Honour Bound (5 page)

-6-

The
telephone rang as Norton rinsed the shaving foam from his face. He quickly
dried the cooling water and wrapped the towel around his waist before padding
into the lounge of his apartment.

“Norton,”
he said, no other form of greeting needed on this line. Only a handful of
people knew the number, and they only used it for urgent business. He glanced at
the digital device attached to the phone, its green light indicating the call
was being recorded.

Willie
Rivers sounded hurried and nervous on the crystal clear line. “Mister Norton,
Mister Norton I’ve got a name on
the
er
,
the thing you asked me about. We
gotta
meet.”

“Okay
Willie,” Norton said, “
make
it the usual place, one
hour from now.”

Rivers
broke the connection without replying.

Norton
dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans and his favourite pair of steel toe-capped
shoes. The Sig went into a leather shoulder holster that he covered with a
leather jacket as he left the apartment.

An
hour later, he was waiting at the bus stop in Bethnal Green Road, having parked
his car in a side street a few minutes walk away. Willie looked nervous
yesterday, Norton thought, and he hadn’t sounded much better on the phone this
morning. Now he’s late for the meeting and that is very unlike him. Although
they had an arrangement of ten minutes to, to five minutes past the agreed
hour, Willie normally arrived early and loitered around the shops until he
could see Norton. Only then would he saunter across the road to impart his
information in return for the envelope Norton would drop in the rubbish bin. It
was now four minutes past the allotted time and he was beginning to wonder what
had happened. He waited the full five minutes and decided to go back to his
car.

As
he turned to leave, he spotted Rivers walking briskly along the opposite side
of Bethnal Green Road. An approach from anywhere other than Brick Lane was
their agreed danger signal. He must have known something yesterday, Norton
thought, he’s had it confirmed this morning and whatever it is has spooked him.

Norton
let his gaze wander along the road behind Willie’s scruffy figure. The
pavements thronged with people going about their business. Here and there, a
figure would stop and look into a shop window, forcing the crowds to swirl past
as they interrupted the flow of the human river. People in animated
conversation with friends and colleagues swept past the bus stop, enjoying the
period before the start of the working day. No one appeared to be paying any
attention to Rivers. He ran his eyes over the traffic. Both lanes had crawling
queues of nose to tail vehicles with cocooned drivers cursing yet again at the
stop start motion of rush hour driving. Long, slow moving lines of cars skirted
around parked vehicles in the ritual procession to their place of work.

As
Willie walked passed the bus stop, still on the opposite side of the road, a
double-decker bus pulled up and disgorged a crowd of passengers. They milled
around Norton like a swarm of bees, allowing him to mingle with them and follow
Rivers at a safe distance. Occasionally he would stop, feigning interest in a
window display while looking back the way he had come. He knew from experience
that if someone was following, and if that someone was professional, then in
these crowds they would be very difficult, if not impossible to spot.

Willie
turned left off the main road and disappeared into a small side street. A disused
railway bridge hung over the junction, it was so wide it gave the street the
appearance of a tunnel, the shadow it cast gave the impression of looking from
the main road into an inky black chasm. Norton knew from previous visits that
the side street was closed to
vehicles,
their
vibrations caused lumps of crumbling masonry to fall from the dilapidated
bridge and on to the road. A bollard set in concrete in the centre of the road
held a sign alerting motorists new to the area of the danger, and to alternative
routes. Rivers would be using the street as an escape route.

A
silver Fiat peeled away from the main flow of traffic and turned into the
shadowy blackness. Driving with two wheels on the pavement, it skirted the
bollard and disappeared from view.

“Shit!”
Norton swore, attracting critical glances from his fellow pedestrians, and ran
towards the bridge. He had to force his way across the road, the drivers
unwilling to give way to a pedestrian lest someone squeeze into the queue in
front of them. His actions caused a car and a large van to brake hard to avoid
hitting him. The sound of angry horns followed him to the bridge.

Once
into the gloom he drew the Sig and stayed in the shadows close to the wall. As
his eyes adjusted to the reduced light, he easily made out the Fiat, parked in
the middle of the road about thirty yards from the junction, its shape a
definite outline in the lighter rectangle that indicated the far end of the
bridge. Norton moved slowly towards the stationary vehicle, senses alert,
searching for any sound or movement. He kept moving closer, making no sound. A
deeper shadow formed between the car and the wall as his eyes compensated fully
for the darkness. He knelt, carefully, so as not to let his jacket rub against
the wall and give away his presence. He heard a sound, dead ahead a slight
rustle of cloth on cloth. He rose slowly, quietly, forward again, four more
paces, stopping again as the shadow broke into three, one part remaining on the
ground, the other two moving away towards the Fiat. Norton waited until the two
figures were silhouetted against the light at the bridge end.

“Stand
still,” he shouted, the Sig centred between the two outlines. He heard sharp
intake of breath followed by the rustle of clothing. The click of a safety
catch was clear above the muted sound of the traffic. Norton squeezed the
trigger four times, two controlled pairs. The first pair of heavy calibre
bullets knocked the right hand figure from view. The left hand figure
disappeared moments later as the second pair struck home. The four explosions
rolled into one deafening roar before dissipating like a wave after smashing on
to a beach.

He
walked cautiously towards the prone figures, his arms outstretched, elbows locked,
the Sig forming the apex of a triangle. Keeping the Sig aimed at the first
inert form, he gave the body a kick in the groin. No reaction. After checking
the second body in the same manner, he replaced the Sig in its holster and
knelt by the third body. As he expected, Rivers was dead. A neat round hole in
the centre of his forehead and the spreading pool of viscous liquid told its
own story. He went through Willie’s pockets and extracted a packet of
cigarettes. After a brief examination in the available light, he put them in
his jacket pocket.

The
distant wail of a siren was getting steadily louder as the speeding vehicle
approached.  Two minutes later, as the first police car stopped at the
junction, he had finished a cursory check of the two bodies. Neither one had
any means of identification, no phones, no wallets, no credit cards or clothing
labels. Both had been carrying Browning automatics, one of them fitted with a
very new suppressor.

Norton
could see the police firearms team taking cover behind their lightly armoured
response vehicle at the junction, Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns aimed
towards him. A bright spotlight mounted on the police vehicle penetrated the
gloom, easily picking him out. He raised his hands and walked towards the flashing
blue lights.

-7-

Rupert
Shaw’s office above his Regent Street shop had become very quiet. Even the
continual noise from the traffic in the street below seemed more hushed than
usual. Two men sat in the dusky room, separated by a polished expanse of desk,
like chess players locked in silent battle. Mid morning sunlight slanted
through the blinds, half drawn against the glare. Golden rays reflecting from
shiny surfaces danced lightly on the coloured walls. Tiny motes of dust, like
miniature paratroopers, drifted through the warming rays as though searching
for an undisturbed resting place. Above the door, the second hand of a clock
swept interminably round the face, unaware of the tension in the room.

“Seven
tons,” Shaw repeated, believing he must have misheard the figure.

“That’s
correct,” Langdon said, “seven tons.”

Langdon
watched the smoke from his cigarette drift lazily through the still air,
dragged slowly towards the extractor in the ceiling. It appeared to him that
Shaw was about to lapse into a further silence, so he queried, “Do you have a
problem with that Rupert? I hope you’re not going to go back on our agreement
and tell me now, at this stage in the game, that you can’t handle it.”

Shaw’s
damp hands fluttered like captive birds before he clasped them together and
leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “I, well, to be honest I was
only expecting one, maybe two tons at the most,” he looked visibly shaken. “I
just don’t have anywhere large enough to store that amount.” He took a handkerchief
from his suit pocket and began patting the beads of perspiration amassing on
his forehead. “I just wasn’t expecting that much.”

Langdon
laughed inwardly as he watched the different expressions come and go on the
little man’s face. Just like Nigel Winters, this was probably his biggest
single deal, and now he believed he was on the edge of losing it. In any other
situation, he would get up to leave, forcing Shaw to make concessions to keep
the business, but it was too late for that, he did not like to admit that he
needed this man, this little man with the right connections. I’d better put him
out of his misery, he
thought,
keep him sweet for just
as long as necessary.

“Rupert,”
he said, as if talking to a child, “have I asked you to store if for me? Have I
actually said, Rupert can you store seven tons of merchandise in your shops?”

“Well
no. I just assumed that...”

“Don’t
assume,” Langdon interrupted. “I don’t need you to store it. I have the perfect
storage facility where it won’t be found. It would be rather pointless leaving
something as important as this to luck, hoping on the off chance that you had
somewhere to keep it. I’d may as well stick it in my garage and hope for the
best.” He paused before adding, “Rupert, I don’t need you to store it, I need
you to dispose of it.
Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Oh,
I’m sorry,” Shaw
muttered,
relief evident in his
voice, “it won’t be a problem to dispose of it.” He was back on firm ground
now. He tapped several keys on a computer on the desk and
said,”Do
you know the value of such a load?”

“Of
course I do. On the white market, as opposed to the black one you’ll be using,
it would be slightly less than four hundred and sixty five million pounds. I
also know your fee and how much you should be able to sell it for.”

He
saw the look of concern flash across Shaw’s face. “For God’s sake Rupert, that
was not a threat. Your participation is a major factor in the operation. I know
how much you can sell it for, but not who you can sell it to.”

Langdon
reached into his pocket and took out a silver cigarette case, extracted a
cigarette and without offering one to Shaw, lit it from the one he was holding
before stubbing the butt in the ashtray. He drew hard on the cigarette,
inhaling the smoke deeply. “Everyone involved in this venture stands to make a
lot of money,” he said after exhaling a stream of smoke that curled around the
streamers of sunlight squeezing through the blinds, “your personal cut will be
in the region of thirty million pounds.”

Shaw
quickly tapped several more figures into the computer before nodding agreement.

“I’m
paying everyone well,” Langdon continued, “so they won’t be tempted to cut
corners and try to take what they haven’t earned. I can’t abide dishonesty.”

“Yes
I can understand that.” Shaw said, businesslike now after his earlier concerns,
“I run a similar system in my shops.” He leaned forward in his seat, hands
together as if in prayer. “When can my customers expect their first delivery?”

“You
can start disposing of it from January. I think six months should be sufficient
time for things to cool down. If you can get rid of a couple of tons a month,
that will be fine. We don’t need to jump the gun and flood the market. We have
as much time as we want to make a very handsome profit. There is nothing to be
gained by rushing, and everything to lose.”

Shaw
rubbed his hands together like a child in anticipation. “Splendid,” he said,
“I’ll be able to dispose of it as you’ve suggested. By the middle of the year
we will all be very rich indeed.”

Langdon
smiled at the little man. Some of us will, he thought, others will be very
dead. Aloud he said, “The next time I contact you, the consignment will be in
storage and you’ll be able to take some samples to show your clients. You won’t
hear anything from me until then, but don’t worry, because everything is going
smoothly and on schedule.”

“I’ll
start making arrangements immediately,” Shaw said as the two men stood and
shook hands.

Langdon
unconsciously wiped his hand on his trouser leg and said, “I’m sure it will be
a pleasure doing business with you, and I look forward to the day when I am
able to pay you off.”

Both
men smiled, both for different reasons. Langdon, with the smile still on his
face, descended the stairs to the waiting car.