London Large: Blood on the Streets (28 page)

‘All set, son, all set. Don’t
you worry about that.’

Ronnie handed him a
baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses: ‘Alright…put these on now, we’ll get
balaclava’d up when we get a bit closer.’ They both knew the score: London,
CCTV surveillance capital of the world. And then some.

H was feeling terrific, the
best he’d felt in years. The adrenalin from the battle in the warehouse, plus
whatever body chemicals were dealing with the pain in his leg, were fizzing.
More than that, Amisha was safe, Olivia was safe and, though Little Ronnie was
in the shovel, bang in trouble, he’d deal with that later. The main thing,
though, was that he and Ronnie had done the business; they had stood up, as
proud, dignified warriors, and done what had needed to be done when nobody else
would.

It was time now to finish the
job.

Ronnie pulled his cap on,
buttoned up his coat, helped H out of the car and said ‘Right, let’s go and
deal with this bastard.’

They entered the
building via the back way and set their plan in motion. Their luck was in; the
porter on duty was an old-school looking local. H played him like a violin. At
the sight of the two tooled up men in balaclavas bursting into the building the
porter had instinctively reached for a button. But H got to him before he hit
it.

‘Stop! Slow down old son.
We’re SAS’, said H, flashing a shield, ‘don’t do anything. Get this door behind
us locked - no one in or out. Stay calm. Stay away from all your buttons till
I’ve put you in the picture.’

The porter did as he was
told, and sat back in his chair.

‘What’s your name then
captain?’, asked H.

‘Bill. I…’

‘Shh, just listen. Did you
serve Bill?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who with?’

‘I was in the Navy, I…’

‘OK, good’, said H, ‘So we
all know where we stand. You’re going to have to work with us on this, Bill.
There’s a terrorist incident shaping up on the 40
^th
floor. They’ve
got hostages and they’re threatening to blow the place to bits. We haven’t got
long. Our main blokes are going in the front way in five minutes. We’re
scouting ahead. I want you to knock out all the lifts except the one we go up
in. Keep all the doors down here locked. Under no circumstances press any
buttons or communicate with anybody until we get back down. There’s a total
communications lockdown in effect. And keep yourself out of sight. Any
questions, old son?’

‘No, I…’

‘No time now mate. I’ll buy
you a pint later, after we’ve dealt with these bastards. Sound like a plan
Bill?’

Bill nodded, and slid down
behind his counter.

The lift began to swish them
up to 40
^th
floor; they looked one another in the eye, shook hands,
hugged. No words. They came to a halt. ‘Hard and fast mate, hard and fast!’
roared Ronnie, as they burst into the corridor and ran to the Diamond Room.

They crashed in together,
side by side. H administered a light slap to the security guard and lobbed a
stun grenade into an empty corner. That did the trick, no need for shouted
threats. Everyone went down immediately, and jostled for space under the
tables. Ronnie had already scanned the room for Skyhill. ‘Got him. Top table.
The fat bastard’s under the top table.’

A moment of eerie calm fell
over the room, as the initial shock subsided.

‘No one gets hurt except
Skyhill Ron, not a scratch on anyone else’, H had said in the car.

‘ ‘course’, Ron had replied.

But his blood was up now, and
his hatred for Skyhill was in danger of running away with him. H hunkered down
close to him and whispered ‘Stick to the plan Ron, stick to the plan. I’ll take
care of the room - you grab the target.’

Ronnie was haring across the
room before H finished speaking, locked onto his prey. H laid down three smoke
bombs and chucked in another stunner for good measure. The sprinkler system
kicked in and the alarm sounded. The room was a maelstrom of smoke, wailing,
moaning, coughing and crying. H positioned himself at the lift and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long.
Ronnie reared up out of the chaos, hauling, pushing and kicking a panting, dishevelled,
crawling Skyhill by his trouser belt.

‘Going up?’, said H.

‘Yep’, said Ronnie.
‘Observation platform. I think His Lordship here wants to take in the view.’

Far, far below they
could make out a crowd forming, and cars and vans arriving, sirens wailing. It
wouldn’t be long before the chopper arrived. No time to lose.

The day’s efforts were
catching up with H. But his friend was still on fire, all business. H bent over
and caught his breath as Ronnie, saying nothing, pushed and kicked Skyhill
towards the window. Ronnie had never been a man for speeches; and this was not
a movie. Skyhill had killed Tara, and spent decades ruining the lives of
innocent children. For these crimes he was now going to pay, before his
protectors could save him and make it all go away.

Not this time, fat
bollocks. This time justice will be done.

‘He’s going over, H’ said
Ronnie, coming to a halt. ‘I’m launching this sack of shit over the edge. His
Lordship is going to fly. He’ll have plenty of time on the way down to say his
prayers.’

For H, the room was starting
to spin; he was weakening, and the enormity of what they’d done, and were about
to do, blew through him like a gale: ‘Ron, are you…?’

‘No H. No need for any of
that. No words. He’s going over. End of. Get yourself into the corridor. These
windows are shatterproof, they reckon. Things are going to get a bit lively in
here.’

Ronnie pulled a limpet mine
out of his trenchcoat and attached it to the glass. H hadn’t seen a limpet mine
in years; he sure as hell hadn’t seen this one.

Where the fuck did John
get hold of that?

Skyhill was on his knees,
blubbering quietly to himself, otherwise silent. Where were his speeches, his
know-it-all pronouncements, his-larger-than-life imperiousness now? Ronnie
dragged him into the corridor and motioned for H to follow him. Ronnie seemed
to have swelled up to twice his usual size. He was now larger than life,
glowing, exultant.

‘Remember how it goes H’, he
said, ‘head down, ears covered. Stay down till everything settles. Move a bit
further along the corridor mate - better safe than sorry.’ He went back into
the observation area, attached the mine and returned to the almost unconscious
H, now losing blood again out of his leg, and the whimpering Skyhill. Heads
down. BOOM!

Ronnie dragged Skyhill back
to the window, and with an almighty, vein-popping effort summoned all his
strength and heaved him up, up, up and through the hole in the glass. ‘Thank
you and goodnight, you horrible, no good cunt’, he said, as Skyhill began,
slowly at first it seemed, to cascade down the irregular side of the building,
wailing and slobbering as he went. His Lordship had been a lump in life, and
now he was a lump in death, hugging the building on his way down and bouncing
off it three times as he hurtled towards the ground. God alone knew what kind
of mess he was going to make down there.

The crowd gasped; the sirens
wailed; the searchlights continued to sweep the night sky; the chopper arrived.

Ronnie was breathing hard -
it had taken an enormous physical effort to send Skyhill to meet his maker -
and now he sank to his knees, closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for his
lost, beautiful wife.

H was feeling weak now.
He crawled, through howling wind and roving searchlights, over to the shattered
window. And he saw through narrowed, weary eyes the lights of London,
stretching out in all directions as far as the eye could see. Huge, ancient,
unknowable London, the city he loved and had hardly been out of in thirty
years. He thought of its people, swarming and heaving night and day, of their
troubles, their joys. The multitudes of poor and rich, low and high - it seemed
like all the world was living here now, struggling to gain a foothold and get a
living, to survive or flourish, to love and be loved; here, at the centre of
things. The greatest city in the world.

He had done everything he
could to protect the safety and dignity of its people, and to avenge the
wrongdoings of evil men. But he was tired now and close to sleep, and only
dimly aware of what was happening when Ronnie, strong and reliable as an ox,
lifted him high onto his shoulder and said ‘Right H, let’s get the fuck out of
here’.

Epilogue

Little Ronnie Hawkins
was forced from the safety and security of his dreams by the clanging of the
lock on the door of his cell. Dragusha was already awake, going through his
usual morning press-ups and sit-ups.

‘Take out slops. Make tea,’
he ordered.

Ronnie had quickly learned
that there were advantages in accepting Dragusha’s protection. Firstly, he was
still alive. Secondly he hadn’t had the fuck kicked out of him for over a
month, and thirdly Dragusha could ensure they had a few luxuries like tea,
chocolates and, most importantly, synthetic weed. The Black Mamba was not doing
him a massive amount of good, but it got him off his head. And that was where
he needed to be.

As Ronnie carried out his
master’s bidding he felt the eyes of hatred penetrate him. Despite this being
an everyday occurrence he still couldn’t get used to it. He found it difficult
to understand the true hierarchy in the prison, given so few people spoke to
him.

One of the few people willing
to speak to him, Peter O’Reilly, was an aging Irishmen his father had put away
many years ago. He didn’t have the anger or the lust for vengeance many of the
others had, and he didn’t seem to be scared of anybody.

‘Listen son,’ he said in the
exercise yard one wet Saturday afternoon, ‘…I hear it was your old man that put
Dragusha away. So why this fucker is protecting you I have no idea. Be careful
son, be very careful. You’re just a pawn in his game.’

But with half the inmates
baying for his blood there was nothing Ronnie could really do, except what
Dragusha told him to. They didn’t speak much, except when Dragusha gave him
orders; he was never allowed to sit with or talk to his protector’s inner
circle. He sat alone at breakfast, walked alone at exercise time and did
whatever little jobs he was given: slopping out, making the tea, delivering
Black Mamba and whatever else to Dragusha’s customers.

So Ronnie knew he was a mere
pawn in Dragusha’s game. But every night, as he lay down and pulled the covers
over his head, he remembered the advice his dad had given him many years ago,
when he was teaching him how to play chess:

‘Don’t waste your pawns, son;
they might
seem
powerless but at the end of the game the outcome often
depends on them.’

Contents

Prologue

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Epilogue