Big Boy Did It and Ran Away (43 page)

‘Looks like it.’

Deacon had a troubled look, something else on his mind.

‘What?’

‘We were missing some stuff back at the truck, when we tooled up.’

‘What stuff?’

‘Radios. I mean, everybody’s got one, but I was sure we had a couple of spares pre‐
tuned to the frequencies. They may just have been moved between crates, but now that you say …’

‘Christ. Okay, I’ll look into it. You worry about the drills.’

‘i’ll need power before I can—’

‘I know. There’s an adapter cable in the truck for plugging it into the mains.’

‘I’ll get it,’ Steve Jones volunteered, with an eagerness that would normally have scored him points but today made him the highest new entry on the suspicion chart.

‘I’ll go,’ Simon told him. ‘There’s something else I need to check out.’

He stomped off towards the entrance tunnel, heading for the lorry. Lydon and Simonon were sitting among the crates laid out around the crossroads, drinking cans of juice.

‘Tea break, is it, boys?’

‘We’re third in the line for the lift,’ said Simonon apologetically, in that half‐
arsed American accent that he obviously thought covered up his European origins. Simon’s own guess was boring old Belgium, which was why he had singled him out for that moniker. Only problem was that the bloke in The Clash’s first name was Paul, and Simon kept calling him George.

‘I don’t care if you’re third in line for the throne. Look fucking lively, the gremlins are out in force. Is anything missing? Where are the explosives?’

‘Blue crates. We’re sitting on them.’

‘I need the cable adapters for the drills. Quickly.’

Simonon stood up immediately and made for one of the yellow crates, the colour code for miscellaneous supplies. Lydon followed suit, though with a moment’s delay for a last swig from his can: the difference between slavish obedience and nonchalant cooperation measurable in a mouthful of scoosh.

‘Shit,’ Lydon said, upon delving into his box.

‘What?’

‘Uniforms. They’re all damp. And they smell of piss.’

‘The magazines were wet too,’ said Simonon. ‘I thought it was just condensation.’

Simon looked into the back of the truck. There were dark streaks on the wooden floor where the crates had been dragged, as well as vivid tyre marks from the drills, all of it caused by fluid. He climbed up the ramp and walked inside, making for the spare small‐
arms cache on the right‐
hand wall. Pulling back the blanket with an anxious tug, he was relieved to see an array of weapons still attached to the wooden lattice, though it occurred to him that he didn’t know how many there should be.

‘Deacon, this is Mercury, come in.’

‘Deacon, receiving.’

‘John, how many spare guns should we have?’

‘Six of each.’

‘Oh, right. That’s okay.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. That means we’re only missing two fucking machine guns.’

Simon lashed out with an angry boot at one of the wooden crates sitting at the cab end of the lorry. The lid flipped into the air and tumbled down on to the floor, revealing a fanbelt and several empty tins inside, as well as a pish‐
soaked grey blanket like the ones piled up in the corner.

‘What is this, a fuckin’ dosshouse?’ he muttered. Then the ramifications quickly began to sink in. ‘Shite. Lydon, Simonon, get up here,’ he commanded, taking hold of his shotgun with both hands at waist height.

Simon gestured towards the pile with a nod as they came up on either side. Lydon drew his pistol while Simonon approached the blankets. The Belgian counted down from three with his fingers, then hauled the pile away from the wall.

Fortunately, nobody fired.

Stacked up behind the blankets was what looked like half their supply of demolition charge.

‘Our explosives,’ George observed redundantly. Lydon restricted his utterances to a half‐
cough, half‐
sigh, in relief that his trigger finger hadn’t twitched and blown them all to kingdom come.

‘Begging the obvious question of just what you clowns were sitting on.’

All eyes turned to the crossroads. Simon pumped a round into his shotgun and began walking, slowly and deliberately, down towards the blue crates sitting on the tarmac. He stopped next to the nearest one, while Lydon and the Belgian, pistols drawn, took position close by. Simon flipped the lid off, revealing a stack of damp, paper‐
wrapped charges, then repeated the drill three more times to the same effect. He looked back at the stack against the inside wall of the truck. It wasn’t half of their stash, but had to be a third. There were two blue crates left. Simon stood over the one on the right, Lydon and the Belgian its partner.

It was Simon’s turn for the silent, gestured countdown, made on the fingers of his left hand as they bent in sequence to resume their grip on the barrel of his SPAS‐
12. On zero, they began firing: Simon pumping four rounds into his crate, Lydon and Simonon a dozen slugs between them into theirs.

The sound brought reinforcements running from the machine hall as Simon placed a boot against the crate and forced off the shot‐
punctured lid.

It was empty, as was the other.

They stood wordlessly, staring into the crates as their arriving colleagues formed a semi‐
circle in the mouth of the entrance tunnel. Simon looked at his watch. The timing of Saturday’s events meant that at least three spare hours had been necessarily built into the schedule. It wasn’t time to panic – yet. But they suddenly had a lot of work to do, starting with solving a serious rodent problem.

The silence was broken by Simon’s radio, a message from Deacon.

‘I’ve had a quick butcher’s at the consoles on these rigs. The wiring’s cut and the circuit boards are like Swiss cheese.’

Simon breathed out very slowly, using all his experience to stay calm and focused.

‘Is it fixable?’ he asked, just about preventing his voice from breaking up.

‘I think one of them is. I can wire up something. Might not be programmable, but …’

‘Something that can drill a hole?’

‘Yeah. That’s all though, so we’re looking at double drilling time at least.’

‘Then why are you pissing about talking to me?’

‘Roger. Deacon out.’

Simon designated everyone who could do more than wire a plug to assist Deacon in repairing the equipment, allocating the rest to seek‐
and‐
destroy parties to hunt for their uninvited guests. They cleared the truck of spare weapons and ammunition, now that they had more than unsuspecting electrical engineers to contend with; Simon helping himself to a machine gun to supplement his SPAS‐
12 and his automatic.

He watched the search teams troop off in their different directions then picked out a can from the provisions crate, drinking it slowly as he leaned against the rear of the truck. He was starting to feel a tightening in his stomach, which the lukewarm Irn‐
Bru was unlikely to relieve.

In his head he could hear drills, but they weren’t the kind Deacon was working on.

Ray was in a jail cell without bars, only the refraction of light from the corridor betraying that there was a force‐
field preventing his exit. He was dreaming again, he knew: playing in his sleep because it was as close as he could get these days. Jailbreak this time: a mod in which if you got fragged, you were imprisoned in the opposing side’s cell block until a team‐
mate managed to bust you out. Rescue was on its way: standing just beyond the force‐
field was the female who’d thawed him out yesterday: ‘Athena’ player‐
model, her hair tied back in a ponytail, but with Angelique de Xavia’s face.

‘Time we got you out of here,’ she said.

Ray opened his eyes. Angelique was standing in the doorway of the section‐
house bedroom, holding a steaming mug of coffee and a generously stacked bacon roll.

‘Come on, sleepyhead. Here’s that hot meal, but don’t freak out until you’ve finished the coffee.’

Ray blinked a few times, feeling extremely groggy.

‘I’ll leave these here and I’ll be back in five,’ she said, placing the items on his bedside table and withdrawing.

Ray struggled into a sitting position, knowing that he’d nod off again otherwise. Contrary to his confident prediction, he’d found sleep difficult to come by, given what was going through his head, and he hadn’t needed the shower or the hot meal to precipitate freaking out. They said you shouldn’t give your stomach too much to digest close to bedtime, but that went double for your mind, and what he’d just been fed was the mental equivalent of a five‐
course blow‐
out. There was something else too, some indistinct niggling sense of insecurity that kicked in every time he felt close to reconciling himself to Angelique’s shattering revelation. It was as much his failing attempts to pin it down that kept him awake as the feelings of anxiety that it caused.

Eventually he must have given in to sheer exhaustion, but it felt like that had only happened about half an hour ago. He sipped the coffee, which was pretty good, and had a mouthful of the roll, which was magic. Cholesterol therapy. Before he started work at Burnbrae, it was sausage and bacon rolls that had got Kate and himself through the mornings, she eating with one hand and steadying Martin on her breast with the other. It suddenly felt a long time ago, a long way away. He was missing them both so much, the sense of longing flooding into him in concentrated doses when he wasn’t having to worry about imminent death or resurrected psychopaths.

Angelique returned bearing more gifts: this time a couple of towels and directions to the shower.

‘You’re an angel.’

‘Angel X.’

Ray’s unease didn’t dissipate once they were underway, despite the fact that Angelique’s car was taking him home; maybe even because it was taking him home. Short‐
timer’s disease: the closer you get to finishing your tour of duty, the more nervous you become. The silence wasn’t helping either. It wasn’t awkward, but in between bouts of small talk, there was nothing to keep his mind from his worries.

‘Do you mind if we have the radio on?’ he asked. ‘I feel like I’ve been away for a month and I could do with catching up.’

‘Sure,’ she replied, reaching for the dial. They were greeted with a blast of the truly loathsome Ibiza Devil Groove by EGF, something Ray was grateful not to have heard for a good three years.

‘A wee kick in the Balearics there, ha ha ha, from the Silver City FM crypt,’ whined the DJ.

‘Should never have been exhumed,’ Ray muttered.

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘If I start telling you, I might never stop.’

‘It’s good to dance to.’

‘I want out of this car,’

Angelique laughed. ‘What is it about boys and music? They’re always so serious about it. It’s like they’re fighting a war or something.’

‘Aye. A war against shite.’

‘There’s a place for everything. It’s all music, isn’t it?’

‘You’re gaunny stick up for the Spice Girls and All Saints in a minute, then I really am gettin’ out of the car. I don’t care what speed it’s travelling.’

‘And if you died, it would be natural selection. No place for you dinosaurs here in the future.’

‘That’s a bit harsh.’

‘You’re the one who said it was a war.’

The song mercifully faded, giving way to the half‐
hourly news, which led with a story on fishing quotas.

‘Don’t suppose two missing Glasgow schoolboys is considered a story up here,’ Ray remarked. ‘Have you heard anything more?’

‘Afraid not.’

They listened to the rest of the bulletin. Like yesterday with the papers in the supermarket, it felt like the world’s events were dragging along at a far slower pace than Ray’s life. The only event that seemed genuinely ‘new’ was the collapse of a road bridge near Crianfada, eliciting a snort from Angelique.

‘What?’ enquired Ray.

‘That’ll be on my desk when I get back. Anything suspicious was to be reported to me while we were all on the look‐
out for the Black Spirit. You should have seen some of the shite I got. I bet the bastards who make the arrests didn’t have to investigate any fertiliser thefts.’

‘You still hurtin’ about endin’ up being’ the bridesmaid?’

‘It’s traditionally not the bridesmaid who gets fucked.’

‘You know what I mean,’ Ray insisted.

‘Yeah I do. And I am. I ought to maintain a sense of perspective about it, though. They’re mounting one of the biggest police operations in British history today. I don’t know what starring role I thought I would’ve had amid a cast of thousands.’

‘Are you allowed to tell me what the big plot is yet?’

‘No.’

‘Who am I gaunny tell?’

‘Nothing personal. But if it got out, there would be panic and everything could fall to bits.’

‘Panic?’

‘We’re talkin’ about a major public event. Crowds and hysteria don’t mix.’

‘So why isn’t it being cancelled, whatever it is, if you know that’s what he’s gaunny attack?’

‘Because we might never get another chance like this. If we cancel, then he knows the game’s a bogey and he’ll disappear again.’

‘Hell of a risk, given his track record.’

‘Not if we’re ready for him. He’s used to being unexpected and invisible – that’s part of his track record too. This time, we know where he’s headed and we know when. We also know what he looks like, at long last, thanks to you – though he knows that as well, and he’s probably already booked an appointment with a plastic surgeon for when this is over. He doesnae make many mistakes, so we have to take this chance because it could be a bloody long time before he makes another.’

‘He doesn’t know that,’ Ray countered, thinking of all that business with the hood back at the farmhouse.

‘Know what?’

‘That you know what he looks like. He knows I escaped an’ he knows I’d tell the polis what I saw, but I didn’t see him. He made sure of that. He’s got no way of knowin’ I’ve sussed he’s still alive.’

‘Even better. He’s unlikely to disguise himself today, then.’

But for Ray, the insecurity was back, fast turning from a niggle to a full‐
blooded kick to the kidneys. There had always been something that didn’t quite add up, and now that he was beginning to see what it was, he understood why he was still scared.