillon remained in a crouching position by the side of the front door. The shooting stopped, which gave him the time to crawl across to the living room door, inquisitive to find out what ammunition they were using. There had been virtually no sound coming from the other side of the door and by the size of the holes, he was almost certain that they were using Norinco Type 64/67 silenced pistols - Chinese weapons that are produced exclusively in silenced form and are essentially favoured by criminals and hit men alike as an assassination weapon. Dillon knew that by declaring himself he had set the clock moving forward; that he would have had to at some stage, and that it made little difference to the men on the other side of the door. They would wait for however long it took to finish the job properly.

He ran back up the stairs and stopped near the top to crouch down low by the balustrade. From this position he had a clear view of the front door and could partially see the French doors on the far side of the master bedroom. It took them another five minutes to open the door – they would have wanted to avoid breaking it down because of the noise. Dillon slid down to a prone position.

He anticipated that they would exert extreme caution at first, and then there was a sudden rush of bodies hurling themselves into the inner hall – their weapons set to automatic, shots being fired randomly everywhere and he caught the first man as he came through. Blood instantly sprayed up the wall and across the ceiling of the room from where the hollow point had ripped through his trousers and into the soft flesh of his groin. The man lay screaming with the pain. Within seconds one of his friends had stopped him with a bullet to the head. The others had scattered in an attempt to find cover from behind whatever furniture they could use. Dillon fired a single round off, caught another of the men in the back as he was retreating through the doorway into the living room. He spun round, already dead on his feet, dropped his gun and then collapsed in the open doorway. Within moments blood had started to congeal around the body, staining Latimer’s cream carpet.

“You’ll have to come up and get me.” Dillon’s voice had a hard edge with attitude as he called down from his vantage point at the top of the stairs. He was firmly on the floor and well protected.

“It’s all right, we’ve got all day, mate. And anyway, you’re not going anywhere,” a voice called back.

Dillon guessed that there were at least another five or six of them waiting for him, and that the one doing the talking was just out of sight behind the partially opened cloakroom door. He rested the butt of the Glock against the carpeted floor of the landing, took careful aim at the lower door panel and gently squeezed the trigger.

“Bloody hell!”

The shock in the voice told Dillon that he’d only just missed his mark and he squeezed off another round. This time he aimed a fraction to the right and was gratified by the immediacy of a loud shriek of pain, followed by the slump of a body hitting the ground.

“That’s three down, by my reckoning. And if the rest of you are still feeling brave, you’ll be going the same way as your friends before we’re done here.”

He knew what would happen next, because they were pinned down with no real options. They could burst from cover and charge up the stairs at him with guns blazing on fully automatic. It would not be a situation he could get out of – the firepower against him would be completely overwhelming. But he was far more concerned about the two men down in the street, if they came up the fire escape at the same time, he would be trapped in a classic pincer movement.

Dillon slid back silently away from the top of the stairs and into the master bedroom. He gently locked the door and taking an occasional chair, wedged it under the handle. At the very least it might give him a little extra time. He moved quickly to the French doors, opened one and went out onto the roof garden.

He had no idea of how much time he had. The men downstairs in the hall might wait until they thought he was losing concentration. It was the most likely option that they would take, especially as none of them would relish the idea of charging head-on up the stairs, with three of their friends lying dead downstairs. But he was sure that the two men down in the street would not stay there forever. They would get anxious about the lack of action and would come up the escape to investigate what was happening.

Dillon edged his way towards the gateway and once through it, was standing on the steel mesh platform of the escape. He glanced over the edge and saw that only one of the men was still standing at the very bottom. He then spotted the other one halfway up the escape. The second man had seen him, but remained frozen to the spot where he was, and then Dillon saw why. A police patrol car was parked at the end of the street.

Dillon chose the moment to descend the ladder, but as he moved out into full view he saw that he’d been spotted. At the same time the police car pulled out into the midmorning traffic and drove away. He didn’t expect to be shot at even if the police had remained there. The angle was all wrong for both of them and the distance was not ideal either. The man who was stood in the street stayed where he was, but Dillon knew that there was a hand clasping over a gun butt in his overalls pocket.

What disturbed the gunmen was that Dillon was climbing through a landing window two floors below the penthouse. Dillon was inside the building in an instant and moving quickly down the staircase towards the main entrance hall when he heard the sound of many footsteps coming down from above. He ran down the stone steps, taking them two at a time to the next floor. He stood listening for a second and then heard the main entrance door slam shut. A moment later, the two men who had been standing in the street at the rear of the building, started up the steps towards him.

He backed through the emergency exit that led out to the third floor landing. At the same time the lift door pinged open and an elderly woman stepped out with two heavy-looking bags of shopping in her hands. Dillon ran up the landing and got into the lift, just before the emergency exit door burst open and two of Trevelyan’s men came through, much to the surprise of the elderly woman. Dillon pushed the penthouse button and the lift started to ascend to the top floor. As it neared the penthouse, Dillon crouched, gun held in both hands. As the doors slid back he came out fast and low, rolling midway and ending up lying prone, gun trained on Latimer’s door.

There was no one there. In their haste to follow him, Trevelyan’s men had not left anyone behind to stand guard, which was lucky. But he still had to be quick and also remain quiet. The door had been closed but the terrible damage caused by so much firepower was on full view. He stood to the side of the doorway and waited a few seconds before gently pushing the door open with the barrel of the Glock. Once he had satisfied himself that it was clear, he moved inside.

The hall looked like a warzone with the bodies of the dead men left where they’d fallen, their blood spattered up the walls and across the ceiling. Dillon stepped over them, went into the living room and discovered that Latimer was still out cold. He bent down and checked for a pulse. The politician was still alive. He left him where he was and quickly made his way back up onto the roof garden. He didn’t break stride as he went out through the still open French doors, and made straight for the gateway. He got to the platform and started down the stairs as fast as he could. About halfway down, he heard a yell from above. No way was he going to stop and pass the time of day with them. He was now taking the stairs two at a time, realising that it was one of the men who had been standing down in the street. He’d moved fast back up to the penthouse and was now back outside and coming after him with only one flight between them. He held a two-way radio in one hand that he was talking into, and what looked like an Uzi machine pistol in the other.