The Drop
through it and the tyres sagged, making the Porsche Cayenne sink into the mud, as if the car itself was dying along with them.
When we’d finished hitting them they were a mess. There was blood everywhere. A fly couldn’t have escaped the carnage. When the boys stopped firing, I walked up to the Russians, who were lying where they’d stood a moment ago, and put a round into each of their heads, just to make sure. I didn’t really need to do it but I wanted to. It made me feel better after what they’d done to me. The last man to take one of my bullets was Vitaly. He didn’t look so cocky now though. I did it for Cartwright, who’d been executed without mercy on a cold factory floor, I did it for Finney who’d been taken without a shot being fired then tortured to death while the Russian guys laughed at him. I did it for Bobby and, of course, Sarah. Most of all, I did it for me.
‘You’re a long way from home,’ I told Vitaly’s shocked and open, lifeless eyes, before I put a round right between them.
After I shot him, I put my gloved hand into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his mobile phone, then I walked away from his body. Above me, panicked crows cawed manically as they flew out of the trees all around us.
I checked Vitaly’s sent messages - and there was nothing recent. I then went into his video files and found the footage I was looking for. I made sure nobody else was next to me when I watched it. It was indistinct, the light in the warehouse insufficient to show us up clearly. All I could make out was a grey, grainy image of a man, who may or may not have been me, standing there with a gun in his hand and another pointed at his head. At least, if anybody did see it, they’d realise I was being forced into it. I watched as I raised the gun and fired. The camera angle moved and a large, grey haired man, who may or may not have been Bobby Mahoney, but could just as easily have been Santa Claus, slumped in the chair. The film halted. It all looked fuzzy and confused, like a bad dream. I didn’t feel as sick as I thought I would. I deleted the file.
Palmer came out of the house carrying a holdall. He unzipped it, peered inside and walked up to me, angling the bag so I could see what it contained.
‘This what you’ve been looking for?’ he asked me.
The bag contained a large amount of money. There was no time to stand and count it but I was willing to bet that most of it was still there. Gladwell must have been using this as a down-payment for Vitaly’s services. We’d finally found the Drop.
Strange to think that it didn’t really matter that much now, not in the long run.
We threw the bodies in the car while Kinane’s lads went back to the main road to fetch our vehicles, then we took cans of petrol and poured it all over them. We torched the Porsche and it went up in seconds. I threw Vitaly’s mobile through the window into the heart of the flames, then we got out of there quick. As we were driving through the gate, their car exploded.
THIRTY-FIVE
...................................................
W hen Tommy Gladwell finally stepped out of his home he looked like a man with a world of trouble on his shoulders, and who could blame him? He’d risked everything on one massive gamble, one big throw of the dice that actually seemed to have paid off. He owned a city. It was all his.
Then he had left his Russian muscle behind to stamp his authority on his new empire and he’d gone home to wait for their call.
And waited. And waited.
I could only guess how he must have felt when Vitaly didn’t make that call. All that agonising must have taken its toll; what could have gone wrong, who was to blame, had he been double-crossed? By now, he would be seeing enemies everywhere. Tommy Gladwell must have been living in a permanent state of fear and anxiety, which would explain the bodyguards.
His missus was already in the car when Tommy came out of their home and one of the bodyguards was holding the car door open for his boss’ arrival while the other scanned the horizon for potential threats, but Our-young-’un and Palmer were too far back behind the bushes to be spotted. I was next to them, keeping low. We’d left Kinane and his boys out of this one. There was no reason to be mob handed for what we had in mind and we knew it would be harder for his bodyguards to spot just the three of us.
That was the drawback of living in a nice, big fuck-off country mansion. If
Weitere Kostenlose Bücher