Die Twice (16 page)

“McIntyre,” I said. “I’d like to say it was a pleasure. But that would be a lie.”

The guy was in a seriously sorry state. Far worse than when I’d seen him at the apartment he’d been hiding in. He rocked slightly as he stood, unable to hold himself completely still. His naked body was streaked with more blood, and in the brighter light I could see bumps and bruises showing through the layer of grime that covered his skin. The guy obviously hadn’t been treated well. Far from it. But even so, I couldn’t summon much sympathy. In my book, you choose to sleep with the dogs, you wake up with the fleas. And you don’t complain about it afterward.

“Hold out your hands,” I said.

McIntyre shifted his weight to his other foot and braced himself against the crate. Then he leaned away from me and started to tug at the ball gag.

“Forget it,” I said. “It won’t come off. There’s a little padlock at the back.”

He continued to struggle.

“I’ll find something to remove it with in a minute,” I said. “Unless you want me to use the brick again?”

He stopped pulling, but his fingers remained hooked through the leather straps.

“The gag’ll have to wait,” I said. “But those ropes—they should be easy enough.”

He lowered his arms, turned to face me, and for a moment I thought I could see an almost friendly look in his eyes. Then his focus snapped away to something behind my head. I spun around and saw what had caught his attention. It was two guys. They were charging through the office door, straight toward us. Both were holding guns. The lead guy raised his to shoulder height and fired twice, without stopping, which was just a waste of ammunition. The bullets rattled harmlessly off some machinery, way behind me. He never had any chance of hitting us but I pushed McIntyre back into the crate anyway, drew my Beretta, and jumped down off the dock. The second guy split away, trying to circle around to the left. I moved right, into the cover of a screw press, and looked out from the far side. I could see the first guy, still on the platform. He was closing in on McIntyre’s position. Moving slowly. And leaving his legs exposed, which gave me a dilemma. It was unlikely I’d get a clearer shot, but I didn’t want to kill him or leave him to bleed out. Not yet, anyway. I needed the chance to ask him about the missing gas. The guy stopped and stood still, almost begging for a bullet. I resisted. Then I heard a sound to my left. Something mechanized. It was the door, starting to roll itself up. I knew
the game could have been changing completely right there, so that made the decision for me. I put a round in the guy’s left leg, just below the knee. He went down, and I heard his gun clatter away across the concrete. Then I shifted myself around the base of the machine so I could catch a glimpse through the door. Nothing new was visible. No vehicles were coming in. No one was approaching on foot. Then I heard a car door slam. From inside the building. A car engine started. It was the Cadillac. Someone was leaving the place, not entering. I stepped out from my cover to get a better look. The car’s rear tires started to squeal. They kicked up smoke as it surged forward. I couldn’t see anyone in the driver’s seat—he must have been lying sideways—but it had to be the the second guy from the office. He was the only person I’d seen heading that way. He must have been planning to run, rather than ambush me. I put two rounds through the back window, but the car didn’t slow down. I lowered my aim and went for the bodywork. I hit it four times, but still without effect. I didn’t have the angle for the tires, so I jumped back up onto the dock. The first guy had crawled a couple of yards toward his gun. I kicked it away and put two more rounds through the roof of the Cadillac before it disappeared through the exit. That was as much as I could realistically do. There was no way I was going to catch up with a speeding car on my own, so I left the problem to Fothergill and turned to check on McIntyre.

I pulled back the side panel, looked inside, and found nothing but empty space. The crate was bare. McIntyre had gone. I turned to see if he’d somehow fallen off the platform when a bullet crashed through the woodwork, six inches in front of me. I hit the deck, unscathed, but severely bothered by something. The bullet had come from the wrong direction. There was no way the remaining guy could have fired it. Even if he could have retrieved his gun, he was in completely the wrong place. I wriggled back to check, just
in case, and saw he had moved. But only marginally. He was still ten feet away from the Browning. So, someone else had to be loose in the main part of the machine shop. I crawled around the rear of the crate and slithered to the edge of the dock. Immediately my eyes picked up movement. A figure was darting between the machines. A man. He was coming in my direction. Quickly. Zigzagging across the open spaces. That wasn’t a bad idea, in itself. But it would have worked out better for him if he hadn’t left the same interval between each move. An even four seconds, every time. Like a target at a beginners’ training course. So the next time he disappeared into some cover, I knelt up and raised my Beretta. I counted to four. The guy appeared, right on schedule. I lined up on his sternum and fired, twice. He crumpled and fell backward. It took a couple of seconds for the ripple of dust to settle around the body, but when it cleared I could finally make out his face.

And it was not what I’d expected to see.

The man I’d just shot was the second guy from the office. Which meant that someone else had escaped in the Cadillac. And I suddenly had a good idea who that would have been. I pulled out my phone and punched in Fothergill’s number.

“Where are you?” I said, as soon as he answered.

“Don’t know,” he said. “Let’s see. I’ve got burned out cars to my left. Desolate wasteland to my right. Is that any help?”

“What’s in front of you?”

“The road.”

“OK. I mean, who’s in front of you? In the Cadillac.”

He didn’t reply.

“You did follow it?” I said. “Just now. When it came flying out of here?”

“I did,” he said.

“And then you lost it, didn’t you?”

He didn’t reply.

“Didn’t you?” I said.

“What do you want me to do?” he said. “This tub’s no match for a Caddy. And whoever was behind the wheel was driving like a complete nutter. A psycho. No way could I keep up in this thing.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“One of the ambush party? If you’d done what I’d said, you could have been sitting safe and sound in Chicago all along. Had him come to you. Saved us both a lot of time and trouble.”

“No. He won’t be going anywhere near Chicago. Trust me.”

“Why not?”

“He’s too well trained.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because it was McIntyre, in that car. He was naked. Tied up. Gagged. Wounded. And he still got away from you.”

“It was Tony? Are you sure?”

“Certain.”

“Damn, he’s good. And he’s thrown a pretty big spanner in the works, hasn’t he? So. What now?”

“Just get yourself back down here. I’ve still got one guy left to talk to. Let’s see what he can give us.”

I ended the call and started work on the dead man’s pockets. They were completely empty, so I got up and hauled myself onto the loading dock one more time. Right away I saw that the first guy had moved again. About ten feet, this time. But now he was lying stock-still, facedown, with his arms above his head. His injured leg was stretched out limply behind him. A shiny red streak marked the way back to the last place I’d seen him. It started out a couple of inches across, and grew noticeably deeper and wider as it approached the spot where he’d come to rest. Getting that far had cost him a lot of blood, and the rate of loss was clearly accelerating. I checked his pulse. It was there, but faint, and he’d lost consciousness.
I pulled the belt off his jeans, wrapped it around his thigh, and pulled it in tight. It wasn’t an elegant job. Probably too little, too late, but worth a try. I wasn’t worried about his long-term well-being, after all. Only about keeping him alive for another few minutes.

This guy’s pockets contained nothing, either, but I did notice one unusual thing when I was searching them. It was to do with his gun. The Browning was lying on the ground, away to the side, exactly where I’d kicked it earlier. But it didn’t look like the guy had been trying to retrieve it. He’d crawled far enough to reach it, but hadn’t gone in the right direction. The blood trail confirmed it. He’d dragged himself in a dead straight line from his starting point toward the office door. Back to where he’d started. Which suggested that something in there was more important to him than his weapon. I checked on his consciousness one more time, then went to find out what that could be.

The office was long and narrow. Maybe five feet by fifteen. There were three fluorescent tubes hanging from the ceiling. All were broken, so the space was only illuminated by the little light that could filter through the grimy internal window between it and the machine shop. There was enough to see that three high shelves ran the length of the room. They were metal, adjustable, and empty. A metal table was pressed against the concrete wall below them. That was the only piece of furniture in the place. Two wooden packing cases were sitting next to it, as if someone had been using them as chairs. Two more wooden boxes were lined up on its dented, scarred surface. And beneath it someone had shoved three clear garbage bags. Two were roughly crumpled up and empty, but the other was still around a quarter full with something multicolored. It looked like little S-shaped polystyrene peanuts.

The nearer wooden box was rectangular, around fifteen inches wide by twenty long. The lid was wedged in place, but not nailed
down. I was curious to see what someone had been trying to pack away, so I wrestled it open with my fingertips and looked inside. And found a good candidate for what the unconscious guy had been crawling in there to fetch. An AK-74, with its skeleton stock still folded along the side. It was one of five that were peeping out from the polystyrene. Certainly a more effective weapon than the 9 mm he’d abandoned outside. If he’d got his hands on one in that confined space, dealing with him could have become a little tricky. Shooting him was turning out to have been an excellent decision.

The other box was the same height and width, but square. I figured that if the larger one contained assault rifles, this would hold ammunition. Or possibly grenades. Luckily it wasn’t too hard to find out. The lid was lying at an angle across the top, completely loose. So I removed it, and saw I could hardly have been more wrong. There was only one item inside the box. A cylinder. It was three inches in diameter. Twelve inches tall. The body was divided into two unequal sections, with three locked spring clips holding them together. The top was domed, with two mounting points for attaching carrying straps. Standard army-issue webbing would fit them. The whole thing was painted matte green—a familiar military color—and it was plain except for two symbols down near the base. They were picked out in yellow. There was a skull and crossbones, meaning poison. And a saber crossed with a test tube. The emblem of Porton Down. The British Army’s main chemical and biological laboratory. A place officially dedicated to defense research. But also where VX gas had happened to be invented. Among other things.

My phone started to ring while I was still standing, staring into the box. Fothergill’s number appeared on the screen. I took a moment to answer. I’d been unsure about one thing before, but now it was crystal clear. He could promise whatever he liked about safety. But there was no way I’d be touching that flask.

“I’m nearly there,” he said, when I finally picked up. “I’ll be
parked in a couple of minutes. Then I’ll need you to wrap things up. Right away. We have to talk.”

“OK,” I said. “We can do that. But don’t go back to the factory. Come over here instead. I’ve got something for you.”

“What?”

“Richard, are you trying to spoil my surprise? I worked hard for this.”

“Cut it out. This is no time for games. You still in the place opposite?”

“Yes.”

“Where, exactly? How do I find you? I don’t want to be wandering around some filthy garbage pit for hours.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just back in through the open door. Then hop up onto the loading dock. Watch out for the guy who’s bleeding on it. Then come into the office. You’ll see the entrance.”

“Stay where you are, then. I’ll be there in two.”

It actually took Fothergill four minutes to reach me. He was moving slowly as he approached from the far side of the platform. His shoulders were hunched, and his face looked pale and spent. For the first time since I met him it looked like his years of service were finally taking their toll.

“Where is it, then?” he said. “This thing you want to show me?”

I nodded toward the box. He hesitated, then brushed past me and looked inside.

“Great,” he said. “Better get it in the car. You’ll have to do the carrying, though. Can’t do it with one arm.”

He turned back to me, and was halfway to the door when he stopped dead still.

“Wait a minute,” he said, pointing at the other box with his good hand. “What about that one? What’s in there?”

“Guns,” I said. “A handful of old AKs.”

“Oh. Damn. Guess we’re SOL after all, then.”

“Unless you were hoping for a little black market action, like your friend.”

“That’s not funny, David. Don’t even joke about it.”

“OK, then. Let’s be serious. Tell me—what were you hoping for?”

Fothergill sighed.

“More gas,” he said.

“How could there be more?” I said. “Those guys think they’re on their way to buy more. From me. But that was a setup. I’m here. And now we’ve taken theirs. So think about it. They’re the ones who are out of luck.”

Fothergill didn’t answer.

“McIntyre’s our only problem, now,” I said. “He’s on the run again. But the job’s done, as far as finding the gas is concerned.”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t. I just took a call from London. While I was driving back here. McIntyre’s canister? It was only half the consignment he brought over. He just held it back, to try to frame me. The other one, he’d already sold. To the same people. The ones you let drive away.”