Don't... 04 Backlash (51 page)

“
You have
serious trust issues.” Martin zipped up his suit, making it slow
and with a lowered gaze that said
Did I upset you at some point,
princess
?

Gray kicked at
the back of his knee, forcing him to kneel. The Merc had been
pulled up close to Martin’s left, and Gray forced him down, his
cheek now just inches from the back exhaust still simmering with
heat.

“Remember, you
follow my lead.” Gray pushed him a little closer, forcing Martin to
try and push back from the hot exhaust pipe. “For all your mouth
and intelligence.” Gray came down close to his ear, “you have none
of Jack’s skill when it comes to fighting me.”

He pushed him
away, closed the boot, and got in the unmarked car.

Martin followed
a moment later, rubbing at his cheek. “What,” he said as he got in.
“Still no shafting after a fuck-over like that?”

Gray looked him
up and down. “Seatbelt. It’s the law now.”

Martin gave a
half smile. “You use it when it suits, huh? That law shit?”

Gray shifted
into gear. “Sometimes.”

From Cobbold
Road, Gray took a right onto Warple Way and found his way onto
Acton Pumping Station. Residential homes and industrial units could
be seen in the distance, but the site itself was nothing compared
to the stench. The small blue and white plaque apologising for
anyone “...experiencing odour” from the pumping station didn’t
quite do the scent any justice either.

“Romantic.”
Martin wrinkled his nose. “Those work boots are big in the boot,
yeah? I mean, if you’re getting me deeper into the shit, I at least
want work boots big enough to measure the depth.”

Gray looked at
his watch, keeping an eye on the workplace and the men and women
coming out and getting ready for lunch.

“I really hope
they wash their hands.”

Gray snorted.
That almost sounded like Jack. Almost. It had taken them two hours,
via the stop point and wait for the car, to get here. Andrews
should already be knee-deep. Gray hadn’t wanted the commotion with
extra agents on site but understood that Andrews would have called
in help. It would have been help from close... friends, the sort to
not question why one man would be left and another taken from a
field job, and that was fine by him.

His mobile
phone made itself known, and Gray unzipped his suit to get it out
of his shirt pocket.

“Tunnel and
surrounding area clear of potential threat. I’m bringing out the
boy.”

Andrews. Gray
pulled up the schematics of the site. The unmarked car came plain
enough, but it had MI5 mod cons. “Is the boy okay?”

“Shaken, naked,
but he’s adamant that he wasn’t touched.”

“How far in did
you find him?”

“Construction
had been stopped on the new Thames Tideway tunnel,” said Andrews.
“They were about half a mile in, the second still is. I’ve given
management warning to make sure the tunnel is kept clear whilst
it’s inspected further.”

Gray studied
the layout and found an access point from one of the existing
combined sewerage overflow tunnels. It was a work shaft that would
keep them away from the sewerage tanks but would allow them to get
close enough to the half-mile point.

“Make sure
we’re not stopped,” said Gray as he pushed out of the car, the hood
of his suit covering his face. He sent over details of the access
points they’d be using.

“Department of
Social and Environmental Health Research papers have been issued.
They know you’re due on site.”

Rachel knew
what cords to pull, and when. “Good. Get the boy back to Thames
House home, give him a debrief, then take him to mine. You won’t be
allowed on site until I’m there, so wait with him by security.”

“Understood.”

“Any news on
our MI6 ops?”

“One found.
Reports coming in says he is clear. The second, female, left for
dinner but never showed up.”

“If Kidon has
her, we’re looking for a body. Run stops at Gatwick and other
airports. Get her picture out.”

“Grantham’s on
it, sir.”

“Good. Thank
you.”

Martin appeared
next to him, and after Gray pulled on his protective boots, Martin
followed suit, also making sure his full protective face-mask was
on.

He’d fallen
quiet now, but so too had Gray. What lay in the tunnel had been too
long in coming.

Even the new
construction tunnel had every hallmark of being under
development... cables running underfoot, scaffolding kept up here
and there to offer extra support joints to the brand new circular
concrete works, and the stench from the existing tunnels that still
seeped through the walls. More money and so-called class, they
still smelt the same as the man who lived on the council estate,
but this is where they’d hid the connection since 1858, when an
open sewage system had forced MPs out of the Houses of Parliament,
with delicate handkerchiefs held up to their noses to escape the
clash of the classes via their asses.

Dust particles
glinted in the beams of their helmet lights. They’d made it out of
the workway into the main tunnel fifteen minutes ago, and the long
walk now was dark, dank, and eerily quiet; sometimes intercepted
with a low rumble of traffic over the manholes. Any other tunnel,
the slow trickle of rainwater would run into a thicker sludge now,
and flushers would be down here trying to sort out what humanity
could force down into the toilet: nappies, nylon tights, mobile
phones... the bullets would be cleaned and sent over to the Met.
They had yet to find any alligators, though.

A slight curve
came ahead, and in the distance, a sniff filtered through, as
though someone was crying but trying to hide it.

Martin went to
push ahead, but Gray pulled him behind as they rounded the
bend.

The man who
knelt facing the curve of the tunnel wall was dressed in a light
grey Westwood suit, hands held out wide. Feet were bare: no shoes,
no socks, and both marked Andrews’ typical trademarks. Debris would
cut into the pads of the feet, leaving traceable blood specs to
follow if the subject tried to escape. So no shoes, no socks, but
the snivelling suggested something had also been whispered in the
man’s ear that scared him enough to keep his arms out wide long
after Andrews had left. Or perhaps since Kes had left. The suit,
although a fine class, was days’ old and full of grime and
tears.

If this man had
started in control, something said he hadn’t finished that way.

He wore a
blindfold, and every now and again, the long tie drifting over
heavyset shoulders and down his back would shift with the man’s
sobs. The material looked silk. Foreign.

The scuff of
debris next to where the man knelt showed Sam had been kept there,
facing the wall. Clothes were tagged and bagged in a sack not too
far away, showing he’d been stripped. A second blindfold was tied
to some exposed wiring overhead and Gray reached up and tugged it
down.

“Puh-please...”

Gray looked
down as he slipped the silk blindfold in his suit pocket and took
away the man’s too.

“I know why
you’re here, Raoul.”

Martin shifted
first, grabbing the man and forcing him up to face him.

Gray understood
why Martin backed off a few paces, that confusion lacing his
eyes.

“I don’t know
you.” Martin looked at Gray. “I don’t even know this fuck.”

The man cocked
his head slightly, almost trying to get a look inside the dark
visor covering Martin’s face; he even stepped forward a little.
“Your voice hasn’t changed... I still remember it... Martin.
You—”

Gray took his
feet from underneath him and made sure the man found his ass
amongst the debris when he tried to get a little closer to Martin.
Gray knelt, studying the older man’s face, how the light from his
own helmet forced worried and tear-streaked eyes into rapid blinks.
Gray understood Martin’s confusion, because he didn’t know him
either.

“He... he said
I should tell you.” A hand came up to try and block out the
torchlight from the masks. Fingers were black, but not because of
any dirt. Blisters bubbled on each digit, some on the pads, others
lower down near the knuckle, as if he’d had both hands held down in
hot fat. “He said if I told you, you’d kill me.” A nod was given,
more tears shaken free down a bruised and battered face. “And that
would be the end of it. He’d let my wife go. I... I trusted the
bastard, but he... he....”

Gray reached
down and started to search his pockets. No ID was on the man, no
wallet, nothing. “Name.”

“He knew I’d
found out who Martin was and he was such a gentleman to help work
out plans to get at the codes. He even subsidised most of the
financial backing. The rest came from the buyer he set up; the
money he offered..... I brought Kes in... but didn’t know... didn’t
know he wanted the codes for himself.”

“Not his name.
Yours.”

The man
faltered, trails of slime from his nose running over his lips. A
shaky hand wiped it away. “You... you don’t know me?” Amongst the
tears shone a touch of insult, as though Gray should know him.

“Should I?”

“I pay your MI5
wages.”

Gray raised a
brow. “The Government pays my wages, which would make you....”

“
A
wanker.” Martin sniffed. “Sorry, manners. A Government banker. A
fucking
banker
did
this?”

Gray studied
him for a moment. “One that came across an MI6 list of ops and
decided to sell them on. You no doubt needed the money back then...
young family? Wife? Struggling on government wages? But today...
your suit suggests you don’t need the money, so you must have been
selling on other information from MI5 too. Hm, and just how did you
avoid the Inland Revenue with this new influx of money? I know the
security checks that the government run on their own. Did you get
help with diverting funds?” He leaned forward slightly. “Tell me,
was the money worth it?”

“Back then....
Wrong place, it was the wrong time for all of us.” The banker
flicked a look up to Martin. “MI6 codes were to be sold later that
night, with the money changing hands that would set my family up
with a lovely Villa like Richards Junior. But I needed the funds
that the Richards’ woman held first, the money that would get the
codes to where they needed to be abroad. The money wasn’t stolen;
Mr Richards Senior was meant to launder it from Matheson. Richards’
son took after his father for massaging numbers.”

Matheson. Gray
eased back. The man who had recommended that Jan go to Jack’s
garage, and no doubt the brains behind shifting money around so the
banker’s spending wasn’t noted as a concern by the Inland Revenue.
A report from Andrews said that Matheson had left the country and
was... untraceable. He’d be found eventually.

“But you...”
Hate was spat out as the banker focused back on Martin. “You had to
turn your head and look back that night. You—”

Martin shifted,
a boot coming in for the banker’s head, but Gray grabbed his foot
in the same instance that the banker crumpled into a protective
ball. Martin found his ass as the banker cried out.

“Fucker,”
snarled Martin, but he was soon up and the banker scrambled back,
scuffing up his suit.

“Wrong place,
wrong time,” the banker cried again. “Those working for me, they
were upstairs when you... you...” He looked sick. “When you did
what you did to that young man and his dad, and they waited, just
waited for you to leave. But you heard, and you... you had to look
back, to come upstairs.”

Martin shook
off Gray’s touch. “So you were there.”

“I’m a banker;
it’s London, we’re everywhere here. But not there in person that
night, no. I got to hear about you. I always get to read everything
through banking and numbers... even Mr Raoul’s personal account...
the funding for the MC, then later how they’d both taken a
sociopath under their wing.”