Dance With the Enemy (19 page)

Reggie was still on edge. This was taking too long now.

Come the hell on
, he thought.

At least when this was done, they’d be more or less ready to go.

Reggie was back in the office. He had stuffed Modena in the van and had left Mustafa to collect up the weapons. Other than some of the computer equipment, there wasn’t much else they’d be taking with them.

‘Hey. Er, guys.’ Habib stood up from his computer, grinning from ear to ear. ‘I think this is it. We’ve got it!’

Reggie and Blakemore looked at each other, wide-eyed, then at Habib.

‘Let me see,’ Blakemore said, turning the screen toward him. ‘I don’t believe it. Son of a …Would you look at that! The most expensive name in the world.’

‘Told you I was close.’

‘Here, let me sit there,’ Blakemore said, nudging Habib out of the way so that he was at the keyboard. ‘I need to get this sent straight away. I don’t get paid until that name has gone. And neither do any of you.’

Blakemore began typing away. Reggie couldn’t help but smile. This was it. The end was in sight now. He looked over at Selim, who was once again standing over by the cabinet, his face emotionless.

‘When will the money arrive?’ Selim said.

‘It’s been in escrow, waiting,’ Blakemore said. ‘Once I’ve sent this, it’ll come through to me within the next few minutes. When it arrives, I’ll have to give the go-ahead for the transfer to
you. And Reggie, for that matter. It’s all set up, ready to go; it’ll take no time at all. But we’re better off doing it later, and getting away from here first.’

‘Don’t worry, Richie. I’m sure I can trust you,’ Selim said. He smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. Selim looked over to Reggie, and the smile faded away almost instantly.

Reggie turned his attention back to Blakemore.

‘Okay, let’s get this lot packed up,’ Blakemore said after a couple of minutes. ‘We’re ready to move out of here.’

He got up and Habib began to dismantle the computer terminal.

‘No need to bother with that, Habib,’ Selim said. ‘We’ve got what we need already. Better off travelling light from now on.’

‘What do you mean?’ Blakemore protested. ‘We might need this stuff again.’

‘I’m not going to need it. And why would you? You’ve got what you want. You’ve got your precious name and the money. And I’ve got Modena.’

‘Sorry, what?
You’ve
got Modena? What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘It means you’ve got what you wanted from this, now it’s my turn to have some fun with him.’

Blakemore opened and closed his mouth but no words came out.

‘What, you thought I was just doing this for a bit of money?’ Selim sneered, the smile on his face showing that he was enjoying the moment. ‘Don’t be so naive, Richie. Don’t forget who I am. Modena is worth a lot more to me than a couple of million dollars. Believe me, a
lot
more. Modena’s mine now.’

Blakemore might have been slow to figure out what was happening, but Reggie wasn’t. Selim had set them up. Used them. He was going to take the money
and
Modena. Satisfy all of his cravings. He reached around to his back and began to pull out the handgun that was stuffed in the waistband of his jeans.

But he stopped when he felt cold metal sticking into the back of his neck.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Mustafa said from behind him.

‘Reggie? Oh dear,’ Selim taunted, turning to face him. ‘Did you think you’d get away with that? Please, hands in the air. Then come over here, away from the door.’

Reggie fumed, angered at himself as much as anything else, for letting himself be caught put. He put his hands up and Mustafa pushed the gun harder against his neck, indicating for him to move. He did so and felt Mustafa remove the handgun from his waistband as he edged forward.

When he’d walked three paces Mustafa tossed the handgun over to Selim, who caught it one-handed whilst still maintaining eye contact with Reggie.

Reggie could see Blakemore begin to inch towards the door. But Selim had seen it too. He lifted his right arm and fired. The bullet hit Blakemore in his left thigh and he screamed out in pain.

‘Sit down, Richie.’

Selim reached out and pushed Blakemore back down into his seat. Then he turned the gun on Reggie.

Despite the turmoil inside, Reggie stood tall, defiant.

‘Any last words?’ Selim said.

Reggie didn’t have anything. His mouth was shut tightly, his nostrils flaring. He wasn’t going to beg. He wasn’t going to try to bargain.

Another gunshot rang out. Reggie stumbled backwards, falling onto one knee. He didn’t feel the pain at first. But when it came, it came with a vengeance. Reggie winced, gritting his teeth. But he didn’t cry out, not like Blakemore still was. He was determined to show no weakness.

He looked down at his wound, pushed his hand onto it. Blood was pouring out onto his shirt, seeping down to his jeans. Thoughts circled in his mind as to how he could turn the situation around. He wasn’t finished. Not yet.

Mustafa calmly walked around to the front of Reggie, one of the AK-47s in his hands. Blakemore was still crying out; Selim had the handgun pointed at him, keeping him at bay. Reggie looked up at Mustafa, snarling, panting heavily. He would only get one chance.

Mustering as much strength as he could, he sprang to his feet, diving forward toward Mustafa. He caught the little man’s temple with his elbow as he flew into him, immediately grappling to take control of the rifle. Reggie got it and another shot rang out. But it wasn’t from the rifle.

Reggie released his grip on the gun and fell to the ground, lying flat on his back. There was a screaming pain in his chest.

‘Phew. That was a close one,’ Selim laughed. ‘You almost had me panicking there, Reggie. I thought for a second you might make it.’

Mustafa wiped at the blood coming from the wound above his eye, then picked up the rifle from the floor, pushing the barrel against Reggie’s head.

Reggie looked into Mustafa’s eyes. The boy looked scared. Panicked. Reggie wished he could have finished that little prick off. But there was no fight left in him now. He tried to move but couldn’t. His breaths were becoming slow and shallow, his vision blurry.

He blinked, then shut his eyes, but he opened them after a few seconds, trying to fight off the inevitable.

He could still hear Blakemore shouting. Screaming. Then he heard Selim’s voice.

‘Now, Richie, it’s just you and me. I think it’s about time we had a little talk. About my salary.’

Unable to hold on any longer, Reggie closed his eyes one last time.

Sometimes things come down to nothing more than good luck. Logan and Grainger had been completely exposed when the man had come back outside. But he had not looked up at all as he walked over to the van. After putting the weapon in the front of the vehicle, on the passenger’s side, he’d simply headed back into the house. He hadn’t once glanced in the direction of Logan and Grainger.

Breathing a sigh of relief, they had both carried on the short distance to the corner of the house, where they now hid. Out of the light and out of sight.

Not long after, the shorter man had come out again, carrying two more rifles. He put those into the van too before returning to the house. It looked like they weren’t planning on staying the night. And wherever they were going, they were certainly going to be well armed.

But Logan and Grainger’s plans took an unexpected turn when they heard a gunshot inside the house. And two more not long after.

‘What the hell was that?’ Grainger said.

‘Who knows? But at least it’s not Modena that they’ve shot.’

‘There is that. But what else could it be? Each other?’

Logan shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t think there’re any other visitors here. And if it’s a police raid, it’s the quietest one in history. My guess is it’s each other they’re shooting.’

‘But why?’ she said.

‘Witnesses, most likely. Limiting the number of witnesses.’

Though quite who was in charge in there was hard to know.
He just hoped Selim wasn’t the one being disposed of. Logan had unfinished business with him.

‘This is our chance,’ Grainger said, moving away from Logan, toward the house. ‘We should get Modena now. While they’re still in there fighting each other.’

‘No,’ Logan said, grabbing her arm and holding her back. ‘Modena’s in that van because they’re looking to make a get-away. Possibly any minute now. If we go over there, we could be running into them head on. And I don’t fancy our chances against those weapons. There’s another door here, at the side of the house. We’ll go in this way and come up on them from the side or from behind.’

‘We could just get Modena and get out of here. We don’t have to face off to them at all. Let somebody else worry about them.’

Her suggestion was born of reason and sound judgement. Why bother walking into a fight when what they were after was right there in front of them?

But that was the problem. Modena wasn’t really what Logan was after. He wanted to save him, of course. But getting Selim was way more important.

‘No, we’re here now,’ Logan said. ‘We can’t let them get away.’

‘I thought you said Modena was the goal?’

‘He is, but I don’t want to take the risk of us meeting whoever is in there as they come out. Come on, follow me.’

He didn’t wait for her response but took off towards the side door, hoping that she would agree and follow him. The door was locked, but it was a simple structure: a wooden door with six small, square glass panels in the top half. It was possible that the door was linked to some sort of security system, but Logan was prepared to take the chance.

As he reached the door, Grainger came up behind him. He used the butt of his gun to break the lower left glass panel, tapping the glass lightly at first and then building up the pressure, trying to crack the glass rather than smash it to smithereens. The glass was flimsy and it began to crack easily. On the sixth blow, a chunk of glass fell away. Then another on the next blow. No alarm sounded. Logan’s approach was by no means silent, but he seemed to have got away with the noise.

He reached in, turned the key, opened the door and waited.

Still no alarm.

They looked at each other, nodding their heads as though both knew what to do next, then they moved forward, into the house, guns drawn.

The door led into a pantry. The lights were off. But there was enough illumination from the open doorway off to the left, which led into the kitchen, to help them make out the layout of the room. There was another door, closed, fifteen feet in front of them. They headed for it, Grainger walking behind Logan, who kept his eyes on the kitchen doorway, looking for any sign of movement.

‘Are you okay?’ Logan whispered as he neared the closed door at the far end.

He could sense Grainger’s nerves. Her breathing was getting louder, her movements becoming stiff.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ she said, sounding offended that he’d asked. ‘Are you sure you are?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then what’s with the hands?’

He looked down at his hands. The tremors were back. He hadn’t even noticed. This was the first time it had happened
before
the action.

‘Shit,’ he said.

He wasn’t going to let that get in his way now. Trying to ignore the involuntary movement, he put his left hand on the door handle and turned it slowly. When he felt the latch release, he inched the door open. The pantry opened out into a hallway with several more doors leading from it.

They’d heard nothing more since the three gunshots when they were outside. No more shooting, no voices. Logan began to wonder whether whoever had done the shooting had already left while he and Grainger were sneaking around the side.

But he realised that wasn’t the case when there was a blood-curdling scream from somewhere further down the hallway, followed by muffled voices too.

Logan looked at Grainger. The worry on her face now even more evident.

It was hard to tell which room the noises had come from. From the faint sound, it seemed unlikely to have been from the near side of the house.

There were five doors along the hallway: three on the left and two on the right. They walked past the first door on the left,
which was another entrance to the kitchen, again looking in to make sure there was no sign of anybody. There wasn’t.

They passed the next door, this one on the right, which was closed. There were no indications of what lay behind it, no light creeping out from underneath. There were also no sounds coming from the inside. They carried on.

As they got closer to what Logan had thought was the second door on the left, he realised that it was actually another hallway, leading towards the back of the house. He could see the back door at the far end of it, the door that led outside to where the vehicles were parked. So they were now directly in the path of Selim, or Blakemore, or whoever it was that was planning their getaway. No better off than if they had just headed straight over to the van in the first place and got Modena out of there.

Logan resisted looking back at Grainger. He wasn’t sure if the same thought had occurred to her. And if it had, he really didn’t want to see her
I told you so
look.

Another scream. Not a scream of shock, but one of real terror and pain. It was followed by moaning. Whimpering. This time Logan could pinpoint the sounds. The last door on the right.

They passed another hallway leading off to the right, towards the front of the house. A cursory glance down the hall didn’t reveal any obvious signs of life in that direction. They carried on towards the end of the corridor.

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ Grainger whispered. ‘We could be seriously outnumbered here. Modena is right down there out the back. He’s already in the van. Why not just go and get him?’

Logan didn’t answer. A small part of him agreed with her, but he was trying his hardest to ignore it. He knew he was potentially putting her in harm’s way. But he had other priorities right now. Selim was his immediate focus. And anyway, he was confident he could get himself and Grainger out of the house alive.

They reached the end of the corridor where the remaining two doors were set opposite each other. Logan crouched low as he peered into the lit room on the right, from where he was sure the sounds had come. He saw two men standing over a third. He quickly retracted his head. The tremors in his hands began to worsen. Even with the briefest of glimpses, Logan had seen enough to figure out what was happening in there.

‘Logan?’ Grainger whispered, almost inaudibly. ‘What is it? What do you see?’

‘It’s Selim.’

Selim doing what he does best
, he thought.

Torture.

Another scream. Even louder than it had been before. Logan closed his eyes at the sound. Having seen what was causing it, the sound now took on a whole new meaning to him.

‘Logan, I don’t like this. What do we do now?’ She waited for a response. But he was dazed and confused. ‘Logan!’

Come on, focus
! he told himself.
This is what you’ve been waiting for
.

He tried his best to snap out of it. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We go in.’

He was about to move when he heard footsteps behind them. He turned his head, looking past Grainger. There, coming around the corner, was the short man, the one who’d been loading the van earlier, a rifle over his shoulder.

‘Shit! Move!’ Logan said.

He grabbed hold of Grainger, pulling her with him as he headed for the other open doorway on the opposite side of the hall. But they couldn’t shift quickly enough. The man had seen them.

With a shriek somewhere between surprise and anger, the man lifted his weapon and opened fire. A cloud of dust and plaster swept up as the bullets hit the wall next to them.

Hastily raising his gun as he and Grainger fell into the room, Logan fired back in the direction of the man, not looking as he did so. They rolled into the room in a tangled heap, immediately getting to their feet to look for cover. The room they had stumbled into was a lounge. There were two big sofas adjacent to each other a few feet from where they stood. They both dived over the top of the nearest one just as the short man reached the doorway, still firing.

But after a couple of short bursts, the firing stopped. Logan and Grainger looked at each other, confused.
Maybe he’s reloading
, Logan thought.

Then they heard voices. Shouting. Selim giving instructions, Logan realised.

He knew that the sofa would provide only temporary respite.
If Selim’s men opened fire with rifles at such a short distance, it would do little to stop the bullets. They were sitting ducks.

Logan looked at Grainger. She had her gun held up to her chest. She looked at him and he gave her a signal, nodding over to the door. With nowhere left to go, Logan knew they would have to fight back to have any chance now.

‘When I go,’ he whispered, ‘just shoot.’

She shook her head, and he signalled again, more forcibly this time. She gave him a pleading look, but without another thought he leapt up and moved quickly across the room. He didn’t look back but heard a cascade of gunshots coming from where he’d left Grainger. In between the shots, he heard the man cry out.

She’d got him.

Logan dived for the ground and rolled to a stop. For a moment, everything was silent again. He looked back towards Grainger, who was standing in her well-trained gun stance, and smiled at her. She crouched back down behind the sofa, not smiling back.

He wasn’t sure where the little man had been hit, but he could see his legs sticking out through the open doorway. He was definitely down, but Logan knew this wasn’t over yet. There were at least two more men – the ones he had seen in the other room. And one of them was Selim.

But where
were
they now?

Logan looked over at Grainger again. She was hunched behind the sofa, gun held tightly in both hands.

‘Cover me,’ he said.

This time Grainger nodded.

Logan moved quickly to the doorway, throwing himself up against the wall adjacent to the door. He looked down at the man Grainger had shot. The bullet had caught him in his gut. He wasn’t moving, but Logan couldn’t tell for sure if he was dead or not. Peering out into the room opposite, where Selim had been, he was surprised to see no signs of the other two men.

He looked back at Grainger and nodded his head, indicating for her to come forward. Then he headed out, pulling up against the doorway to the room across the hall.

Still no sign of Selim.

He stole a glance into the room. It was an office. There was a man on a chair, his hands tied to the chair’s arms, his ankles
bound to the legs. His face was bloodied. Logan didn’t recognise him but his appearance matched what he knew of Blakemore. The small movements in his chest showed he was still breathing.

But Blakemore was alone in the room. So where was Selim?

Logan heard the engine of the van starting.

‘No!’ he shouted.

He couldn’t let Selim get away. Not again.

‘Go!’ Grainger yelled. ‘I’ll wait here, make sure there aren’t any others.’

Logan didn’t hesitate: he spun around and sprinted down the hall.

He ran as fast as he could. So fast that when the right turn came, he almost skidded around the corner and had to put his arm out against the wall to keep upright. He bounded down the corridor. He could see Selim outside, climbing into the passenger seat of the van.

Selim glanced back at Logan. The two men, old foes, made eye contact. A look of recognition came to Selim’s eyes. But it was also a knowing look.

He knew that he was getting away.

Again.

‘No!’ Logan shouted, desperation now in his voice.

He opened fire, but it was a hurried and thoughtless reaction. He didn’t come close to his target. The bullets damaged the back of the van, but they all missed Selim, who was already safely inside. Logan kept pressing on the trigger as he ran. The clip was empty by the time he reached the outside door.

But his shots had all been in vain. The van was already making towards the back gates.

Logan fell to his knees.

This day, that moment, had dominated his mind for the last five tortuous months and he’d blown it. Close to tears, he felt like pounding on the ground.

He watched as the van left the compound into the dark abyss that lay beyond, its taillights fading into the distance.

He’d had Selim and he’d let him get away
.

How could he have let that man, that
monster
, get away?!

Logan noticed the other vehicle, the SUV, was still there, next to where the van had been. Feeling a sudden surge of hope, he got to his feet and rushed over to it. He’d learnt how to hotwire
cars long before he’d joined the JIA. Although car technology had changed beyond recognition in all those years, many were still just as easy to start.