Safe House (33 page)

‘But it’s short.’ She rolled out her bottom lip. ‘Anderson’s bat makes his reach much longer.’

‘So I’ll surprise him. I’ll stand behind the door and I’ll hit him when he comes in.’

‘Nuh-uh.
I’ll
hit him.’

I went to argue, but Rebecca got to her feet and stepped beyond my reach. She held the wrench in her right hand, experimenting with a few practice swings.

She said, ‘We get one shot at this. And we have to get it right. We have to disable him in one move. You’re not up to it. You can’t even stand.’

‘I’ll make myself.’

‘And your reach is all wrong. If you hide behind the door, you need to swing from your left side. But you can’t with your arm in a sling. I don’t think you could even hold this wrench, let alone hit him with it.’

‘So I’ll hold it in my right hand. I’ll step out and I’ll catch him unawares. The surprise gives me time.’

‘Not enough.’ She shook her head. ‘And I’ve had training in this sort of situation. Chances are you’ll want to hit him hard enough to stun him, but not so hard that you do real damage. I’m different. We can’t afford to go easy on him, and I won’t. Besides, I want payback.’

I considered her face, the blood and the bruising and the swelling. I ran through everything she’d just said. I would have liked to argue with her some more, but I already knew she was right. Anderson could come through the door at any moment, and I was still on my knees.

‘What about Lukas? He has the gun.’

‘He didn’t look like he wanted to use it.’

‘If it comes down to us against him, I think he will.’

‘Then as soon as I’ve hit Anderson, I’ll shut the door. We’ll have a hostage. He’ll have to back down.’

‘You think?’

‘Trust me. I know what I’m doing.’

*

Lukas wasn’t making any progress. The password variations he’d tried had all resulted in the same failure. If he’d had more time, he might have downloaded a decoder engine from the web. But he doubted a simple programme would be good enough, so what was the point?

Anderson was standing next to the door into the garage, pressing his ear against the wood. He was holding the baseball bat crossways in front of him, his knuckles bunched around the shaft, twisting it between his hands like he was wringing water from a towel. The lacquered timber creaked against his palms.

‘Time’s nearly up,’ Anderson said, stepping away from the door. ‘You getting anywhere?’

‘I need the code.’

‘Then the guy’s going to have to give it to us.’

Anderson tossed the baseball bat in the air, twirling it around a half-turn and catching it one-handed, then repeating the process. He was no majorette. The wood slapped loudly against his palm. But at least it was a world away from the noise of the bat striking the woman’s face.

‘Listen up,’ he said. He caught the bat and extended it towards Lukas, squinting along its length like a swordsman sizing up an opponent. ‘Our problem is, they’re expecting me. I couldn’t hear much of what they were saying, but it sounds like one of them is going to attack me from behind the door.’ He lowered the bat and jerked his thumb at his chest. ‘That’s what I’d do if I was them.’

Lukas nodded. As if the suggestion made sense. As if that was what he’d do, too. But in his heart he knew it was a lie. Lukas wasn’t the type to fight back. If he was in their shoes, he’d have given the code up by now.

‘There are ways to counter the move. Best way is to come in via another route. That’s not an option here. So we’re going to go with the next best alternative. I’m going to unlock the door and then I’m going to kick it hard. If one of them is behind it, they’ll be hurt. It could be I can keep them pressed there. If I can’t, they’ll be stunned and I can follow up with the bat.’ He cocked his wrists and twisted at the waist, practising his swing. ‘But basically, it’s the same procedure as before. I want you to cover me with the gun again.’

Anderson gathered the pistol from the kitchen table. He lifted it by the barrel, holding the butt out to Lukas, the bat in his other hand. ‘You’re confident with how this works, right? If they come at me this time, we don’t want any mistakes. You looked a little shaky before.’

He wasn’t confident. Not really. ‘Pieter showed me.’

‘Good. I want you to stand behind me, like last time. But leave a little more room so’s I can swing the bat. If they try anything, if they come at me at all, I want you to fire into the ceiling. One round. That should be enough to stop them. After that, use your judgement.’

Your judgement
. Lukas didn’t like the idea. He didn’t want the gun in the first place. Most especially, he didn’t want to find himself shooting if there was a chance he might hit Anderson.

‘Why don’t you take the gun?’ he asked.

‘Because the bat is better. I don’t want them dead. Not yet. Not until they give us the code. And it’s not like they have a weapon. You checked them, remember?’

Anderson narrowed his eyes. Prodded the pistol towards him. Lukas felt himself reach out and close wet fingers around the stippled grip.

‘We clear?’ Anderson asked.

He placed his hands on Lukas and shifted him into position once more. He had him turn sideways on, left foot in front of the right, arms in the air parallel with his chin. Exactly like Pieter had taught him.

‘Relax,’ Anderson said, flicking the safety off. ‘You’re insurance, that’s all. This is gonna be easy. And once we have the code, we’re golden. Mr Zeeger will be one very happy man.’

Anderson patted Lukas on the cheek, then turned and faced the door. He circled his head on his shoulders. Cleared his throat. Then he hoisted the bat in the air and reached for the key in the lock.

Chapter Forty-eight

On her way across the room, I watched Rebecca revise her plan. First, she moved to her right, ready to flatten herself against the wall on the hinge side of the door. Then she paused and pressed the tip of the wrench against her chin, and wavered for a moment considering the set-up. She turned and contemplated the wooden shelving units. The units were constructed from white laminate and they were square and empty. They ran along the entire length of the wall from the garage door to the kitchen doorway, next to where the light cord was hanging. They extended to within about a foot of the ceiling.

Rebecca stepped forwards and began scaling the shelving unit, close to the door. The shelves formed a makeshift stepladder and she climbed until her feet were on the second shelf from the top. She ducked her head and tried to hitch her left leg up and fit herself into the space beneath the ceiling. She couldn’t do it. The unit was too narrow and the space was too cramped. She backed up and climbed down a little, so that her left foot was on the second highest shelf and her right foot was on the third highest. She braced her left arm on top of the unit and reached out with the wrench in her right hand. She was perfectly positioned to swing down and strike someone on the head.

Two problems with that. One, her position was precarious, and I wasn’t sure how long she could hold the pose. And two, anyone coming through the door had a good chance of seeing her before she could hit them. It was a major downside, which is why I’d suggested hiding behind the door in the first place. But I could understand her concern. If Anderson was alert to the danger, he could kick the door open and crush her behind it. And anyway, Rebecca wasn’t finished just yet. She reached out and carefully plucked the light cord downwards, so that the garage fell into full darkness with just the barest
click
.

At first, the blackness was absolute. All I could see was the red light on the front of the boiler and the band of daylight beneath the garage door. Then I began to make out shapes and angles. The rough outline of the shelves materialised from the gloom. Rebecca’s leather jacket was a more lustrous black than the rest of the room, and it was visible as a deeper, liquid shade. And I could see her pale face, pressed against the side of the unit, and the grey patches of her hands. But the wrench was impossible to pick out.

I knew that when Anderson opened the door, there’d be some light spill from the kitchen. But I also knew from experience that the kitchen was far from bright and airy, and besides, the real purpose of the exercise was surprise. He wouldn’t be expecting darkness. He wouldn’t expect Rebecca to be halfway up the wall. I thought it was just about the best chance we had, short of me recovering in time to contribute something.

I couldn’t see that happening. The darkness and the silence did very little to distract me from the suffering I was going through. I would have liked to duck behind the door and double up our attack, but Rebecca was right, it was beyond me.

But I still wanted to stand.

It seemed to me I had a couple of options. I could take it slow and easy, or fast and hard. Slow and easy was no guarantee of success. And it wouldn’t get me out of the firing line in a hurry if Lukas or Anderson decided to use the gun. Fast and hard was the right way to go.

I went for it on an out-breath. It wouldn’t have been my normal approach. In a scenario where I could make as much noise as I liked, I’d have sucked in a deep lungful of air, gritted my teeth, and then yowled and cursed my way upright. Moving on an out-breath meant I wouldn’t have so much oxygen to complain with.

Or so I hoped.

I complained in my head, believe me. I swore and I screamed and I yelled. But the only sound I made was a strained grunt. I pushed up in one fluid movement. Fast and hard. Painful as hell. I was up before the full force of the pain hit me. And then I staggered backwards and curled up and straightened instantly, and bit my tongue and stamped my foot and tried my hardest to keep things in focus.

If the room hadn’t already been dark, I have a feeling it would have turned a lot blacker. I’m pretty sure I was close to passing out. But I stayed on my feet and I fixed my jaw and endured the discomfort until I realised it couldn’t get any worse.

I was up. I was breathing.

All we needed now was for Anderson to make his move.

He made it right away.

I was still adjusting my feet beneath me and catching my breath when the key turned in the lock and the door handle squeaked and there was a sudden hard slam. Before I knew it the door had bounced off the wall and was starting to sway back and Anderson had surged into the room.

He did a few things wrong. First, he was anticipating that there’d be someone behind the door, so he instinctively turned his body to his left, ready to confront the threat. But the threat wasn’t in front of him, it was behind him. He had to raise his arm to protect himself from the door blasting back into his face, and that cost him time and momentum. He couldn’t lash out with his baseball bat while he was blocking the door. And he hadn’t anticipated the darkness. His chin jutted forwards as he peered into the gloom.

The forward motion of his chin coincided with Rebecca’s arm completing the fast arc it had been swinging through. The moment the door had opened, I’d seen in the ambient light from the kitchen how her arm had pivoted back behind her shoulder, how the mass of the wrench had extended her wrist, how her wrist had then absorbed the force and whipped back against it, how the sudden thrust had reversed the direction of her arm, how the wrench had swung forward like a pendulum, how her face had tightened, teeth bared, with the exertion of the move.

Then I saw the wrench make contact with the right-hand side of Anderson’s lower jaw. A wild blow. A shattering impact. His jaw bone seemed to compress and explode all in the same moment. His head snapped back like he’d run into an invisible wall. He made a choked, gargled noise, and there was a loud
crack
from the shattered bone.

Momentum carried the wrench on. It completed its fast arc in a mist of blood and saliva, the velocity and the savageness almost pulling Rebecca clean off the shelving unit. Then the swing reached its peak and the pendulum effect kicked in and I saw her wrist flex and pivot and reverse, and the wrench came flying back in a brutal backhand stroke.

The wrench struck Anderson’s skull somewhere behind his right ear. The sound was sickening. A soggy
crunch
. But what sickened me more was the way the wrench stopped moving. It stopped instantly. Cutting Rebecca’s mighty effort dead at the point of impact.

I know basic physics. I remember it from school. Force doesn’t just disappear. It can’t simply vanish. But it can be transferred. So all the force that had been in Rebecca’s arm, concentrated on the wrench, was now in Anderson’s head. It was thrashing around inside his skull. Bouncing off plate bone and brain matter and nerve endings. Radiating out like the percussive waves from a bomb blast.

I know about head injuries, too. Recent experience had taught me about those. I know about blunt trauma. Swelling of the brain. Secondary bruising. Unconsciousness. Coma. Death. I know the dangers. I’ve lived them myself. Now I was seeing them in action.

Anderson dropped. He went down heavily, straight to his knees. The baseball bat fell from his hands and bounced once on the concrete and toppled over and rolled harmlessly away. His arms hung limply by his sides. He knelt there for a moment, like a puppet on hidden strings, and then the weight of his head pitched him forwards and his upper body folded and he fell smack on his shattered jaw with a disturbing
crunch-crack
.

Rebecca’s balance was gone. She was half falling, half jumping from the shelves. She was looking at Anderson, surveying the damage she’d caused, maybe asking herself if she’d killed the guy. She was getting ready to nail her landing and crouch down beside him and see what could be done.

Then there was a blinding flash of light and a deafening
boom
and a hail of dust and debris rained down from the ceiling. I ducked and covered my head with my free arm as chunks of plaster and ceiling board fell around us. I raised my eyes and squinted out through fresh pain and powdery devastation and saw Lukas standing beside the kitchen table, smoke curling around his face from the pistol at the end of his arms.