The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (43 page)

The boy stood by the sink and rinsed the plate clean before putting it on the draining board. He winced as he heard his mother moan upstairs. The boy had asked his father why the doctor didn’t take her into hospital, and his father had said that it was because there wasn’t anything more that could be done. The boy had spent hours on his knees, praying to God, praying for Him to end his mother’s torment, but it hadn’t done any good. The boy didn’t believe in God any more. He didn’t believe in God and he didn’t believe in doctors.

       
His mother’s medicine was wrapped in a dish cloth at the back of the larder. The boy had seen his father put the bottle of tablets there after taking out his mother’s night-time dose. The boy had asked his father why he didn’t give her more of the tablets so that she wouldn’t cry so much, and he had explained that it was because too many would be bad for her.

       
The boy wiped his hands on a tea-towel, poured milk into a tall glass and put it on a tray. Upstairs his mother groaned, a deep, throaty sound that made the boy shiver. He opened the larder door and took out the bottle of tablets. He weighed the bottle in the palm of his hand as he read the label. It warned that no more than twelve tablets should be taken each day. He tried counting how many there were but he kept losing track. There were at least sixty. He put the bottle on the tray next to the glass of milk and carefully carried it upstairs.

       
His mother looked towards the door as he walked into the bedroom. She had her knees drawn up to her chest again and was hugging a hot water bottle to her stomach. The boy took the tray to the bedside table. His mother stared at the bottle of tablets as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing. She slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position, grunting with each movement. The boy watched silently. She didn’t look like his mother any more. There were dark bags under her eyes, her hair was damp and sticking to her face and her lips were crusted with brown stuff. And she was thin, thinner than the boy thought a person could be without being a skeleton. He handed her the glass of milk and she took it with her left hand. Her eyes stayed on the bottle of tablets as he unscrewed the cap and poured a dozen or so into the palm of his hand. She reached over and put a claw-like hand on his arm. The nails were yellow and brittle and the skin was so pale he could almost see through it. He held out one of the tablets and she took it from him. He watched as she put it to her lips. The tablet disappeared into her mouth and she swallowed. He gave her another tablet. And another. After the fifth she took a sip from the glass of milk. She smiled and he gave her another tablet. ‘How many do you want?’ he asked. It was the first time he’d spoken since entering the room.

       
His mother shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. He held out another one and she took it. She swallowed six more before taking another drink of milk.

       
‘Do you feel better?’ he asked as he shook more tablets into his hand.

       
She nodded and took another tablet. The boy watched her eat the tablets as if they were sweets and wondered why he didn’t feel sad any more. The bottle was half empty. His mother sighed and leaned back on the pillows. ‘You’re a good boy,’ she said. ‘You’re a good boy for helping me.’ There were deep lines around her mouth that made her look like the old women whom he saw sitting in the park feeding breadcrumbs to pigeons.

       
‘Dad’s going to be mad,’ he said, his voice little more than a whisper.

       
‘He won’t be mad,’ she said. Her eyelids seemed heavy, as if she was having trouble keeping them open. ‘Will you do something for me?’ she asked, holding out the glass.

       
‘Of course,’ he said, taking it and putting it on the tray.

       
‘Tell your dad that I love him,’ she said. Her voice sounded suddenly stronger, more like the mother he remembered, more like the way she was before she got sick.

       
‘I will,’ the boy promised. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’ He crossed himself solemnly.

       
‘You’re not going to die,’ she said, and swallowed another tablet. ‘Not for a long, long time. Just tell your dad what I said, okay?’ The boy nodded and held out more tablets. His mother took them and touched them one at a time as if she was counting them. ‘Why don’t you go downstairs and watch television?’ she said.

       
‘But  . . .’

       
‘I’ll be okay now,’ she said.

       
The boy leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She smelled of sick and something else, something he couldn’t identify. It wasn’t his mother’s normal smell.

       
‘It’s time for you to go now,’ she said. She slurred her words and she was having to fight to keep her eyes open. He slid off the bed and left the room without looking back.

Martin guided the large Mercedes to a stop at the intersection with the main road and waited for a gap in the traffic. A red Golf was parked by the side of the road and the couple inside were bent over a map and arguing. Cramer smiled to himself as he remembered what a struggle map-reading and navigation had been for him. Compared with negotiating his way across the Falklands in total darkness, a drive through the Welsh countryside was an absolute breeze. A truck full of sheep rattled by and Martin turned right and followed it.

       
Cramer had a sudden thought. ‘Allan, where exactly are we?’ he asked.

       
‘A couple of miles from Swansea Airport,’ Allan replied.

       
‘So the Brecon Beacons are where?’

       
Allan shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Thirty miles or so to the north-east.’ He turned around and grinned. ‘Do you want to go back and relive old times?’

       
Cramer snorted softly. ‘I don’t think I could finish the Long Drag these days, never mind do it on time. I was just wondering. I guess I’d lost track of where I was, that’s all.’ Cramer sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Hell, it was a lifetime ago. The Brecon Beacons was where the SAS tested its men almost to destruction. Deaths weren’t unknown on the barren, windswept mountains, and the most demanding of the tests was a sixty-kilometre solo march which had to be completed in under twenty hours. The Long Drag, they called it, or the Fan Dance, after the highest peak, Pen-y-fan. It wasn’t just endurance that was tested, but navigation skills and something deeper. Without an inner drive, without a burning desire to succeed, the Long Drag was an insurmountable barrier. Cramer had completed his solo march in a little over eighteen hours, despite getting lost twice. So much had changed since he’d arrived at the final checkpoint and been slapped on the shoulders and told that he’d earned his winged dagger badge. They’d poured hot coffee down his throat and helped him into the back of a truck and he’d never been happier, never been prouder of what he’d achieved. So much had changed since then. He’d seen men die, he’d been tortured, and he’d killed. The young man who’d fought back the tears of joy at being allowed into the regiment hadn’t cried for more than ten years. It was hard for Cramer to determine exactly what emotions he did feel these days. Anger sometimes. Certainly not happiness. Fear? No, he wasn’t afraid. He’d been through too much to be afraid. He wasn’t scared of death, he was sure of that. He’d faced death before and he’d been responsible for the deaths of others, and he knew he was being honest when he said that the thought of no longer being alive didn’t worry him. What scared him was dying. He didn’t want to die a shrivelled husk of the super-fit human being he’d once been, a lifetime ago. He would always be grateful to the Colonel for offering him that, the chance to die like a warrior.

       
‘Here we are, Mr  Vander Mayer.’ Allan’s voice jarred Cramer out of his reverie.

       
‘Huh?’ Cramer grunted, rubbing his eyes.

       
‘I said we’ve arrived, Mr  Vander Mayer.’

       
Cramer realised that Allan was using Vander Mayer’s name deliberately, so that Cramer would get used to answering to it. ‘Great,’ Cramer replied. He smiled at Su-ming. She hadn’t expressed surprise at hearing her boss’s name, so Cramer guessed that she’d already been briefed by the Colonel.

       
Martin showed his paperwork to a bored security guard and they were waved through to the apron. Cramer whistled when he saw the plane. It was a gleaming Lear jet, the stairway down and two uniformed pilots standing to attention at the bottom. ‘They’ve been briefed,’ said Allan before Cramer could speak. ‘And don’t worry – they’ve been checked out.’

       
‘They have been with Mr  Vander Mayer for more than five years,’ said Su-ming.

       
The Mercedes came to a halt by the side of the jet. Cramer stayed in his seat until Martin climbed out and opened the door for him. Allan went up the stairs first, disappeared into the plane and after a few seconds reappeared and waved to Martin. Cramer went up, followed by Su-ming and with Martin bringing up the rear, carrying the pack of sandwiches and the Thermos flask. The pilots nodded a greeting to Cramer, but he could see that they were weighing him up, trying to work out what sort of man was taking the place of their boss.

       
Cramer ducked inside the fuselage and stared at the interior. It was more luxurious than any first-class cabin he’d ever been in. The windows were as large as those in a train, there were half a dozen seats each as big as an armchair, and at the rear was a matching leather sofa facing a walnut cabinet which held a large television and video recorder. Thick grey carpet covered the floor and Cramer’s shoes sank into it as he walked into the centre of the plane. ‘There is a bathroom and shower beyond the galley,’ said Su-ming. ‘The sofa converts into a double bed if needed.’

       
‘How the other half lives,’ said Martin.

       
‘Sure beats a Hercules,’ agreed Allan.

       
One of the pilots closed the hatch as the other disappeared into the cockpit. ‘At this point I’m supposed to give you a full briefing, but I reckon we’ve all been through this before so I’ll just tell you to keep your belts on during takeoff and landing and wish you a pleasant flight.’ He followed his colleague into the cockpit.

       
Cramer sat down in one of the huge leather chairs and buckled his seatbelt. Su-ming dropped into the seat next to him.

       
‘Hey, Su-ming, what time does the in-flight movie start?’ asked Martin.

       
‘No movies,’ said Su-ming, taking him seriously.

       
The two jet engines whined and then roared into life, and a minute or so later the plane began to roll across the tarmac. Cramer took several deep breaths. He could feel the adrenalin surging through his body, so much so that he felt almost lightheaded. It was all starting to come together.

‘Now what?’ asked Marie as Lynch watched the Lear jet power down the runway. The jet soared into the air, climbed steeply, and then banked to the right. Within seconds it had disappeared into the clouds.

       
‘Give me the pen, quick,’ said Lynch. He repeated the jet’s registration number to himself, then quickly scribbled it down on the corner of the map when Marie handed him the pen. ‘I can find out where they’re going,’ he explained.

       
‘The same guy who told you they were in Wales?’ Lynch nodded. ‘Then what?’

       
Lynch smiled at her eagerness. ‘That depends where he’s gone, love.’

       
‘I’d put my money on London,’ said Marie.

       
‘Yeah? Why?’

       
‘It’s a British-registered jet, and it was heading east. Could be Europe, though, I suppose.’

       
‘How do you know it’s British?’

       
‘The first letter of the registration was G, right? All British registered planes start with a G.’

       
‘How do you know that?’

       
She patted him on the thigh. ‘I went out with a pilot for a while,’ she said. ‘Let’s go use the phone. I want to call the office and say that I’ll be off for another couple of days.’

       
‘You’re staying, then?’ asked Lynch, tearing off the piece of map on which he’d written the number.

       
‘Oh yes, Dermott. I’m sticking to you like shit to a cow’s tail.’

       
‘Nice analogy,’ said Lynch. He put the car in gear and drove to the short-stay car park. After they’d parked, Lynch tucked his gun under the front seat.

       
They found a bank of call booths in the departures terminal. Lynch went through his pockets and pulled out a handful of change. He dialled McDonough’s work number. A woman answered and at first she was reluctant to get McDonough, but Lynch told her that his car had been involved in an accident. He pushed two pound coins into the slot as he waited. When McDonough came to the phone, he was clearly worried. ‘Who is this?’ he asked.

       
‘Easy, Luke,’ said Lynch. ‘It’s me. Dermott.’

       
McDonough’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘What the fuck are you doing calling me here?’ he said.

       
‘I need a favour,’ said Lynch.

       
‘You said it was a one-off,’ said McDonough.

       
‘It was,’ said Lynch. ‘And I wouldn’t have called you if this wasn’t important. Jets file flight plans, right?’