Honour Bound (25 page)

42-

The
taxi drew to a halt in a pool of bright light outside Shadwell underground station.
Norton paid the driver and waited on the pavement, holdall in hand, until the
car disappeared from view. He had left the safe house just after ten o'clock,
walked for about a mile stopping every now and then and reversing his route a
number of times, before flagging down a cruising taxi. It had dropped him off
in the busy Euston Road, a short walk from the entrance to Kings Cross station.
Once inside the sprawling complex, he mingled with late travellers on the main
concourse, gradually making his way through them to the destination board. He
stood in front of it for several minutes as though checking departure times,
while he watched the crowds in the reflection of its huge glass front.

He
crossed the concourse to a busy sales kiosk, giving a wide berth to a small
group of youths playing a noisy game of football with a tin can. Several more
minutes were spent idly thumbing through magazines and casually eyeing the
crowds, checking for anyone seemingly out of place or paying undue attention to
his movements.

Finally
satisfied that no one was following, he walked outside to a row of brightly lit
booths belonging to various car hire firms. He picked the one with the longest
queue, a busy receptionist was the least likely to remember one of many faces,
and fifteen minutes later he was driving east in
Pentonville
Road. A further twenty minutes passed before he parked the hired Ford in a
small car park opposite
Limehouse
police station. He
secured the car and walked the one hundred and fifty yards to Commercial Road
before flagging down the first available taxi.

***

As
soon as the cab was out of sight, he crossed the road into a sprawling housing
estate. The bruised and battered blocks of flats had seen much better days.
Most looked to have been rebuilt, or at least refurbished over the last decade.
But even so, the whole area was no more than a slum. Dim light squeezed through
the many cracked and badly boarded windows as though the blackout was still in
force. In the few windows that had the luxury of curtains, the material sagged
morosely like the sales graph of a bankrupt company. Rubbish bags overflowed
from giant bins in the stairwells and yet more were piled along the walls. In
the car park, a refrigerator on its side and a soiled mattress kept each other
company, like two old vagrants down on their luck. A small brown face, peering
from a cracked and dirty ground floor window, watched Norton as he passed along
the side of a fire station. The child, his face resting on his clenched fists,
seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He
passed through the estate and came out on to the Highway, the road along which
he had followed Joey Williams three days before. Only three days, he thought,
it seemed more like three weeks. After waiting for several cars to pass, he
crossed the road and walked into Wapping Lane, heading south towards the river.
He turned a corner into the High Street and after a few yards, ducked into the
darkness of an alleyway. The comforting sound of water lapping gently against
the riverbank played gently along the length of the unlit passage. A few yards
from the road a flight of slippery steps angled down to a small, long abandoned
landing stage. Norton set the holdall down and stripped off the windcheater and
shoulder holster. He took the body armour from the holdall and slipped it over
his head, settling the armoured sections comfortably against his chest, stomach
and back before securing the Velcro fasteners at the sides. He replaced the
holster, readjusted the strap to fit over the body armour, and secured the
sheath with the two throwing knives to the inside of his left wrist. After
putting the night vision glasses into a special side pocket in the armour he
made a few adjustments for maximum comfort then put the windcheater on and
zipped it up. He picked up the holdall, its only occupant the pump action
shotgun, and stepped back into the light of the High Street.

Two
hundred yards along the road, just beyond where it made a right angled turn
away from the river, ran a knee-high stone wall with thick iron railings rising
a further ten feet like a line of hunting spears. The railings were there
purely for decoration he noted, not to keep anybody out, because breaking the
neat line of the sandstone wall was an arched gateway with a black and yellow
automatic barrier that rose eighteen inches out of the ground. While it would
prevent any unauthorized vehicles from entering, a person could step around it
into the neatly laid out car park of Seymour Wharf.

The
car park, surrounded with tall sodium floodlights, edged up to a yellow-bricked
building of enormous proportions. The ground floor lights were ablaze behind a
long glass frontage, and off to the left, towards the river, more lights were
showing behind a series of fire doors. Hidden spotlights in the reception area
singled out a family of giant Yucca plants that took up at least a quarter of
the available space. A security guard sat at a desk near the plants, his head
bowed as if sleeping or studying something on the desk in front of him. High
above the main entrance 'SEYMOUR WHARF' was in tall illuminated letters and
above that, a single massive sheet of tinted glass filled the triangle formed
by the eaves of the roof.

Norton
had questioned Sarah in detail about the warehouse before leaving the safe
house. Holmes, she had told him, had a penthouse suite in the roof space,
constructed while the warehouse was under renovation. The only access to it
from inside was via a lift, and from the outside, a fire door at the top of a spiral
staircase anchored to the building. The fire door, she said, could only be
opened from inside and was alarmed. From where he was standing, he could see
the staircase. He wouldn’t need it to get in, but it might have its uses for
getting out. 

He
had coaxed her to explain in detail about the dock area, storage rooms and the
number of security people who would be there. With the information firmly in
his mind, he strolled towards the gate.

-43-

The
atmosphere in the penthouse suite had become tense. The air seemed to have
thickened since the telephone call half an hour before. The two bodyguards sat
opposite each other in recliners next to the television set. Normally they
would be flicking through the satellite channels to find something decent to
watch, but because of the call, and the look that had settled on the face of
Peter Holmes before he turned to stare out of the window, they had decided
against it. Both now sat with their arms folded trying to avoid each other’s
eyes.

A
flashing red light indicating an internal line accompanied the insistent purr
of the telephone. “What the hell is it now,” Holmes said to no one in
particular, “more shitty news I suppose.”

Langdon
had called earlier to inform him Shepherd's hit team had failed in their efforts
to eliminate Norton. That irritating bastard has used up a truckload of luck so
far, he'd thought
,
it’s got to run out soon. Only one
of the team had survived, but was in intensive care, he had felt little concern
on hearing that. His only comment to Langdon had been, “if they were as good as
they thought they were they'd all be partying now.”

He
was annoyed that this Norton character was still alive, but for now, he would
have to wait. Tomorrow was the big day, and there were still a few things to do.
But after that, Sam Norton would have his full attention. He would make sure he
died, and slowly, fed feet first into the incinerator would be ideal.

He
patted the beads of perspiration from his face with a folded handkerchief
before turning the chair away from the window and back towards the desk.
"Yes." he said, picking up the receiver.

"Mr.
Holmes," a voice said, "it's Peter Greaves here, down in the range.
Just ringing to let you know the assault team's here for the final
practice."

Both
Greaves and Holmes had thought it a good morale boosting idea for him to visit
the assault team during the last practice session. Mainly it was to confirm
payment arrangements and secondly to assuage any financial fears if the worst
should happen.

"I'll
be down in five minutes," Holmes said. Then asked, "What security
arrangements have you made for the next hour?"

"There's
one man on the reception desk and two others doing a roving patrol. Two of your
bodyguards are covering the basement car park and the dock access area. All the
external doors, other than the reception have been deadlocked so if anyone
wants to pay us a visit they'll have to come through the front."

“Okay,”
Holmes said, “sounds tight, I'll be down shortly.”

He
locked his desk and nodded at the bodyguards, both of whom were relieved to be
doing something. All three rose and entered the waiting lift.

***

The
large glass doors closed quietly behind Norton as he walked through the entrance
into the reception area. The guard looked up from behind the desk and placed a
pornographic magazine he’d been thumbing through face down on the blotter. He
sighed as if annoyed by the intrusion and stood up to face Norton as he
approached, looking him up and down while his hand hovered near the lapel of
his jacket.

"Now
mate," he said, "what do you want?"

"I've
brought something for your boss," Norton replied, raising the holdall for
the guard to see.

"I've
had no instructions about any visitors. I suggest you come back tomorrow. He'll
probably see you then."

In
the short taxi journey between
Limehouse
and
Shadwell, Norton had thought about the reception he would receive when he came
face to face with more of Holmes' men. He had thought through a number of
possible scenarios but he had not considered this one. He assumed that his
description had been passed throughout the organisation, but if this man had
received a briefing then it had gone right over his head.   

Norton
studied the guard. He was thickset with very little neck, and a shaven head
shaped like a bullet. In his suit, which was a size too small, probably to
enhance his physique, he would have looked more at home by the door of a
nightclub than behind a reception desk.

He
decided to play a waiting game. He said nothing, just stared at the guard.
Somewhere on the desk would be a panic button, more than likely underneath, so
it could be pressed with a knee with little outward movement. If there was a
button, he wanted the guard as far away from it as possible before taking any
action.

As
if on cue, a section of the reception desk opened and the guard stepped
through, crossing the carpeted floor towards him. "What are you," he
said, "deaf or something, I said go. There's the door, now fucking use
it." 

Norton
stayed where he was, silent, watching the man approach.

"Get
out of here before I throw you out," he said, voice raised, visibly
annoyed.

As
the guard moved closer, he began clenching and unclenching his fists, a
threatening gesture trying to intimidate Norton into leaving under his own
steam. He reached Norton, put his hand on his shoulder to propel him towards
the door, and realized his mistake as soon as he made contact with the body
armour.

In
a single fluid motion, Norton dropped the holdall and drove his fingers,
extended and rigid, into the guard’s solar plexus. The air rushing from his
lungs was the only sound as he sank slowly to his knees. Norton put his hand
under the guards chin, pulled his head back and chopped the exposed throat with
the edge of his hand. He checked the man's pulse before dragging the
unconscious bundle across the floor and through the opening in the reception
desk. He took a Browning semi automatic from the guards holster, checked it was
loaded, and pushed it into the pocket of his windcheater. "May as well
start collecting these bloody things," he said to the unconscious man as
he searched first him and then the desk drawers for any extra ammunition.
Finding none, he took the shotgun from the holdall and walked to the bank of
lifts.

***

Peter
Holmes and his bodyguards each took a pair of ear defenders from a rack on the
wall next to the door and put them on before entering the range. Six men were
already on the firing point, five more standing at a large wooden table loading
spare magazines. At the sound of a whistle blast, the men on the point fired
their weapons at the targets hanging from the ceiling twenty metres away.
Holmes watched with morbid interest as the nine millimetre bullets ripped
through the life-sized cardboard cut-outs. On two of the positions the targets
were cut jaggedly in half, one severed completely, a portion of it falling
silently to the floor, whilst the lower half of the second hung by a sliver of
cardboard. The remaining four targets were peppered with a myriad of holes.

Greaves
stepped out of the control room after turning the targets edge on to the firing
point and took off his ear defenders, motioning to the other eleven men of the
assault team to do the same. Holmes removed his and stepped towards the men to
address them. "That was an impressive display," he said, nodding his
head towards the punctured targets. He waited until all of team gathered round
in a half circle. "You men," he continued, "have worked for me
for a long time. You've always shown respect and loyalty, and that's why you've
been selected to earn a good bonus for the job tomorrow. You all know me, and
you all know that I never mince words, and I'm not going to start now."

He
looked around the faces of the team, some expectant some non-committal. But to
a man, their eyes never left his. "In tomorrow’s operation," he said,
"the targets won't be cardboard they'll be flesh and blood. And though the
likelihood is small, they could be shooting back."

Again,
he looked around the faces. Not one pair of eyes tried to avoid contact. They
had drilled repeatedly for the final phase of the operation and none expected
to die in the coming hours. If the plan ran as it should, then complete
surprise would be achieved, and the opposition wouldn’t get a chance to fire
their weapons. The men, for reasons of their own, accepted the plan as
foolproof. Nothing, in their minds, was going to go wrong.

Holmes
softened his voice, causing some of the men to strain to hear it. "Because
of the obvious dangers involved tomorrow, all of you are being paid extremely
well for your extra services. And because of your loyalty to me, I will give
you all a further guarantee. Should any one of you be injured," he had
decided not to use the more likely word of killed, "in the coming hours, I
will personally make sure that your families don't suffer with financial
problems." The gathered faces saw a rare smile crease Holmes' face.
"But enough of the doom and gloom," he said, "owing to the
excellent planning of this operation it's a guarantee I won't have to
honour."

A
ripple of humour bustled through the gathered men.   

He
paused until there was quiet. "Gentlemen, I have kept you long enough.
I'll get out of your way and let you carry on with your practising. I wish you
all the very best of luck."

One
of the team members at the front of the group raised his MP5 sub machine gun
into the air and shouted, "This'll bring us a big slice of luck
tomorrow."

His
colleagues who waved their MP5’s in unified support, cheered him noisily. The
cheering and laughter followed Holmes and his bodyguards through the range
door. Once in the corridor, the sound from the range muted by the thickness of
the door, Holmes said to the two men, addressing neither in particular,
"Get the car,
let’s
get out of here."