THE FIX: SAS hero turns Manchester hitman (A Rick Fuller Thriller Book 1) (29 page)

Lauren North's Story:

For the next ten minutes, I felt like the proverbial ham butty at the bar mitzvah. I’d cleaned my vomit from the steps of the house and collected all our spent cartridges as the boys had requested.

Rick and Des ripped all they could out of the control room. Each had a small toolkit with basic screwdrivers, pliers and stuff, and they were feverishly unscrewing covers from six computer towers.

I strolled from the room feeling strangely calm and walked into the now silent chequered hallway. I could see the outline of my victim at the bottom of the stairs. For reasons known only to my delirious mind, I was surprised to see he had not moved in any way. I stepped over him for a second time without paying him further attention.

Walking into the office where the guys had been earlier, I found it ridiculously green; carpet, chairs, curtains, horrible.

I walked around, not looking for anything in particular. Finally I strolled into a small hall.

My eyes were drawn to a framed document hanging in pride of place. A brass light fitting illuminated the gilt frame. This was a very important piece of paper to Mr. Davies.

I was even more intrigued.

As I moved closer I could see the document was framed with a delicate pattern. It was a marriage certificate. I lifted it down and read the names. I noted the date. 

He and Susan had signed this paper, so had two witnesses.

Davies just didn’t strike me as the kind of man to be sentimental. After all, he paid Rick to top half of his own family.

If this was so priceless to Davies then the document was important to us too.

I didn’t realise at the time, just how important.

I tore the backing from the frame, folded the certificate and pushed it into the pocket of my overalls.

The first sirens brought me back to reality.

Suddenly we were on our way. Rick and Des worked swiftly and effectively. I had been briefed on every possible exit plan. Each contingency arrived in my head in the correct order. I knew exactly what was coming.

Rick had repeated it over and over. It was no use getting in, if you couldn’t get out.

I stripped off my weapons, kit, boots and overalls and threw them into a holdall which Des collected. He handed me a pair of casual flat shoes and a hairbrush.

He led me quickly to the back garden and bunked me over the back wall. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, I brushed my hair as I walked, threw the hairbrush into a convenient skip. Even though I knew they were there, I checked my pockets for my mobile and money. Thirty seconds later, a full minute and a half before the first police car arrived, I was heading to the Metro and looking forward to a hot shower back at my hotel.

The tram was full of commuters dressed for the office or bank. A few, more casually attired folk appeared to be going shopping. Two obvious uniformed nurses hung onto the overhead rail to prevent them from staggering around as the tram lurched toward the city centre.

I felt a twinge of guilt as I remembered my own previous life. Life before Des and Rick; I hadn’t been able to contact Jane. It would have endangered her, just as much as me.

Nursing had been my life after my divorce and what had it offered? Graveyard shifts and crap pay, sore feet, lecherous doctors and the occasional night out with the girls.

Life was totally different now. I was in shock, yet I was full of excitement. There was no turning back.

One of the nurses caught my eye and smiled. I looked down at the floor.

No eye contact. It was another of Rick’s rules.

I spent the rest of my time staring out of the window and watching the Manchester landscape pass me by.

The suburbs had given way to Chinese wholesalers, car valets and boarded-up pubs. Then, as the real city got closer, fine penthouse apartments, coffee shops and vegetarian restaurants lined the route.

I got off at Piccadilly Gardens and strode across the square, past the fountains and into Starbucks.

I bought a latte and a blueberry muffin from a very handsome French guy behind the counter and sat scanning the
Telegraph
, secretly waiting for the text to say Rick and Des had made it away safely.

At 8.04hrs my phone vibrated in my pocket. I opened the text message. It read,
Chop-Chop
.

Back at the hotel I caught two hours’ sleep in my clothes and awoke feeling like I’d run a marathon dressed in one of those Disney costumes. My T-shirt was plastered to me and my hair was wet with sweat. I felt suddenly vulnerable. Switching on the television, I sat motionless on the end of the bed, feeling the chill of the air con drying my back whilst some morning game show numbed my senses.

My brain gave me an abrupt jolt as the news item appeared on the screen. I rooted out some headed notepaper courtesy of Ibis, found a ballpoint and began to scribble. Within twenty minutes I had left all my worldly goods to my sister and two men I’d known less than a season. I wasn’t sure if my scrawl would be legally binding, or indeed if I had anything of value to leave Rick or Des after Stern had his way, but it made me feel so much better.

I stood and stretched my back, feeling the tendons crack and the vertebrae open and close. Then I did the same for my legs and before I knew it, set about punishing my aching body with two hundred sit-ups, two hundred squats and two hundred tricep dips before a cold shower. I stood naked in front of the wall mirror in my plastic room and felt rather smug about what I saw. My muscles twitched from exertion and as I pulled on my clean clothes I felt a rush of self-confidence tear through my veins. The confidence my husband had systematically taken from me had been restored by Rick and Des in a matter of months. I almost bounced to the elevator. 

Rick’s text was a little code we’d decided upon, just to be on the safe side. Even though the mobiles were unregistered pay-as-you-talk jobs, we didn’t take any chances.

'Chop-Chop' meant he was back at his hotel, everything was okay, and we were to meet at a pub called The Chop House at four p.m.

Des Cogan's Story:

I’d had a little drama exiting the house and had suffered a broken nose in the process.

Everything went to plan at first. I’d bunked Lauren over the wall, collected all her gear and within seconds climbed the same wall myself. A five hundred meter tab brought me to a safe area I had organised before the entry, where I packed my rifle, Lauren’s handgun and all the entry clothing into my Bergen. I then pulled on my old Parachute Regiment uniform, complete with red beret and marched off down the street, like a fuckin’ war hero.

Whenever you were home on leave as a squaddie, the coppers never bothered you when in uniform. It was perfect, Rick was a fuckin’ genius and I was home and dry, striding along the road with cop car after cop car screaming past me.

All would have been peachy had I not run into three Muslim brothers who took exception to a British soldier in uniform on the streets of Manchester.

I took the smack in the nose, and the embarrassment of the abuse, without retaliation. It was not a time to draw attention to myself. I’d never served in Iraq, too warm for my liking. I felt sorry for the fuckers that had to. I’m no racist. Live and let live, I say. Jesus, I’m a Scot, I’m from the most persecuted country in the Western world. The English have fucked us about for centuries.

The guys that punched me, spat on my uniform and abused me, were English born and bred.

No change for a Scot there, then.

Rick Fuller's Story:

I was at the Vectra before the first wooden-tops arrived. Our exit went far more to plan than our entrance.

Despite the drama, we had all been wearing hoods and balaclavas and so couldn’t be identified by Stephan, I felt confident we had fallen on a wealth of information. The hard drives we had recovered had the data that would lead us to Stern. I felt it in my bones.

It took me an hour to clean my weapons and reorganise my kit. When I was happy with my work I stored it all out of sight, leaving a loaded SLP under my pillow. Knowing Stephan was in town made me nervous enough. Having just wiped out a small part of Stern’s English empire made me doubly so. I lay on my bed and sent two text messages.

Then, I watched the news to see what coverage there had been on our Cheadle incident and got nothing. I picked up my pay-as-you-go and flicked onto the web browser and selected Reuters News. Again, zip. My hair started to do its standing up trick. An all-out gun battle in a sleepy upmarket suburb of Manchester should have been big news. The press ought to have been crawling all over it.

I turned up the volume on the small television and changed to BBC News 24. It had taken its time but the story had finally broken. The very attractive Indian woman reading the bulletin was stone-faced. Behind her beautifully styled hair was a still picture of Joel’s front door. It had a lone police constable guarding it. Across the image, red impact font screamed, ‘Mass Murder.’

The anchor had a clipped London accent, softened deliberately for her job. Her impassive face only deemed any hint of emotion necessary when totalling the body count.

“Residents of an upmarket Cheshire suburb were this morning in shock, as they awoke to the sound of gunfire. Armed police officers were dispatched to a usually sleepy Cheadle residence to find a scene detectives described as ‘sickening’.”  

There was only one thing for it.

I rang Spiros Makris.

Not only was he the master of disguise when it came to documentation, but he had the IT knowledge that we needed.

His phone rang once.

“Hello?”

“Spiros?”

“Fuck me, Richard, you are supposed to be really dead this time, and I’m asleep.”

“It’s eight-thirty in the morning, you lazy Greek bastard.”

“It’s also Saturday, you
malaka
” (wanker).

“Spiros, I need total documentation for three people and I have seven hard drives I need looking at.”

Makris was silent for a moment.

“Listen, my friend, even though my heart is now full that you are still alive, from what I hear, your old boss Davies is pushing up daisies, you know? Sleeping with the fishes? Dead as fuckin’ doornails?

“I gathered. So you watch the TV.”

Makris lowered his voice slightly. There might have been a hint of real embarrassment in his tone.

“I don’t want to be disrespectful, Richard, but I also hear your credit isn’t too good this month.”

I’d had enough of the posturing.

“Can you deliver, Spiros? Can you get us three sets of good docs, the new stuff, the biometric type?

“Sure, you know I can.”

“And the hard drives?”

“Maybe, depends on encryption and, well...”

“And what?”

“And one hundred thousand pounds, my friend.”

"Leave it with me."

I hit the end button. I could raise that kind of money but would it be worth it? This was no time to worry, I closed my eyes and slept for the first time in three days.

Within minutes I was back in Hereford lying in bed with Cathy. The dream, so realistic, so vivid, I could smell her hair on the pillow next to me. My face turned to hers as she slept peacefully and I felt myself smile, a real smile, full of genuine happiness. She stretched, still deep asleep, to reveal her tanned shoulders and breasts. We had just returned from the South of France and spent seven glorious days in the sun. I reached out to touch her, to caress her hair, taking great care not to wake her. I stroked her temple with my thumb. A sudden cold wetness covered my nail and dripped down my thumb to my wrist. Cathy’s beautiful tanned face was gone and an unrecognisable mush of blood and bone was in its place. I was flung through time and space by unseen devils, back to the garden of our house, to the open door, the pounding in my chest was unbearable and I knew that nothing could prevent me from reliving her death in full Technicolor. What was left of my conscious begged to wake, but it didn’t come and once again the tears flowed.

I woke in a pool of sweat. I’d bitten my lip and there was blood on my pillow as if I needed any more realism. My hands shook as I sat up and brought my head back to the present. I didn’t know if other people felt genuine hatred the way I did, the way I still do, but if they feel that emotion with the passion I feel it, I am sorry for them. It is a destructive emotion. But regardless of its vicious power I sought vengeance every single waking hour of the last ten years. I knew it was slowly destroying me, destroying Richard Fuller. Even Stephen Colletti was touched by it.

Despite my shaking limbs and nagging doubts about the kind of money Makris was asking for, I did a full hour of core yoga, before showering and dressing. I didn’t shave as I knew I would need to change my appearance sooner than later and a beard would be a start.

I clothed myself quickly in a pair of Levi casual cotton trousers that were the star of my recently devastated wardrobe. I topped them with a plain white open neck shirt by George, which I had discovered to my horror, was a supermarket label.

Then, pulling on a black bomber of doubtful antecedents, I surveyed my form in the cracked full length mirror fastened to the rear of my hotel room door.

I looked like a villain, and a cheap one at that. I secreted my SLP in my waistband at the small of my back and it struck me that my appearance was about spot on.

Being a rogue was one thing, but a cheap rogue was a totally different matter. We needed cash, lots of it, and quick.

Mr. Thomas’s Chop House was reportedly the best gastro-pub in England. Egon Ronay said so, and who was I to argue.

It had just about everything you could want from a city centre boozer, which was reflected in the clientele. A mix of corporate suits pored over the substantial menu and well-dressed city visitors quaffed pints of real ale. Muted conversations were almost made inaudible by Rufus Wainwright’s latest single, protesting American foreign policy. A uniformed waitress with a frilly white apron looked me up and down. She smiled weakly before offering me a poorly positioned table. I was convinced it was the George shirt. I took a disdainful look at the offered seating and reverted to type. I had scanned the room and decided a window seat would suit my guests just fine.

“I’ll take the table for four in the window,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone. The girl was about to protest but I was already drawing my chair and making myself at home.

Frilly Apron thrust a menu into my hand and gave me a cruel look. She was of Eastern European origin, quite nice-looking in a scrubbed kind of way.

“Drink, sir?”

From the accent I guessed Slovakian.

I scanned the starters and without looking up said, “Stella Artois, a bottle, no glass.” And she was gone.

The drink arrived chilled and it tasted just fine, I had just taken the neck from the bottle, when Des flopped down in front of me wearing a sweater that looked like his mother had knitted it and a broad smile. Frilly was on to him like a rash and he ordered a pint of Spitfire bitter.

He waited in silence until the drink arrived.

“Take it you saw the fuckin’ news,” he said, wiping foam from his top lip.

I nodded.

“Once Lauren gets here we need to work out how to get our hands on some serious coin. I’ve been on the phone to Makris and he wants a hundred thousand to unlock the hard drives and get us three sets of docs.”

Des let out a low whistle. “Fuck me. Nice work if you can get it. Even with the gold coins and every bit of cash we have we could only raise half of that. But we need to move and fast, mate. Whoever is in control of this shit will be out there right now, wanting to snuff the three of us out like a candle, and get their computer drives back quick sharp by the fuckin’ way.”

I took some more Stella and a slightly paranoid glance out of the window, and wondered if my vain seating requirements had been the best idea I’d had in a while. Before I answered I saw Lauren saunter past and into the bar. She had a relaxed smile on her face. I had marvelled at her capacity to learn the killing craft in such a short space of time, indeed to become another person. She looked amazingly fit and her triceps bulged as she dropped both palms on the table and leant in to speak. She had definitely just worked out.

“Everyone okay? Seen the news, I take it?”

Both Des and I nodded sombrely in agreement. Lauren, on the other hand, seemed unworried by the TV revelations. Indeed she was buzzing with excitement. She was dressed in tight jeans and a white vest which proclaimed ‘fit as fcuk’ in silver lettering.

She sat, and Frilly was at our table before we could say another word. Lauren was dismissive and simply waved her away.

“I can’t eat at the moment.”

“A drink, madam?”

“Cranberry juice, ice, no lemon please.”

Neither I nor Des had seen this side of our new partner before. Des held a wry smile as he watched her.

“So what’s the crack then?” she said.

I placed my hands on the table and lowered my voice. “I know a guy who will get us new ID’s and decrypt all the hard drives we have, but he wants big money. He knows how dangerous it is for him. He wants a hundred thousand for his trouble.”

Lauren’s cranberry arrived and she sipped it. She wore no noticeable make-up.

“We can’t stay here much longer, that’s obvious. We need to get those drives looked at and we lower our profile whilst that happens. I say we find the money.”

Des and I looked at her and nodded again in total agreement.

She shuffled along the seat closer to me and I could smell Chanel No5.

“Look, why don’t we get a price for the new ID’s, get the fuck out of here and then try and sort the hard drives ourselves?”

Des leaned back in his seat with the broadest grin. “Ye gotta hand it to the lassie, by the way. The most important thing now is for us to get our heads down.”

I spun my empty Stella in front of me. “I can get the cash, no problems. I still have Joel’s Porsche 911 in my lock-up, that’s worth seventy thousand at least, but before we go and spend, spend, spend, I have another idea.

Lauren looked me straight in the eye and I thought I detected a hint of excitement. “Go on,” she nodded toward Des. “We’re all ears, mate.”

I pulled the estate agent’s flyer from my pocket, the one I had found on the floor of my flat and handed it to my two colleagues. Lauren let out a low whistle. “Nice gaff, six hundred thousand for a flat, eh? Whose is it?”

“Was it,” I countered. “It was my flat before Stephan took me for a ride in the country, and now it’s for sale.”

Lauren leaned in, barely able to contain her enthusiasm. “So when do we go and have a look at the agency then? There has to be a lead to Stern there.”

Des shook his head. “Maybe, hen, but not necessarily. These guys can set up so many bogus companies and bank accounts it could take months of unravelling and we could still be no nearer.”

Lauren turned to me. “But we are going to have a look, right?”

I waved my bottle and my stomach rumbled as Frilly walked by with two plates of glorious-smelling food.