The Payback (25 page)

Tina gave me back the gun, and I helped her up with my free hand.

Without speaking, we slid as quietly as possible down the other side of the wall, then poked our heads out from behind the trees.

A large, well-manicured lawn with a swimming pool in the middle stretched out in front of us, and beyond it lay the house. The curtains on both floors were drawn, but there were several lights on the right-hand side of the ground floor, suggesting someone was inside. Further to our left was a pool house, and next to
it a compact two-storey outbuilding, set back behind a hedge. Both were unlit.

We kept our position for a few moments, watching and listening. If this was an ambush, then any assailant would be expecting an approach from the front, which meant he – or more likely they – would be concealed round the front of the main house, or inside it.

I knew I was being paranoid, but I’ve always figured that it’s better to be over-cautious than dead. I just didn’t think Mrs O’Riordan was the type to change her mind and suddenly cooperate with two people who’d already been exposed as impostors in their unofficial investigation into her husband’s murder, especially when by doing so she would almost certainly incriminate herself.

I should have pulled out, gone back with Tina to Manila and followed up on the lead I’d got from Tomboy. But I didn’t. Instead, curiosity got the better of me, and I motioned to Tina to follow as I crept along the inside of the wall, staying behind the tree line.

It took us a full five minutes to skirt the garden, passing round the back of the outbuildings until we reached a side door to the main house. During that time, no movement came from inside.

I tried the door. It was locked.

‘Hold this,’ I whispered, starting to hand Tina the gun. ‘I need to get this open.’

‘I can do it,’ she whispered back, producing a set of picks from the back of her shorts. ‘I’ve had plenty of practice. But if Mrs O’Riordan’s really got genuine information, she’s not going to be too happy with us breaking in like this.’

‘She’ll still give us it, though. Whereas if she doesn’t have any
genuine information, this way we stay alive.’ I took a step back. ‘I’ll cover you.’

Tina was quick and professional, and had the door open in under a minute, which was a lot better than I’d have managed.

I told her I’d lead the way and pushed the door slowly open with the end of the suppressor, cocking the pistol at the same time. Before I went inside I looked at Tina, and saw that she had an uncertain expression in her eyes. I was just about to reiterate that I didn’t mind going in alone when she produced the .22 pistol from where it had been nestling under her T-shirt, and released the safety catch.

‘Go on,’ she hissed.

I stepped into an empty, darkened storeroom with a washing machine in one corner. Another door opposite led through into the house proper, but this one was open, and as I went through it I came into a narrow hallway with a small washroom to the left, the toilet visible through the half-open door. The air con was pumping full throttle and I found myself shivering. The first glow of light appeared from round the corner and I stopped and listened.

I felt the tension rising in me. We should have been able to hear something if Mrs O’Riordan was here waiting for us. Movement; music; the TV; something. But this place was as silent as a morgue.

And then, as I came round the corner, gun outstretched, into a huge space-age kitchen, I saw them.

They were tied to separate chairs in the middle of the floor, side by side with their backs to us. Both had slumped forward, their blood having mingled on the black-and-white tiled floor to form a single dark pool.

I took a tentative step forward, then another, glancing down at
the bodies. The brother, Jean-Paul, had had his throat cut, and the front of his overalls was stained heavily. Mrs O’Riordan had been shot in the back of the head, the golfball-shaped exit wound turning her left eye into a fleshy black pulp. Close up, I could smell the beginning of their decay, even though the air con was disguising the worst of it. It was obvious they’d been dead for several hours, possibly just after Mrs O’Riordan had made the call.

It was, as I’d suspected all along, a trap.

But it was also an opportunity. Clearly, whoever had killed Mrs O’Riordan and her brother was still expecting us to approach the house from the front, which meant we might be able to take him or them from behind. I didn’t like to involve Tina, but she’d made her choices. Just like I had.

My finger tightened on the trigger and I turned in her direction.

Which was when the huge figure in the balaclava loomed out of the darkness behind her.

‘Down!’ I yelled, my voice exploding in the silence.

Instinctively, she ducked. Just as instinctively I fired into the space she’d left behind as the man in the balaclava, a gun in his own hand, went to grab her. I hit him three times in the upper body, sending him crashing backwards, the gun clattering from his hand.

At the same time I swung round towards the far door as it flew open, and a second figure appeared, holding a revolver outstretched, already firing. I dived out of the way as a bullet whistled past my face and smashed into one of the kitchen units, sending a hail of splinters through the air. Landing on my side behind Jean-Paul’s chair, I cracked off three shots in his direction, through the gap between the two chairs, as he continued firing at me.

A round took off the top of Jean-Paul’s head, and a third
ricocheted off the tiled floor between my legs, missing my groin by inches, before embedding itself in another kitchen unit. Splinters stung my face but I ignored the pain, and how close I’d come to being hit, and fired back through the gap in the chairs, even though I only had a partial view of my assailant, and was running low on bullets.

Three more shots rang out in quick succession, and though I was partly deafened by the noise, I could hear they were coming from Tina’s smaller .22. I stole a glance at her. She was already up on her feet in a two-handed firing stance, a look of intense concentration on her face. The figure in the doorway had disappeared.

I ignored the hammering of my heart and stood up as well. By my calculations, I had three rounds left, and since Tina’s .22 only held five, she had two. Which meant we couldn’t afford to get involved in a protracted gunfight. I’d taken one of them out and that would have to do. Now we needed to get out.

I inched along the kitchen sideboard until I was directly opposite the door from where the second assailant had appeared. The guy had been a good shot. Trying to hit a moving target with a big gun in darkness, especially when you’re moving yourself, is no easy task. He’d got very close, and I’d been very lucky, which is the kind of combination you really don’t want to rely on.

From my new position, I could see out into a grand hallway. It was lit by a tacky-looking chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling. There was no sign of the gunman.

I heard Tina’s gasp through the ringing in my ears, and as I swung round I saw her silver .22 fly through the air before skidding across the kitchen floor, way out of reach of both of us. The first assailant, the big guy I’d shot three times, had Tina in a vice-like headlock and was pulling her back into his shoulder. The
bastard must have been wearing a Kevlar vest, and he had a pistol with suppressor against her temple.

Twelve feet separated us. I raised my own gun.

‘Drop it or she dies,’ he said in a thick Russian accent.

Tina struggled beneath his grip, and he drove a knee into the small of her back. She winced in pain, and her breath came in tortured gasps. She stopped struggling, although her expression was defiant.

My eyes drifted back to the doorway. The second gunman was still nowhere to be seen.

‘Now,’ hissed the big man. As he spoke, he increased the pressure on Tina’s throat, and her eyes widened. ‘You have three seconds. One . . .’

So much of life comes down to snap decisions.

‘Two . . .’

There was no way he was going to let us live.

‘Th—’

I pulled the trigger, shooting him right between the eyes.

He stumbled backwards, and his gun went off. I blinked reflexively, and when my eyes opened again, Tina had fallen down. For a split second I thought she’d been hit with his final shot, but then she started choking and rubbing her throat. I felt a surge of relief, watching as the big man wobbled precariously, the hole in his head smoking, until finally he fell to the floor. Dead this time.

‘Let’s go,’ I grunted, hauling Tina to her feet, knowing we were going to have to move fast.

Which was when I saw the silhouette appear in the back window. It was the other gunman.

He opened fire, and I threw Tina down as the glass exploded inwards, firing my last two bullets back at him.

I had no idea if I’d hit him or not, and there was no time to find out. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ I yelled, shielding Tina as we scrambled across the floor, making for the far door.

More shots rang out, ricocheting round the room, and I felt a bolt of shock tear through my left shoulder, spinning me round. As I rolled on the floor, I saw the .22, made a grab for it with my good hand – adrenalin driving me forward – and emptied out the last two rounds in the general direction of the window.

Again, I didn’t know if I’d hit the guy, but it bought us a valuable couple of seconds, and I used it to bundle Tina out the door and into the hall. ‘Out the front and keep running,’ I said, overtaking her. ‘He’s going to try and cut us off.’

I sprinted past the staircase, ignoring the pain in my shoulder, and yanked open the front door. Then we were charging down the drive in the direction of the main gate, just as the gunman appeared round the side of the house. He crouched down in a firing stance, and I saw that he no longer had the big revolver. Instead, he had a pistol with a suppressor attached. However, he was a good twenty-five yards away and it was going to be hard for him to hit either one of us. Or so I was hoping, as I clenched my teeth and kept going, head forward like a champion sprinter, willing myself on.

But for some reason he didn’t fire, and two seconds later we were through the gate and out on to the road.

And that’s when I heard the sound of a car approaching rapidly. As I turned in its direction, I was blinded by headlights. Instinctively, I flung Tina out of the way, then tried to dive clear myself. But I wasn’t quite quick enough, and my legs were caught by the bumper, sending me sprawling into the dirt.

I lay there, unable to move, as the car screeched to a halt, and
the two cops who’d stopped us earlier jumped out and pointed their weapons at me.

I looked up into the eyes of the nearest one – the fat little psychotic, Frogface – saw the way his finger was tensing on the trigger of the pump-action shotgun he was holding, and suddenly realized that these guys had no intention of bringing me in. There aren’t that many people in this world who can pull a trigger and not give their actions a second thought, whatever we might like to think, but this guy was definitely one of them.

I was a dead man. It was as simple as that.

Shocked and pumped up by the experience she’d just had, but otherwise unhurt, Tina sat back up on the tarmac and looked over to where Milne lay on his back. The two uniforms from earlier were approaching him. The squat, younger one was the closest of the two, and he was holding a large pump-action shotgun. As he drew closer he took a quick look up and down the road, and that was when Tina realized what he was about to do.

Milne opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t move. She could see he was hurt, but how badly she wasn’t sure.

Without hesitating, she leapt to her feet and yanked out her warrant card, speaking rapidly but with the utter confidence she knew she needed if they were both going to get out of this in one piece: ‘I’m a British police officer! Do not shoot that man! He’s not resisting arrest. If you shoot him, you’ll have to shoot me, and there’ll be a major inquiry. You’ll lose your job, your liberty, everything.’

The older cop pointed his revolver at her, but she could see a flash of doubt cross his face. The younger one, meanwhile,
fixed her with the kind of blank stare that said he either didn’t understand or, more likely, didn’t care.

‘You cannot kill a British police officer,’ Tina continued, her eyes scanning the front of the house for any sign of the other gunman. ‘If you do, you will have to answer for it. You want that? Do you?’

The older cop said something in Filipino to his colleague. The younger one looked displeased, and said something back, and they had a brief, barked discussion.

‘Right, you are both under arrest,’ said the older one finally, pulling a set of old-fashioned Western-style cuffs from his belt. ‘You must come with us.’

The younger one barked an order for Milne to turn over and put his hands behind his back, kicking him at the same time.

For a moment, Tina thought Milne might try something, even though it would be suicidal given the look on the younger uniform’s face, but he did as he was told and the cuffs were placed on him.

Their eyes met. Milne looked resigned to his fate, but it was clear he didn’t want her to share it. ‘Run, Tina!’ he snapped as the older uniform approached her, cuffs in hand. ‘Run!’