‘If I can see an opportunity, I’ll take it. Otherwise… we’ll deal with the heavies first.’

  ‘Deal with… as in kill?’ she asked and gave him a shrug. ‘I guess there’s no such thing as being a little bit pregnant?’

  Boyd chuckled softly. ‘Well, we’re here, right?’ He waggled Warren’s katana. ‘It’s us or them.’

  ‘Christ…’ She blew out a cloud. ‘I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.’

  ‘The last time round, if I recall correctly,’ he said, ‘we turned up with just a baseball bat and some pepper spray. We’re marginally better off this time.’

  Okeke looked down at the yellow-handled taser in her fist. ‘I feel a little underdressed,’ she said.

  ‘Did you do a spark test on that?’ he asked her.

  She rolled her eyes, removed the protective cap and half-pressed the trigger. A blue spark arced from one spike to the other. ‘It’s good.’

  ‘I just hope to God they’ve brought Emma along,’ he said. ‘And that she’s all right.’

  Okeke put a hand on his. ‘Guv… they want Jay. He’s why they’re here. Their only leverage is Emma.’ She squeezed. ‘She’ll be fine.’

  Boyd nodded. She was right. ‘Jesus Christ, Okeke… what kind of shit-stick plan have we just tossed together?’

  She laughed. ‘It’s the best shit-stick plan we’ve got.’

  52

  Roland looked again at his watch. It was gone quarter past eleven. Their SUV was one of the last few vehicles dotted around the Marine Parade parking area. From here he had a clear view up Paston Place. The patrons emerging from the Bristol Bar, overlooking the seafront and the parking area, had thinned out.

  An hour ago, it had still been buzzing with mid-week activity. Now, things were going quiet. Turner, if he’d been nursing a pint of beer out there somewhere, and if he had any wits about him, had presumably been among the throng.

  His men were getting twitchy, looking repeatedly at their watches too.

  ‘All right,’ he said to Gregor. ‘Let’s get this done.’

  Soprano turned on the engine, pulled out of the parking spot and swung across the empty seafront road and into the street that Roland had been gazing down. As they drove slowly up Paston Place, Roland scanned the faces of people emerging from the wine bars and restaurants. Turner would be easy to spot. He was tall, broad, and his head was shaved to the wood.

  Soprano drove up the gently sloping street and turned right onto St George’s Road. He slowed the car to a halt. They had stopped beside a building that looked like a Turkish desert fortress, with white-washed walls and a crenelated top. On the wall facing them was a sign – Bombay Bar – and beside that in absolutely fabulous lettering… Proud Cabaret.

  Christ, mused Roland. We’ve been lured into the bloody gay ground zero for Brighton and Hove.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Why have we stopped here?’

  Gregor pointed at an opening off the street a dozen yards beyond the nightclub’s main entrance. ‘Location is down there.’

  Dammit. Virtually right next door to this club. He wondered if that was deliberate. For the first time he wondered if this was some kind of set-up. No. More likely that Turner felt safer hiding out close to a busy venue, he reasoned.

  Except it didn’t look that busy tonight.

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ he replied. ‘Let’s ruddy well get this done.’

  Soprano rolled forward along St George’s Road, turning right into a tight archway that led down a short ramp into what appeared to be a small cobblestone courtyard. He immediately switched the SUV’s headlights off and stopped, blocking the way in or out.

  They waited in silence for a moment, listening to the tac-tac-tac of drizzle on the windscreen as their eyes adjusted to the amber gloom cast from a single desultory street light.

  ‘Turner is there…’ said Gregor, pointing towards what appeared to be some sort of old warehouse. Its brick walls had been painted white, a long time ago, and what little paint remained clung to them in ragged pale patches like an unpleasant skin condition.

  Ronaldo said something and Gregor replied.

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Roland.

  ‘The dog. What to do with dog?’

  He glanced behind to see the top of the spaniel’s head, two glinting eyes and puckering nostrils. The vehicle obviously still reeked of KFC.

  ‘Shoot?’ offered Gregor. He shrugged. ‘Not needed.’

  The girl jerked in the seat beside him and pleaded something behind the gaffer tape, her eyes wide and glistening.

  ‘We’re not shooting the dog,’ snapped Roland. He felt irrationally angered by that suggestion. ‘We’re not fucking savages over here, all right?’

  Gregor shrugged again. ‘You boss.’

  Roland turned to Ronaldo. ‘Walk him out onto the street. Tie him up somewhere.’

  Gregor translated and the young man shook his head, but nevertheless climbed out of the SUV and opened the boot. He cut the tape that was bound the dog’s paws, secured a tether of rope around his neck and jerked him out of the vehicle and down onto the ground.

  ‘Hurry up,’ snapped Roland.

  He watched them walk up the gentle slope, through the archway and out of view.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ he said to Emma. ‘Someone will find him in the morning.’

  Ronaldo returned a couple of minutes later on his own and climbed back into the rear seat.

  Okay then… Roland took a deep breath. Showtime.

  Jay’s phone lit up. He had a text from Boyd.

  They’re here. Just parked up. Waiting.

  He quickly tapped out an acknowledgement, then forwarded Boyd’s message to Karl.

  ‘Shit just got real,’ he muttered under his breath. He took another look around the interior of the metal vat at their ‘camp-out’ scene. From where he was crouched inside, just beside the maintenance hatch, it still looked horrendously fake: Steve lying on his side under a sleeping bag, with a beanie pulled down over the round wooden head – it was a joke. The table leg Jay was clutching like a baseball bat suddenly felt as impotent as a wound-up wet tea towel.

  Come on, Jay. Stay cool. The voice started out as Sam’s, but then seemed to morph into Jason Statham’s. You got this, mate. You got the jump on these Russian pussies.

  Right. He did. The small transistor radio on the floor, warbling softly on what remained of its battery power, changed tunes to an eighties classic: ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’.

  He adjusted his grip on the leg and took a deep breath. ‘Game on, pussies.’

  Attaboy, voiced Jason Statham.

  Boyd watched the man return to the SUV without Ozzie. His first thought was that the bastard had just killed his dog. But then why walk him out into the street to do that?

  They’ve dumped him.

  For some reason that gave him a glimmer of hope. Maybe there was a sliver of humanity inside that vehicle. Someone – perhaps Hammond, maybe one of his thugs – was unwilling to slaughter an innocent animal.

  The SUV was blocking the ramp out of the mews. Their only other escape route, then, was back down the alleyway where Warren was waiting.

  He glanced at Okeke. She nodded, presumably noting the exact same thing.

  So, this part of the plan was going to have to be fluid. It would be down to chance and opportunity. If Ozzie had been in that car, then Emma presumably was too. That was good. But, somehow, he was going to have to sneak up on the SUV, surprise and take out whoever was sitting in there with her, grab her and run for it.

  Just then the doors of the SUV opened, and he counted three figures emerging from it. He looked again at Okeke and raised four fingers.

  She nodded. Yes… there were four of them.

  He watched them stretch, then reach into their jackets and pull out what appeared to be long-barrelled handguns.

  Silencers. Of course, they had silencers.

  And I’m sitting here holding a samurai sword. Bloody marvellous.

  One of them, a stocky man, was carrying a jerrycan in one hand. Petrol. So they were going with the same MO as Nix, then. Whack the target, set the place on fire and slink away into the night.

  The three men spread out slowly, cautiously studying the mews and the dark doorways to the small business premises opposite. Finally they focused their attention on the large double oak doors of the brewery. They approached it slowly, and Boyd and Okeke instinctively drew back deeper into the shadows of the alleyway as they drew closer.

  One of the figures paused to look down into the alley. Silhouetted against the glow of the street light, his poise looked vaguely familiar to Boyd.

  We’ve met before.

  It wasn’t Hammond. Then with a shudder he remembered – it was the wiry old bastard with bad teeth who’d nearly put a bullet in his face back at that trailer park a year ago.

  53

  Gregor was suspicious by nature. He was suspicious of the old brick building in front of him with its large oak doors. He was suspicious that the location they’d been given was this cloister-like enclosure with dim lighting and only one apparent point of egress. If he was planning an ambush, he’d pick a place just like this. He’d fought Afghans and Chechens in his time, and their tactics had been identical – lure the enemy into a pinch point, then fire from all sides.

  But this was England. He doubted that their prey, a frightened nightclub doorman who was on the run from the police, was likely to have recruited a band of battle-hardened urban fighters to help him.

  He glanced back at the SUV. Rovshan Salikov’s heir – that cowardly, idiot man-baby – was hiding in the vehicle, ‘bravely’ guarding the girl. Gregor had no time for him and was giving serious thought to migrating his services to one of the other rich Russian families in Central London. Rovshan was an old man – and a sick man these days. When he died, there was no way Gregor wanted that idiot man-baby as his new boss.

  Stupid bosses had a way of getting their minders killed.

  Hector, his brother-in-law, set the jerrycan down and reached out with one of his big hairy hands for the old rusty hoop of one of the door handles.

  ‘Wait,’ said Gregor.

  He snapped on a torch and inspected the entrance thoroughly, looking for sensors or tripwires, or any other simple device that their man might have erected to warn him that someone was entering the building. He could see nothing. He aimed the torch into the thin gap between the doors and looked for any sign of something set up on the inside. Again, nothing.

  He turned to Hector. ‘You and me will go inside,’ he said in little more than a whisper. ‘One headshot. A quick kill. Nothing more. We take a photo to show the job is done, then we burn this place.’

  Hector looked at him. ‘No ear?’

  ‘Not this time.’ Gregor looked over at his young nephew. ‘Alek, you stay out here. You watch the car. You see anyone else enter, you text me. No shouting. Understood?’

  Alek nodded.

  Gregor gently leant against one of the big oak doors, testing it for any suspicious resistance. But it swung in gently with the softest of creaks.

  Karl had been filling his time on his phone, tapping increasingly worrying terms into the search engine on Tor, the dark-web browser, and getting equally unsettling results. The FSB, formerly the KGB, seemed to have more in common with a ruthless drug cartel than they did the intelligence-gathering organ of a global superpower.

  They were, in all but name, an OCG with fingers in every criminal activity he could think of. So then it begged the question: what the hell was going on between them and the Salikovs? A turf war? A vendetta? A disagreement on the spoils? Why the hell would they want Rovshan Salikov poisoned?

  And why the hell was his only surviving child doing it?

  ‘What on earth have you stuck your foot into, bruv?’ he muttered quietly.

  He was half tempted to quietly extricate himself from his hiding place amid the tangle of discarded furniture and make a discreet exit while he still could, but then he heard it… the creak of a door slowly swinging inwards. He switched his phone off and tucked it away.

  He caught a glimpse of light through the bowels of the brewery, reflecting off the wet brick floor, glinting off damp pipes and rusting storage hoppers. Then with a soft snick the light vanished.

  Shit. They’re here.

  In the complete darkness, Gregor’s eyes gradually adjusted. His once-around with the torch had given him the lay of the land. It looked like some kind of defunct brewery: a nightmare to move around without torch light, but it would be better to sneak up on their prey in the dark rather than advertise their approach.

  A minute passed and at last his eyes were acclimatised enough to make use of what little amber light was stealing in through the tiny, grime-encrusted windows. He could make out dim outlines and shapes. The basic geometry of the place. That was enough to forge a cautious start.

  Hector nudged his arm and whispered, ‘Gregor, look’.

  He turned towards Hector’s voice and spotted the muted glow of cool bluish light emerging from somewhere in the middle of the cluttered floor. It could have been the light cast from a smartphone screen. In fact, it probably was.

  A smile made his teeth glint in the gloom.

  Fool. We have you.

  He led the way, slowly and silently advancing towards the faint light, pausing every few seconds to study the floor for trip hazards. Better him take point than clumsy Hector, who had all the agility and spatial awareness of a wounded elephant.

  As he got closer, Gregor paused again. He could hear music playing softly. It echoed as if it was playing at the bottom of a deep well. It was an English pop tune that he vaguely recognised.

  The idiot, he mused. His last quarry – that little weasel Gerald Nix – had been scared enough to hide himself properly. This guy was almost begging to be found.

  He stepped carefully around a stack of wooden pallets and finally got a clear and direct view of where the soft glow was coming from: it looked like a water tank. There was a small oval hatchway near the ground, like the entrance to an igloo, and the pale light was spilling out from within.

  Gregor glanced back at Hector and indicated with two fingers that he had eyes on the target. The fool was making their job too easy, quite literally: he was a fish that had hopped into a barrel, ready to be shot. Gregor continued forward, bearing right, until he had a clearer view of the inside of the container through the maintenance hatch.

  The man was lying on his side in a sleeping bag on the floor, his back to the entrance – another dumb error. Beyond his sleeping form was a lamp – the source of the cool-blue-tinted light. He had a woollen cap pulled down over his head, to keep him warm.

  Despite him looking fast asleep, it would be a mistake to assume he was. The music from the radio was broadcasting his presence and drowning any chance of his hearing the soft scrape or rustle of anyone approaching.

  Very well, little fishy. They didn’t need any information from the man; they just needed him to be dead. And a photo to prove it. Gregor cocked his head. Perhaps we will have an ear. Then Hector could scatter the petrol all around.

  Gregor raised his gun and lined up the target down the extended barrel. He had a clear line of sight to the back of Turner’s head.

  He pulled the trigger and a muted phut spilled out from the silencer.

  The body jerked slightly on impact. But that was all. He smiled.

  Quick. Clean. Done.

  Jay recoiled. The mannequin’s head had just twitched, like someone shaking an annoying fly off their face or sneezing silently. It took him a couple of seconds and the sight of several splinters of wood scattered across the floor of the drum to realise that Steve had just taken a shot to the head.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He rose from his haunches until he was standing over the hatch and raised the table leg up over his head, ready to bring it down hard on the first thing that dared poke through. His whole body was trembling with fear and exhilaration.

  Come on, mate. Would Jason Statham be trembling?

  He heard a rasping voice whisper just outside the vat, followed by a man groaning with effort, then he saw the stark, bright beam from a torch flood in through the maintenance hatch.

  A voice whispered softly as the beam angled around; a cloud of breath swirled in the light. Then, at last, Jay heard another tired groan and the rustle of clothing against the lip of the hatch. The torch entered first, held by a gloved hand, followed by an outstretched arm.

  Jay fought the urge to swing down too early.

  He needed to swing down on a head, not a hand.

  There was another scraping sound against the side and a grunt of irritation, then finally a head of thick, closely clipped grey hair emerged into the vat, followed by a narrow pair of shoulders.

  The man seemed to catch sight of something in his peripheral vision and looked up at Jay… Their eyes met for a brief instant.

  Then Jay swung the table leg down hard.

  54

  The table leg came down with the precision of a guillotine, but the old man managed to raise an arm and deflect the blow with his elbow. His torch went flying across the vat as he collapsed forward into the container.

  Jay raised the table leg to swing it down again, this time hopefully on the top of the scrawny bastard’s head. But the old man moved with surprising speed, bringing his legs in behind him and rolling away to one side. Jay had to take a step forward to reach him.

  The arm that had held the torch and taken the blow might well be broken but the other one was fine, and he noticed the old man fumbling inside his jacket for something. Jay caught sight of a gun, the extended barrel of a silencer making it too cumbersome to whip out quickly.

  He swung down again on the hand holding the gun and knocked the weapon out of the wiry little git’s fingers. It skittered across the floor of the vat and out of reach for either of them. Jay decided to go after it, stepping awkwardly over the mannequin in a bid to get to it first. But the old man caught his ankle and brought him down. A moment later he was on top of Jay: lightweight but surprisingly strong. One hand went straight for his eyes, and Jay managed to close his eyelids a fraction before he felt sharp fingernails digging into them.