Vendetta (15 page)

Reuben turned back to the gang. ‘Our final item of business . . .’ The rest of his sentence hung unsaid in the air as he nodded to one of his men, who set off towards the 4x4.

Reuben strode casually towards the vehicle. ‘Gather around, my friends.’ His tone made it sound like he was about to show them the greatest magic trick on earth.

Everyone, including Mac, shuffled forward. Reuben’s next words stopped Mac dead.

‘I’m afraid we have a traitor in our ranks.’

Mac reached for the knife the same time Reuben’s henchman flipped up the boot of the BMW. The only traitor was Mac, and he wasn’t ending his life in the boot of some car like those bloated and discoloured Mafia double-crossers he’d seen in photos during his intense undercover training. He started pulling out the blade, but was stopped by muffled sounds coming from the boot. The men reached in and pulled out a tied-up sack that wriggled with a living person inside. They dumped the sack in the Victorian bathtub. Chokes, grunts and groans like a wounded animal filled the garage. It was Sergei who next took centre-stage. Calmly he moved to the back of the car and pulled out a beige overall and a large black holdall bag. He put the overall on. Zipped it up. Turned expectantly back to Reuben.

Reuben briefly announced the death sentence. ‘This guy was approached by one of our rivals and offered a position. He turned them down but he forgot to report the approach to me . . .’ He nodded at his younger brother.

Sergei smiled. Opened the bag. Took out a hatchet. Rubber handle, steel head. Then climbed up and balanced both feet on the rim of the bath. The sack was wriggling and bucking like a slug being toyed with by a bird. The victim’s executioner took no notice as he swung the hatchet high. It sliced down through the air. Hit the body like a meat cleaver hacking its way through unripe fruit. Rich, red liquid squirted into the air and pooled in the bath. The hatchet went high. Sliced down. Blood. High. Sliced down. Blood shot back in the air the same time the garage door opened.

Two children appeared in the doorway. Milos and a little girl. Stunned, no one moved. Both the children gazed innocently at Sergei braced on the bath. And the blood. Reuben quickly moved to block their view.

‘Daddy . . .’ Milos started.

‘Hey birthday boy.’ Reuben smiled and ruffled his son’s hair. ‘Why don’t you go back inside . . . ?’

‘But we’re playing hide and seek.’

‘Ah, ah,’ Reuben let out a mysterious giggle. ‘I know where you can hide.’

He leaned down and whispered in Milos’s ear. Obviously liking what his father told him, Milos squealed, caught his friend’s hand and ran back into the garden.

Reuben turned back to Sergei. The smile vanished from his face. ‘Finish it.’

The hatchet rose again. And again. Kept going until the sack was red and torn and the bath filled with severed limbs and body parts. The only sound that could now be heard was the puff and pant of Sergei delivering the blows. Satisfied with a job well done, the young Russian finally stopped.

Then he threw his head back and yelled with outrageous joy, ‘Yee-har.’

Mac knew he should be shocked, but he wasn’t. He’d seen and heard so many horror stories while undercover that some guy being hacked to death didn’t move the needle on his shake-me-up radar any more. When he’d first started going undercover, he’d fretted about ‘doing the right thing’ when someone was attacked, but he’d soon learned that the only right thing was to keep his nose out unless it jeopardised his operation.

Mac pulled out of his thoughts as the garage door started opening again. Reuben shifted forward, naked emotion on his face; Mac suspected that came from the fear that it might be his son again. The fear that his boy might see him with bloody hands. Reuben’s body blocked Mac’s view of the person now standing in the doorway.

The Russian’s shoulders visibly relaxed. ‘Welcome to the party.’

The person stepped inside. Mac’s heart rate shot up

Calum.

thirty-two

1:20 p.m.

Phil Delaney closed the file on Reuben Volk on his desk. He pulled on his electronic cigarette, longing for more nicotine, but getting mainly mint vapour instead. He leaned back in his swing chair, thinking that the information on Volk was pretty thin. Those Russians were like vampires, reinventing themselves and drawing blood in every country they came to, leaving behind a trail that disappeared as quickly as the mock smoke he blew out from his make-believe cigarette. The only thing he knew was that
Volk
meant ‘wolf’ in Russian. The phone rang.

‘Delaney,’ he answered.

‘I’ve just sent an up-to-date feed through to you.’

The line went dead almost at the same time as his metallic laptop pinged. He tapped a few buttons on the keyboard. Waited. Attachment. Download. Pressed download. The blood-red download bar went into action: 20% . . . 35% . . . 50% . . .  75% . . .

The door to his office bashed open, pulling Phil’s attention away from the computer. A woman stood in the doorway.

‘I want a word.’

His PA hovered behind her, looking as agitated as his surprise caller.

He stood up as he said, ‘It’s OK, Shazia, I’ll sort this out.’

His PA looked from Phil to the woman, then she gave him a slight nod as she closed the door.

‘Rio,’ Phil started, as he moved to a very annoyed-looking DI Wray. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you today.’

His laptop pinged. Download ready.

‘I’ve got a few things I need to ask. First thing on my mind is Mac. I saw him earlier today and he looked like the dead walking. I thought people in your team in the field were meant to have close psychological supervision.’

He reached her. Hovered slightly too close to her, but Rio stood her ground.

‘You know I can’t discuss any operational details with you.’

Her chest rose as her breathing accelerated. ‘I told you not to send him on another case; that if he came back to work he should be on strict desk duty. Tell me that he’s got an Uncle in the field who’s supporting him?’

Undercover cops usually had a key person nearby if they needed support quickly and, by the look on Phil’s face, Rio knew there was no Uncle attached to this case.

‘Are you just crazy?’ she stormed. ‘You do know what today is? That his son died today . . .’

Phil tilted his head and his gaze swept ever so slowly over her face. ‘I know you’re ambitious, but I don’t think you’re my superior officer quite yet.’

Her chest rose higher. ‘You’re meant to be looking out for him . . .’

‘And I am.’ Suddenly his hand came out and cupped her chin. ‘He’s not on any case. He was but I made him step down. He’s at home taking life easy.’

Rio sighed, long and deep, throwing her head slightly back. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Would I lie to you?’ Phil ran his thumb over her bottom lip.

Silence. They both looked at each other. Then moved at the same time. Their lips tangled in a hot kiss. Phil shoved his fingers into her mini-Afro. Rio twisted Phil round. Pushed his upper body flat against the desk. Started to unzip his trousers next to the laptop, which had downloaded a series of photographs. Photos that Phil didn’t notice – from his surveillance team – of Mac going into Reuben Volk’s house.

thirty-three

Mac was back in the garden, the faint sound of children’s laughter coming from the house. He stood by a plum tree and watched Calum and Reuben talking in subdued, animated tones to each other, heads close, like old buddies. Calum wore anonymous black and blue clothes and had a baseball cap, similar to Mac’s, pulled down over his forehead. It was the standard rig for people who went about their business to avoid looking memorable for witnesses and surveillance cameras.

They were back in the house in a room adjacent to the one where the kids were playing musical chairs to the accompaniment of a funky version of ‘Humpty Dumpty’. Every type of curse word he knew attacked Mac’s mind as he stared at Calum. What a class-A fool he’d been to even think about trusting Calum and not to guess that a character like Reuben was Calum’s ideal client these days. Mac knew that Reuben didn’t tell his gang everything; that he kept some things close to his chest – and Calum had obviously been one of them. But still, if he’d been thinking straight, he should have seen the possibility of Calum and Reuben hooking up. Mac ran over what he’d told his former colleague earlier.

That he was undercover in Reuben’s gang.

That he’d been in the hotel room when Elena was murdered.

That he was hunting down her killer.

If the dodgy security consultant had passed on even a part of it, he’d be in Reuben’s gun line now, even if he hadn’t been before. There was only one way he was going to find out.

Confidently he walked over to them. If things got hot, he convinced himself he could take them both down with the knife.

Reuben lifted his head away from Calum and gave Mac a long, cool stare. Confidently Mac eyeballed him back.

Finally the Russian spoke. ‘Let me introduce—’

But Mac cut over him, tone cool and easy. ‘We’ve met.’

He saw Calum slightly stiffen. Mac almost smiled with satisfaction at that. Yeah, now it was time to flip the table, to make the devious bastard feel like he was the one now shitting his pants.

Reuben leaned his head to the side, assessing both men. Then his gaze stayed on Calum. ‘You never mentioned that you knew the independent armourer we were using.’

But Mac didn’t give Calum a chance to respond, taking the high ground himself. ‘Well, he wouldn’t want you to know about that, would he? I mean, we’ve all got stuff in our backgrounds we don’t want the whole world to know about.’ Now it was Mac’s turn to shift his gaze onto Calum. ‘Isn’t that right, Mr Burns?’

Now who might be ratting who out?
Mac thought defiantly. He was enjoying seeing his one-time good friend squirm.

‘Are you hiding secrets from me?’ Reuben asked Calum as his fists clenched at his side.

Mac folded his arms. ‘Go on,’ he taunted Calum. ‘Why don’t you tell Reuben all about our
intimate
past,’ he added, shovelling the shit of the whole situation into Calum’s lap.

But the other man only smiled in that cool-customer fashion that had once made him so popular with the women in the Force. ‘I wouldn’t call it intimate. Not with Mac, anyway. We used to be real tight.’ He shrugged. ‘That was until Mac found out I was balling his missus.’

Mac’s face tumbled. Calum and and his ex wife Donna? Was Calum the guy she’d been screwing after Stevie died? Calum just lifted his eyebrow and sent him a smug smile.

Reuben snorted in disgust, breaking through the tension, relaxing his hands. ‘Don’t let some whore get in the way of brotherhood. Only one way to deal with a woman who opens her legs for any man – shove a stick wrapped with barbed wire up her cunt and keep twisting and turning it until she isn’t screaming any more. I made Sergei watch me do that to his first girlfriend who was fucking some meth addict on the side. He had to learn that a man never lets a woman come between business and friendship.’

Mac felt his stomach turn, but Calum appeared untouched by the sickening revelation.

‘I was just telling Calum about Sergei,’ Reuben continued, his voice dropping low. ‘His girlfriend has gone missing. I don’t know who the slut is and I don’t want to know. I suspect she was one of those Club Zee bitches.’ He made a sound deep in the back of his throat like he was about to spit. ‘So if my brother gets out of hand today, just keep him in line.’

Club Zee
. The name registered with Mac. The card he had in his pocket that he’d found at Elena’s.

‘Mac, I’ll need you to have a clean place ready for me,’ Reuben said, taking Mac’s thoughts away from the card he’d found. ‘A place that no one can connect to my organisation, where I can unload the delivery after we move it,’ Reuben continued, switching the subject of the conversation.

Mac almost asked Calum how long he’d known about the delivery, but he didn’t. No, he’d be talking to Calum all right. Soon. Real soon.

Instead he whispered to Reuben, ‘I thought something big was happening so I took the precaution of getting a different phone. Here’s the number.’

After he’d passed on the details to the Russian, Reuben abruptly raised his arms and shouted, ‘Everyone, it’s time to gather round.’

People started moving from the house into the garden. Some of the children ran, others held on to the hands of the adults they’d arrived with. Milos cuddled into his father’s side. A table had been set centrally, with what looked like an enormous pie-cum-cake in the middle. There was a solitary candle and words iced on it:
Live long and free.

Reuben gently pushed his son towards his birthday pie.

‘Close your eyes. Make a wish,’ Reuben whispered.

But Mac was long gone by the time Milos reopened his eyes. He was back on the street. The Luger and bullets were where he’d left them under the wheelie bin. Once he had them, Mac doubled back and hid in a front garden from where he could observe the gates to Reuben’s house. Now all he had to do was to wait for that back-stabbing slime ball Calum to come out.