Undercover (25 page)

"This whole move's been cursed from the start. Ambrose lost the run of things. Stupid bastard. And look where it got him. Hope the bastard is dead, and that's no lie. We were doing fine running Belfast. There was no need to get involved with these Brit pricks at all."

"The boss got greedy, eh? Is that aul' Ambrose over there? You must be seriously short-handed if he's in the thick of it, risking life and limb on a motorcycle."

"We were meant to have back-up. Pricks never showed up."

"Why not?"

Mick laughed; a pathetic breathless wheeze. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Cormac held out his hand. "Come on, get up. We can't stay here all night."

Mick looked Cormac up and down. "Where you planning on taking me?"

"The nearest cop-shop."

"I need to go to hospital. Some English wanker shot me. Same bastard probably done our Pete."

Cormac had missed it at first because of the poor light and the dark leather gear Mick was wearing, but there it was, a gunshot wound in his left flank. And yet he'd still gone after Cormac. Psycho or not, Mick was one tough prick.

Cormac waggled his helping hand. "Come on, get up."

Mick swallowed his pride and reached out. They gripped each other's forearms and Cormac hauled the beaten man upright. Mick took a few steps back and started to unzip his leather jacket.

Cormac raised his Glock. "Hold up there, Mick. What are you up to?"

"Just want to check this wound. Relax."

"I'll relax when you're behind bars." But he lowered the gun.

Rattlesnake-swift, Mick pulled a large hunting knife from inside his jacket and lunged at Cormac. His lips were peeled back in half-crazed savagery. Cormac swivelled on his right heel a quarter-turn. The blade cut through the air he'd occupied seconds before. Cormac snatched Mick's wrist with his left hand. Clamped an iron grip on it to keep the knife at bay. He pushed the muzzle of his Glock into Mick's ear.

"Seriously, mate. Give it up."

Mick reached into his jacket with his free hand.

Used up his last chance.

"You're a fucking idiot, Mick Scullion."

Cormac pulled the trigger.

###

L
ydia felt the helicopter's descent in her stomach before Stephen Black called out from the cockpit.

"We're about to touch down, ladies and gentlemen."

"Have you radioed ahead to the hospital?" Donna asked.

"Our good friend, Captain Giles, has taken care of that."

Donna turned to Lydia and smiled. "Looks like he's going to make it."

Lydia allowed herself a sigh. She looked at John and the icy claw around her heart eased up its grip a little. They were nearly there.

Electric light from the rooftop helipad seeped into the helicopter and tinted everything a pale blue. Lydia couldn't see much from the middle passenger seat except the edges of the hospital roof. The helicopter rocked and swayed like a boat in choppy water before it finally thumped down on its skids. The engine whined to a halt and the whoosh of rotor blades chopping through the air faded. Lydia closed her eyes and drew long, calming breaths into her lungs in preparation for the medical mayhem that would undoubtedly greet them on disembarking the helicopter.

"Let's get a move on, then," Stephen Black said.

He stood in front of her, a grin like a wedge of Edam on his tanned face. He rubbed his hands together with enthusiasm. Lydia unbuckled her safety belt and stood up. She shook some life back into her legs and reached out for Mattie's good hand. Her son made no teenage protests. He interlaced his fingers with Lydia's and treated her to one of his lopsided smiles. His eyes were round with nervous excitement and he looked about three years younger.

Stephen Black slid open the helicopter door. He stepped out onto the roof where the pilot was already waiting. Lydia and Mattie held back while Donna and Rory eased John out of his seat. They guided him to the exit and Stephen Black and the pilot helped him down the steps. Two paramedics in luminous coats wheeled a gurney towards John, careful to stay well clear of the rear rotor even though it had come to a stop. A doctor stood near the doorway leading into the hospital building. He pulled his white coat tight over his flimsy scrubs and thin frame. His expression was less than delighted.

Lydia followed her husband closely, her grip on Mattie's hand tightening. He squeezed back with surprising strength. John was guided onto the gurney with great care and the paramedics snapped the side barriers into place. Donna went to the doctor and after a quick introduction began to fill him in on all the essential information. The doctor's expression was hassled but he listened closely as he checked John's pulse and had a peek under his dressing.

At the doorway leading down into the hospital building, the paramedics wheeled the gurney into a large lift, barely jostling the patient. There was only one button on the control panel; an express trip to casualty. The doors whooshed open after a long drop. Fluorescent lighting glared. Lydia felt woozy. She experienced a lightness of mind that tinged her senses with a dreamlike quality. Her surroundings became vague, disconnected; her only tether to reality, Mattie's hand. She would be okay as long as her big brave son kept her grounded.

The doctor spoke to her over his shoulder as the hurried down a grim corridor: "There are some policemen here that want to speak to you."

"How did they find us?"

The doctor's brow wrinkled. "It's the hospital policy for all gunshot wounds."

"Can it wait? I don't want to leave him until I know he's okay."

"He
is
okay. There's a possibility of infection and his blood pressure is low but he'll get that all taken care of here. The wound looks surprisingly good considering the reported stress our man's been put under."

Donna nodded along with the doctor's words. "He's right, Mrs Gallagher. Go talk to the police. It'll pass the time while your husband gets checked over. And they can start looking for the people who did this to your family. Surely that'll put your mind at ease?"

They turned a corner and one of the paramedics punched a button on the wall to open the automatic doors ahead of them. The doctor stopped at a nurse's station and muttered some instructions to a young and fragile-looking girl dressed in a navy-blue tunic. She tugged at her earlobe and nodded along to each order.

"Jenny here will take you to the police. We'll get the patient set up in a bay on this ward. Just return to this station when you're ready." He looked pointedly at Stephen Black and Rory. "Gentlemen, there's a seating area at the bottom of the ward."

Stephen Black looked to Lydia with his eyebrows raised. She nodded to him.

"I'll be fine. Mattie can look after me now."

Before they parted ways a commotion broke out at the doors of the ward. Thuds, shouts and a metallic crash. Lydia felt panic like a nail-bomb in each lung. They were here for her and her boys. Somehow the bastards had found her. She dragged Mattie in behind the nurse's station. Rory and Stephen Black followed her.

"Shit, what about John?" Lydia said.

"The doctor's wheeled him into a bay," Rory said. "He's behind a curtain."

Lydia grabbed Stephen Black's forearm. She felt the little dagger he hid there through the cheap material of his tracksuit jacket.

"Stay with Mattie."

"Where are you going?"

"To find those cops. Obviously the useless bastards haven't heard a thing from whatever room they're holed up in."

"I really think you should stay here, Mrs Gallagher."

"He's right," Rory said. "I'll go."

"No," Lydia said. "You distract them. Make them chase you and draw them away from Mattie."

Rory looked uncertain but nodded. "Fuck it, okay."

The star striker vaulted over the nurses' station counter. His twang, one hundred per cent more Belfast, bounced off the ward walls;

"All right then, ye fuckin' wankers.
C'mon tae fuck
!"

An east London accent matched Rory's volume, "There's the cunt. Have him."

Another man grunted and she heard their hurried footsteps clump past her hiding place. She saw two men dressed in black army surplus fatigues go after Rory. They had guns but didn't fire. The footballer was too valuable to them. But they were determined to catch him. Rory feinted left and right then turned and ran to the bottom of the ward. Towards the seating area the doctor had just pointed out. It could well have been a dead end but Lydia didn't plan to stick about and find out.

Lydia gave Mattie's hand a squeeze then let go.

"I'll be back soon, Mattie."

"You better," Mattie said.

She nodded at him, then scampered on her hands and knees around the counter. On the other side, her head butted into something. She squeaked and looked up: a pair of faded black combat trousers, an army surplus jacket to match, and a cruelly amused face to top it off.

"All right, love?"

"Shit."

The man bent at the waist and grabbed the back of her neck. He dug his fingers in and rag-dolled her to her feet. The ward spun and he snaked his arm across her throat, hugged her back in tight to his chest. Lydia felt a circle of cold steel kiss her temple. She wanted to puke. A gargled yelp came up instead.

"Let her go."

Stephen Black's voice lacked its usual playfulness. He came into view as Lydia's captor turned to face him. His silenced pistol was drawn and aimed, it seemed, right at Lydia's face.

"Who the fuck are you, mate?"

"Certainly not your
mate
." His lips twisted like he'd bitten into something sour. "Now let her go."

"Seems to me like you're not in any position to tell me what to do. So why don't you fuck off, eh?"

"I'm a very good shot. Do you want a bullet in your eye?"

"Come off it. If you were really that good I'd be dead by now." He began to walk backwards, digging his forearm a little harder into Lydia's throat. "Lads! I've got the bitch. Come on. That Cullen prick will do what he's told now."

Tears rolled down Lydia's face. How could they be back in this position? It wasn't fair. They'd beaten the bastards and were in a safe place. There were cops under this roof for God's sake. Where were the useless bastards, though? She tried to scream but couldn't get her throat to obey her.

And then, "Hey, dickhead."

John?

She felt the pressure on her throat ease as the man changed position. Then she heard a sickening
thwack
. The man let her go. She turned on her heel to see her husband, awake and burning with fury. John held an IV drip stand over his shoulder like a baseball bat. He swung and the length of stainless steel clattered into the side of the man's head. The man in black fatigues flopped to the floor. John raised the stand over his head and brought it down across the back of the fallen man's neck. Then he righted the stand and used it for support so he could raise a leg and stomp down on the bastard's head.

Lydia backed off a couple of steps, stunned by her husband's sudden violent outburst. She saw Donna approach him, hands raised. The two men who had chased Rory down the ward came up behind them, guns raised. Cold, hard stares.

"Oi, you!"

A flat crack and Donna went down. The man on the left, the one who shot her, cursed. His partner aimed, fired and missed. John charged them, limping at high speed, brandishing his IV drip stand like a Zulu spear. Then both gunmen opened fire on him. Lydia's husband, brave-stupid bastard, fell to his knees and toppled face first onto the cold, hard hospital floor.

"Stop! Police! Put down your guns."

The cops had finally come.

But they were too late.

Lydia went to her husband, sat beside him on the cold, hard floor and wept.

––––––––

T
here's not a lot of talk about bungs in the game anymore. Bribing managers and football scouts isn't a dead phenomenon, you know. There are still a lot of fat rich bastards getting fatter and richer off the transfer windows. Everybody knows who's at it. They just don't want to end up in the Thames with stones in their pockets. Loose lips sink Premierships.

Rory Cullen,
CULLEN: The Autobiography

––––––––

C
ormac took a moment to look down at Mick Scullion's corpse. He couldn't say he was sorry the psycho was dead – no doubt he'd saved a few lives by taking his – but there was regret. Regret that the bastard wouldn't be held to account for his actions. That the justice was swift and roughshod and unsatisfying. A bullet in the head was a mercy.

He wouldn't let that happen to Ambrose O'Neill. That fucker would do his penance the hard way.

Cormac stepped over Mick Scullion's body, resisting the urge to spit on him, and made a beeline for the fallen motorcyclist. He could see the rise and fall of the leather-encased chest and an occasional twitch of the limbs. O'Neill was regaining consciousness. Cormac trained his gun on him and proceeded with caution.

When he got within kicking distance, Cormac prodded O'Neill's side with his foot. O'Neill jerked away from the contact and Cormac smiled. He'd jangled some broken ribs by the looks of it. His smile faded when he heard the downed man shout.

"You wanker!"

A London accent.

Cormac dropped to his knees and shoved open the man's visor. A tanned, pock-marked face stared out at him from the helmet. There were two separate eyebrows above this man's angry eyes. It most definitely was not Ambrose O'Neill.

"Who the fuck are you?" Cormac asked.

"Who the fuck are
you
?" the Londoner asked.

"Detective Kelly. PSNI."

"What the fuck's a PSNI—"

Cormac shoved him onto his side.

"Argh! For fuck's sake, mate. I'm in bits here. Go easy."

Cormac ignored him and unzipped a pocket on the back of the Londoner's leather trousers. He shoved his hand in but there was no wallet. A quick frisk turned up no concealed weapons. Cormac pulled him onto his back. He undid the strap on his helmet and tugged it off. The man bared super-whitened teeth.