THE FIX: SAS hero turns Manchester hitman (A Rick Fuller Thriller Book 1) (39 page)

Lauren North's Story:

We had twenty minutes to sort out a plan and our weapons before the autopilot on the powerboat delivered us to Williamson’s men. Des had propped Jimmy into the captain’s chair and stuck a baseball cap on his head to hide the obvious hole. If the guys coming to meet us had night sights it might just fool them long enough.

I popped another couple of co-codamol and was feeling okay apart from not being able to breathe through my nose.

Des had been unusually quiet and was working methodically unpacking weapons and searching the rest of the boat for anything useful. I knew he was working to avoid me. The disappointment of an old colleague letting the side down was giving him a hard time. I suppose it was like having a best friend shag your boyfriend but a million times worse. He’d gone all quiet.

I looked at Des and wanted to make him feel good again. I wanted to tell him, it would all be okay in the end. I had a sudden flash of Jimmy’s body slapping against his own, very expensive boat.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually enjoyed shooting Jimmy ‘Two Times’ Smith. He was a real cock.

Finally Des took a breather and I was glad of it. He stood on the deck, sweat pouring from him, his white shirt sticking to his body, showing the tight-wired muscles of his shoulders and chest; the moon highlighted the day or so growth darkening his weathered face.

“Lauren.”

“Yes, Des.”

“Ye did good back there, I…” His voice faltered. There was something in it I didn’t recognise at first. Then, it came to me and I just knew what it was. I’d heard it in my own voice so many times over the years.

It was regret.

“It’s okay, mate,” I said.

He stood for a full minute, the wind in his face. He never took his eyes from me and finally he spoke.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see it. Jimmy, I mean, we were, you know, I was just so certain…”

I walked from the cabin and onto the deck to join him, took him in my arms and drew him close. I felt his arms slowly react as he held me too. He was so gentle. The natural roughness of his hands, calluses gained from hard graft, felt good against my skin. I was being held by a man, a good honest man. I spoke into his ear, not wanting to lose the embrace.

“We’ve all been betrayed, Des. Some more than others; it’s not your fault; not anyone’s fault, except Jimmy himself.”

He cupped my chin in his hands and looked into my face. He kissed me lightly on the corner of my mouth. The wind was blowing my hair so much it almost covered both our heads.

In that moment I forgot all of what might come.

“You’re a good man, Des, a good man with a big heart, and a fair mind. You’re the kind of man that could make any woman happy.”

He smiled.

“Aye, but not you, Lauren, eh?”

I looked at my feet.

“No, well not in the way you’re suggesting.”

The sea lapped at the sides of the boat in a rhythm only it can play. I raised my head, held his face, with both palms and kissed him firmly on the mouth.

He looked shocked and I felt the start of a tear.

I started, “When this is over, Des…”

He held his fingers to my lips and shook his head.

“No. I’ll have no promises Lauren.

He held me with his eyes for a few more seconds before going back to his work.

I knew exactly what he meant and he was right.

This was no time for promises.

Rick Fuller's Story:

The lift clanged to a halt. It had dropped between twenty and thirty feet. As I hadn’t been cuffed or hooded I figured that I wasn’t intended to survive this visit to la-la land or join a witness protection program. Fair one, I suppose.

The gate was pushed aside and we were greeted by a long well-lit corridor with more of the same ’40s tiled décor. As I was marched along I could see that the doors of the adjacent rooms were ajar and each was decked out with wartime medical equipment. Doctor’s offices, small wards and even an operating theatre were mapped out left and right. Everything was fifty years old but in pristine condition. All that was missing were the nurses in their starched aprons and red crosses.

Finally we reached the end of the corridor and Susan punched what looked like the same security code as before into a keypad that sat to the right of a heavy door marked ‘Staff Only.’

Everything changed.

We were transported to the present. Microsoft replaced clipboard and pen, cappuccino left tea and biscuits behind. Green tiles were firmly a thing of the past and pastel colours and workstations were the order of the day. It reminded me of my one and only visit to MI5.

The luxury was short-lived for me though.

I was suddenly dragged left along a short corridor. This time we waited at a door without any kind of keypad or handle. It had a security camera pointing down at us. Seconds ticked by until the door was finally opened from the inside by a man in a white coat. He reminded me of an old Nazi, all watering eyes and round gold-rimmed glasses. He didn’t speak but just stood aside as I was unnecessarily dragged along yet another corridor. Carpet had disappeared again and was replaced with bare concrete floors. For the first time since entering the Centre I was aware that it was tunnelled from rock and I was deep inside a mountain.

Two players stood at the far end of the corridor close to what I supposed was an air vent. To my surprise and disgust they were smoking. Both carried MP5 machine pistols and wore the obligatory black suits that the rest of my captors seemed to favour. I noticed they were poorly cut and recalled there was a Marks and Spencer’s in Gib. They were the sort of thing Des would buy for a wedding do.

I mean if you are going to work for the most powerful gangsters in Europe, discover Paul Smith for God’s sake.

To the pair’s left was yet another metal door. One pushed it open and I was shoved into what was obviously some kind of cell. The four walls, ceiling and floor were rubberised. There was a stainless steel toilet and hand basin together with a raised cot covered in the same protective material as the floor. My heart started to race. I’d been in a similar room before and they were not good places to be. I’d collected an IRA guy from one just like it in Broadmoor Mental Hospital back in the day. He’d been on hunger strike and a dirty protest which hadn’t worked, so he’d then decided he was mad. He’d spent eleven months in a rubber room before he decided he was sane again. Now I was standing in one and I wasn’t keen on the interior decorations, I can tell you. They were soundproof and lightproof. Within days you would have no idea or sense of time. Solitary took on a whole new meaning.

To my dismay I was joined by Susan and Chad the big bruiser from the car. I’d taken a few kickings in my time and by the look of it I was due another.

“Take off your clothes, boy,” he said. The white spittle around his mouth so prominent, you would have thought he was permanently chewing a Rennie.

I’d never taken to the Deep South accent and it grated on me.

Susan wore that grin again and motioned for me to do as I was told.

“Not shy are we, Rick?”

I got on with it, stripped bollock naked and threw my clothes into the corner for Chad to root through.

I made no attempt to cover myself and Susan had a good look as I stood in the brash light, long enough to make my flesh crawl.

Then she stared into my gaze, her flashing blue eyes devoid of any emotion.

“I just want you to know, Rick, that when the time comes, it will be me who ends your life.” Her Afrikaans accent showed through. This time there was no smile, not even a fake.

I couldn’t help myself.

“At least I don’t have to marry you first.”

Chad had a lunge at me but I just stepped aside to safety.

Susan barked at him.

“Stop that, you oaf! Bag those clothes and come with me.”

She turned to me again, eyes like flames. “You’ll pay for that remark, asshole.”

The door was slammed shut and the lights went out.

I could hear my breathing and my heart but nothing else. I was also totally blind. I felt my way along the wall until I reached the cot, where I sat carefully. The rubber was cold against my nakedness and I felt terribly vulnerable. I touched my wedding ring. At least they hadn’t taken that.

Des Cogan's Story:

All my emotions had welled up inside my chest and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Jimmy.

The bastard.

I couldn’t function. There was so much anger, hurt, regret, rejection, God only knew what was bouncing around inside me. I couldn’t even put it into words myself let alone understand it.

But Lauren came to me on the deck, there in the middle of the Straits of Gibraltar, with the world falling down around us, and held me close.

It was as if an angel from heaven itself had wrapped her wings around me, emptied my heart of pain and loathing and filled it with joy and courage all in a split second.

I liked being close to her. I missed that feeling, a woman’s touch, even though deep down, I knew we could never be more than what we were this very moment.

Lauren was folding a white tarpaulin sheet across the deck. According to the Sat Nav we were ten minutes from the RV with Williamson’s men. I’d removed all our kit from the floatation device and commandeered other bits of stuff from the boat. Torches, some flares, first aid kit etc would all come in handy, I hoped.

By my calculations we would be meeting another boat some five hundred meters from the coastline. Too close to start blasting away with any old kit, so we had to have a plan that was pretty quiet. I reckoned on four, maybe five guys to do the job of collecting us. It wasn’t going to be easy.

I finished screwing the noise suppressor on the Mac10 and un-taped the spare magazines. Then I called Lauren over from making her hiding place on the deck.

The plan wasn’t complicated, it couldn’t be.

She would lie under the tarp with the Mac10 until the boat was alongside whilst I would pretend to be tied on a chair at the back of the boat in full view.

On the nod from me she would burst out, spray the offending boat and Bob was your auntie’s husband.

I handed her the weapon. “You need to practice loading and unloading the mags for the next few minutes.”

She nodded, “How many in each? Twenty-two?”

“Thirty, and they’ll last you about a second and a half on full auto, okay?”

Another nod.

I held the weapon against my hip and gripped the suppressor with my left hand. Then I swung my body in an arc with my feet planted. “This is how I’d use it. The more stable you are the better and you need to be close. This fuckin’ thing is about as accurate as a drunk pissing in the wind. Understand, babe?”

Lauren took the Mac10 and assessed it for weight and feel. Then she pushed in a magazine but removed it without sending the action forward and chambering a round. Then she removed the mag, reinserted it, dropped the action and applied the safety. With one last inspection she made sure the weapon was in fully auto mode and rested it on a nearby table.

“Feels okay to me.”

I was about to complain she hadn’t practiced enough when I saw the first signs of an approaching boat.

“Positions.”

Rick Fuller's Story:

The door of the cell was pushed open by one of the smoking guards. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the light. I studied the guard and he looked overweight to me; a pub bouncer type. His MP5 was held in his left hand, the mechanism cocked back. That meant no round in the chamber and a second or so grace. He didn’t inspire confidence. It was the only good thing I saw.

Behind him was the old Nazi doctor. He had surgical gloves on his hands, and a young equally Teutonic type pushed a tray of surgical instruments in behind him.

The accent was not a surprise, but I would have bet my left bollock that they were both Jewish and real good friends of Mr. Goldsmith.

“Now, Mr. Fuller, we need to complete some medical examinations. First is the rectal probe to ensure you have not secreted any objects in that passage. Then I need to examine your teeth. Many spies have tracking devices hidden in molars these days and they must be removed.”

I’d seen the film with Dustin Hoffman where the German guy tortures him with a dentist kit and this guy looked just like the fucker.

A second guard entered pushing a chair, and the bouncer type pointed his MP5 at my head.

“Do as the doc says, buddy.”

The bouncer had a definite New York twang. I could just see him twenty pounds heavier, riding his ‘hog’ around town with a cut off denim jacket and tight black T-shirt showing of his tattoos and fat belly.

The doc motioned towards the cot. “Lie on your side facing the wall please, and lift your knees toward your chest.”

I knew what was coming, I’d had several rectal exams both for medical checks and drug searches. They are mildly unpleasant and demeaning but I didn’t have any choice. Better to let the guy do his job than to struggle like fuck and end up with torn tissue and a bleeding arse for your trouble.

I complied and the guy was professional about it. More than I could say for the two guards who sniggered away in the background like a pair of schoolboys.

“Sit in the chair, please.”

I felt my jaws clench. I’d never liked the dentist and the thought of losing eight back teeth in this cell didn’t appeal in the slightest.

The doc was removing his gloves, washing his hands in some kind of solution and preparing another pair.

Then he selected a mirror and hook from the surgical tray. He obviously sensed my displeasure.

Before I could complain the two guards pinned me to the chair and the doc’s blond assistant was prising my mouth open. Any further defiance was pointless and I shouted “Okay, okay!” as best I could.

I was released and I complied as the doc scraped and tapped away at my back teeth for a few minutes.

To my surprise he straightened up and announced. “He’s clean, no cavities.”

As the two medical guys were cleaning up, I sat rubbing my jaw and saying a silent thank you to the British Army for regular dental checks.  

I figured it was a good time to ask for food and water. I hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours and if I had any chance of escape I needed energy.

“Any chance of some grub and some water? I feel very weak.”

Guard number two, who was less overweight and around my age, was opening a clear package containing a paper suit, the kind the cops use for prisoners when they’ve taken their clothes for forensic examination.

He was English and I detected a Mancunian accent.

“You’ll be eatin’ soon mate.”

He handed me the suit, together with some paper slippers, and before I could say anything else he was gone and I was in total darkness again.

I started to make final preparations. I made sure Jimmy was stable in his ‘captain’s’ chair, I couldn’t risk the fucker falling over at the wrong moment. Then I found the fridge, selected a two-litre plastic bottle of Coke, emptied it over the side and cut the nozzle off with my knife making a three-inch hole in the top. I propped the bottle up on the seat to my left making sure it didn’t blow away in the wind, then sat and tucked my Beretta in the back of my jeans, both hands behind my back as if tied. For good measure, there was a fully loaded M4 Carbine at my feet if the shit really hit the fan.

The night was clear as a bell and the outline of our enemy’s boat was unmistakable. It looked about the same size as our boat but less powerful. As it drew closer, I could make out three dark figures on board; one was sitting, legs dangling off the forward deck, obviously ready to board, the other two stood in the open-top cabin, one piloting.

Without warning our engines dropped to an idle and then kicked into reverse stopping The Irish Eyes directly on the spot the autopilot had plotted. We sat, the boat rocking gently in the Straits, the engines quietly idling in neutral. I prayed for some cloud cover to mask the sapphire moonlight but we weren’t in luck.

I spoke in a flat calm voice, as if chatting to the un-hearing Jimmy.

“Two hundred yards to your right now, babe, no lights. I can see three targets so far. One on deck two in cabin.” 

“Got that.”

I heard Lauren shuffle closer to the edge of the tarp and knock the safety off the Mac10. She sounded calm. I felt like a sitting duck.

I looked over at my Coke bottle to check it hadn’t shifted and gripped my Beretta with my right hand. I felt sweat trickle between my shoulders and head down my spine. The wind had dropped and I could just make out the raised voices on the approaching craft.

“One hundred, Lauren, still three targets, no, wait, four, one more now on deck with what looks like an M16. You need him first, got that?”

“Got that.”

It was a major gamble. How long did I wait before making the move? The Mac10 was no good over ten metres or so and Lauren had never fired one. If the guy on the deck started shouting to Jimmy twenty meters out I would have to use the M4 and that noise would alert whoever was on shore. Get any of it wrong and we were both as dead as Jimmy.

I lowered my voice.

“Fifty meters.”

Lauren didn’t reply.

The other craft killed its engines and the nose dipped into the water, sending spray into the air. They were twenty away. The guy with the dangling legs had stood and was holding a rope to secure the boats together.

M16 guy started to look uneasy.

“Ten meters.”

The pilot turned the boat hard to starboard and hit reverse.

“Go! Go! Go!”

Lauren was up in a second and I heard the Mac10 splutter its first full magazine before I even got into the kneel. The guys on the deck had been almost cut in two. Swathes of blood and intestines splattered the deck area and were already running down the side of the craft. I pushed my Beretta into the nozzle of the Coke bottle and started to fire double taps in the direction of the two guys in the cabin. The bottle made aiming difficult but was a surprisingly good noise suppressor. Lauren had the second mag loaded, and thirty more devastating rounds tore into the cabin and the men inside.

Then silence. I hadn’t even counted to ten.

I looked to my left and saw Lauren standing on the deck, the Mac10 smoking in her hand.

“Okay?”

She gave me a ‘thumbs up’ and then the sign for ‘look’. She pointed at the cabin area. From her vantage point, she could see more than I could.

I heard some movement and a groan and gave Lauren the sign to wait and cover me. There was no time for finesse. I jumped from our boat to theirs and swung my Beretta in an arc towards the pilot station.

One guy was propped against the bulkhead, He had a gun in his hand but he was in shit state and bleeding from his throat and guts. The plastic bottle did the trick again as I double-tapped him to the head.

You’d do it for a dog, wouldn’t you?

Rick Fuller's Story:

I lay on the cot beating myself up over falling asleep on the job. If one of my guys had ever done that I would have potted him there and then. Nevertheless I had done so and I couldn’t change that. Although my sense of time was somewhat off kilter I had guessed that Lauren and Des would be joining the party quite soon. As much as I didn’t want them captured, I figured that three heads would always be better than one. Especially if that one fell asleep every five minutes.

My ponderings were disturbed by the opening of my cell door and the sight I least wanted to see.

Stephan Goldsmith.

“Rick. You have no idea how surprised I am to see you again. You have led us a terrible dance as they say in England?”

I sat on the cot letting my eyes get used to the light again. Listening to the sound of his voice made my flesh crawl. Worse still, he looked okay. No doubt he’d had some attention to his wound and some pretty hefty painkillers. He leant against the cell wall. He wore casual trousers, jacket and an open neck shirt. They all looked Italian. His shoes let the whole thing down, though. Horrible beige slip-on square toe jobs. Spanish, probably from a market. Despite the crap shoes Stephan positively oozed confidence. He opened a pack of chewing gum and offered me one. I took it and asked.

“How did you find us?”

Stephan was his usual patronising self. That weird mix of accents that he and his sister possessed made for unusual nuances and sayings. He had the
shhh
of the Dutch, a definite African lilt; all mixed with Harvard All American boy.

“We never really lost your little crew, Rick, maybe for a while when you went off to Scotland to lick your wounds, but not for long. I have to hand it to you, I mean, the raid on Joel’s house was a peach. Only you would have had the crazy idea to try that one. I knew it was you in that hallway, just knew.”

He knelt down and rested on his haunches against the wall. He looked at me quizzically.

“Why didn’t you shoot me, Rick?”

I wanted to tear him limb from limb but stayed silent.

He shrugged as if my answer would have been unimportant.

“Then your little friend Lauren went and threw her hairbrush in a skip nearby, that ID’d her at the scene and we were totally convinced you were operational again.”