STANDPOINT a gripping thriller full of suspense (18 page)

“Tommo, it’s Karl. Are you free to talk?”

I am now, thanks to you, you bastard
. “Yeah, all packed and ready to go.”

“Great — everything’s gone haywire. Bring a decent sweater; they say it’s gonna be a cold night.”

Chapter 21

Karl had given precise instructions for the pick-up: on a corner, three streets away, in twenty minutes. His timing was exact, stopping just long enough for Thomas to get in the car and jam the bag behind him.

Karl seemed to be in a chipper mood. “We’re driving to Minsmere Bird Reserve, like proper wildlife photographers. And no shag jokes,” he grinned. “Now sit back, pick an album and enjoy the ride. Status Quo or Queen?”

Thomas slept for most of the journey. Karl wasn’t saying a lot and there were only so many times he could hear Karl singing about ‘Having a good time.’ He dreamt that he and Miranda were back in the flat, arguing. Then she’d slapped him and walked out. He followed her to the street, to find Karl, Christine, Bob Peterson and Sir Peter Carroll, all slow clapping as if they’d caught him out at something.

He shuddered awake and tried to clear his head. “Are we there yet?” he tried his best child-in-car voice.

Karl glanced sideways, didn’t reply.

Fair enough, he’d stick to questions. “Have you been here before, Karl?”

“Aye — once; it’s a good drop off point.”

Karl was true to his word; it had taken two and a half hours non-stop. The car slowed to a halt, facing a metal gate. Thomas waited; maybe this was the pick-up point and all the gear in the bag was just precautionary.

Karl got out and unlocked the gate, waving Thomas through so he could close it behind them. A more inquisitive person might have asked where Karl had got the key from, but Thomas was just about up to his limit with curiosity.

Karl reclaimed the driving seat; he sounded edgy. “Okay, here’s how it works. I lead and you follow. We wait for the drop, retrieve what we came for then hightail it out of here, lickety-split.”

“So if this is so easy-peasy why am I here as well?”

“Hold on there, Tommy Boy,” Karl manoeuvred the car up the dirt track. “Nobody mentioned the ‘e’ word. And it’s standard procedure to have two bodies for night-time retrievals.”

Thomas checked his watch and chewed his lip. “How long are we waiting for?”

A cloud drifted across the moon, edging silver as it crowded out their only natural light source. No music now and no conversation, as Thomas watched Karl staring through the windscreen, checking the wetland for who knew what.

“You’ll never get a submarine through that.”

Karl smiled, but didn’t respond. As he’d managed two cold pies, a large bag of crisps
and
taken a dump somewhere in the swamps, perhaps he was considering his next activity.

Thomas sat beside him, wearing the wetsuit. He felt like a mascot for safe sex. “I still don’t see . . .”

Karl raised a finger then tapped his watch. “Sshhh. Any time soon.”

Thomas released the car door on command and swung himself out. The water lapped gently, close by — water he would have to get into. Karl seemed very calm now, with a night-scope strapped to his head, like a malevolent cyborg.

The droning engine cut into the night with increasing fervour as it approached. Thomas moved to the water’s edge and waited for Karl’s signal. The red and green wing lights flickered through the clouds as the plane circled over and released its cargo. Soon a small, white parachute glistened silver as it spiralled down towards the water. Karl twitched like a cat, tracking the parachute’s descent in jerky movements. Out on the water there was a muted
splosh
as the package landed.

“Now,” Karl hissed.

Thomas slipped into the water, forcing through the mud and weeds that conspired to strangle every step. Soon he was in up to his thighs, half-wading half-floating in the cold gloom, gliding towards the quarry. He couldn’t hear Karl anymore; it was just him, the water and each laboured gasp as he closed on the box — the parachute and cords lifeless as a dead jellyfish.

As he laid a hand on one corner, he heard a popping sound and water kicked up about a foot in front of him. By the third shot, he was rooted to the spot in panic. He did the only thing he could think of, pulling himself underwater, letting the roar of pressure in his ears drown out the screams in his head. In the murky half-light of his torch, he saw the strands of cord and dragged the box towards him.

Bad idea; the impacts in the water increased. And they were getting closer. Ice chilled his veins. Christ, he was going to die. He thought about Miranda, thought about what a shit he’d been to her. Saw his father and mother sitting in the living room in Pickering, curtains drawn; imagined his father gazing into a glass: ‘I knew he’d come to no good when he went to London.’

He held on to a breath past the point of reason, heart pounding, eyes bulging, raging against the injustice of it all. Finally, as his senses started to fade, he thrust through the surface, fighting for breath.

“Get your fucking head down!” Karl bellowed.

As he plunged below again, he heard returning gunfire. At least Karl was looking out for him — a reassuring thought that only lasted while the pressure intensified in his chest. Until the heavy heat stretched out across his collarbone, numbing his arms, choking him. Despair quickly filled his lungs as the oxygen ran out; the abject no-win terror of being shot above the water or drowning beneath it. “Argh!” he surfaced again, flailing his arms to get balance. Only now did he realise that he’d become disorientated and was a good ten feet from the package. It bobbed further away with every second, taunting him to choose between safety and failure. With a great gulp of air, he made his choice, propelling himself towards it, closing his mind to the chaos around him as he hit the water like an ironing board. He clawed blindly at the box, swearing at the strain of keeping hold.

Then he felt it, the smouldering poker against his arm; a fire even the water could not cool. White-hot light blinded him, skewering his brain awake. This was pain he’d never known before. But, then, he’d never been shot before.

His legs buckled and the mud slammed into him. He grabbed the package with his good arm as he went down, kicking wildly to make for the reed bank. Birds scattered in the commotion, but he stayed put, keeping low, clasping the package between his knees. He forced himself to breathe through his nose, gritting his teeth to try and block out the pain. He felt like his arm was hanging off — he didn’t want to look, didn’t want to know.

He could hear Karl, blazing away with one, no two weapons. Round after round; he lost count of the relentless rhythm — the sound seemed to fade in and out of his head. Then he heard the sound of glass shattering and the shooting stopped.

The water seemed to swirl around him. He felt his pulse go into overdrive; his hands were shaking. He wished that he were armed, so he could track those fuckers down and stick a bullet in them. But he was trapped. He couldn’t let Karl know he was okay without giving away his own position; couldn’t leave the cold, cloying water for fear of being shot again. As Karl might have said: he was properly fucked.

A hollow
thom
broke the silence then the sky high above the water lit up like magnesium. Karl’s flare arced down and faded on the far side of the water.

“It’s clear!” Karl called out plaintively. “Are you there?”

He turned in Karl’s direction, but all he saw were blotches of light. Lesson four in how to be a spy: never look directly at the flare. He waited a few seconds, still terrified of the enemy in the dark.

“Come on, Tommo; we don’t have time for this — do you have it?”

He dragged his limbs from the mud’s grasp, suppressing a scream as his injured arm brushed against the reeds. Just before he clambered out, he dipped his hand into the water and washed the tears from his face.

Karl stashed the package behind the driver’s seat then handed him a bath towel. “Right then, let’s get a look at you.”

He needed help to ease his arm out of the wet suit. Even the night air hurt. He stood flinching, eyes closed as Karl carefully touched around the wound. Karl murmured to himself and reached back into his car.

“This will hurt.”

Thomas coughed back laughter. “No need to treat me with kid gloves.”

Karl shrugged and poured out something that smelt like meths. Thomas braced himself, fist drawn tight to stifle any reaction. When the cloth touched his arm he thought it had caught fire. “Fuck!” he shrieked, both at the pain and the way the tears ran from his eyes.

“Hey Tommo, no points for bravery here — you did the courageous bit earlier.” Karl finished dressing the wound and handed him a small bottle. “Take one of these every couple of hours while the pain is bad. Only one, mind; these are not your usual headache tablets!”

They stood grinning together, like boys who’d just completed a dare. “Are you sure you still want to play this game? Come on then, let’s go finish the job.” Karl opened the passenger door and helped him in, still dripping water and slime.

Thomas nodded, unable to speak, blowing huffing breaths as he edged into the car seat. His arm felt like someone had crushed it in a vice; Karl assured him it would feel worse the next day. Some comfort.

“Shouldn’t we have checked their car?”

“No point, Tommo. Odds on, it’s stolen. Three cheers for Robert and Lizzie, eh?”

Thomas squeezed his eyelids. Maybe delirium was setting in; Karl was making no sense whatsoever.

“In the glove compartment.”

Thomas reached forward with difficulty. Inside were two handguns.

“Robert and Lizzie — the Brownings!” Karl milked his ‘ta-da’ moment.

Thomas laughed breathlessly and slumped back. Even with the heat on full, his legs were getting numb from the damp. He tried pushing the waders down his legs, but his left arm shrieked in protest.

“Take it easy. I’ll keep the heat full blast and get us there quick as I can. But I’ll not break any speed limits. Imagine trying to explain two guns in the glove box and a wet man beside me trying to get his trousers off.”

Thomas smiled and rolled his head away. He felt like he was sinking into the chair. Delayed shock, come down; call it what you will, he needed to sleep.

“You get some shut-eye; we’ve a way to go yet.”

He closed his eyes. It seemed as if Karl was talking and then the radio struck up with ‘You’ve got a friend.’ Then blackness.

* * *

Thomas felt the car rocking from side to side. Scratch that; it was Karl, applying the gentle art of persuasion.

“Time to wake up.”

He opened his eyes; it looked like they were in a concrete wonderland and Karl was the tour guide.

“We’re in an underground car park — I won’t be long. I’ll stick your bag on the backseat. You did bring a change of clothes like I told you?” Good ol’ Karl — he thought of everything.

Thomas blinked in the muted neon glow; his eyes ached. First things first, he reached for Uncle Karl’s all-purpose painkillers. Then he wriggled his way out of the car and squelched a few steps. His nervous cough echoed into the distance; he seemed to be alone. He did a quick scan around for CCTV then dried himself off with the bath towel one-handed and got changed with as few sudden movements as possible. There was no mobile signal and the time on the clock meant they were probably in London.

He gathered his wits and headed into the shadows for a piss. Nothing seemed real, the world rendered pleasantly numb. As he stumbled back to the car, he saw holes in the driver’s door; they looked like bullet holes. He yawned, managed to clamber into the back seat and lay there in the shadows.

Memory and pain collided in his brain. At the lake, in the worst of his panic, he’d feared that Karl was actually firing at
him
. He giggled in the dark, overwhelmed by everything but unable to stop thinking. He mustn’t forget that Karl had probably saved his life tonight. He sniffed back the emotion. Of course, Karl had put him in danger in the first place, but no one was perfect.

Next thing he knew, something squeaked — maybe a door — and somewhere in the gloom, someone started whistling ‘I Shot the Sheriff.’ As Thomas sat up, Karl waved, like he was just back from the shops. He held up a couple of packets and passed them through the open passenger door.

“Jesus, this car smells like a marsh! Our leader’s very pleased with our performance tonight — he sent us these with his compliments.”

“Hush money?” Thomas took the oblong envelopes and weighed them with his good arm.

“Danger money, more like! So how’s the walking wounded?”

Thomas grimaced and waved a hand tentatively. He had so many unanswered questions he could scarcely count them. “So what did we risk life and limb for, exactly?”

Karl put a lot of irritation into one sigh. “I didn’t ask; I don’t need to know. Now be a good boy and open my envelope.”

Thomas clamped the envelope between his knees and tore at the paper. He ran a thumb through a run of £50s and £20s. “I make it at least a couple of grand, maybe three.”

“Which means, Tommo, that whatever we fished out of the wet was worth more than five grand to Sir Peter Carroll.”

“And the sniper?” Thomas lifted his arm a couple of inches.

“He was probably just a hired hand, warning us off till somebody else turned up.”

“
He
?” Thomas tilted as far as the seatbelt would allow.