Джеймс Паттерсон - Revenge

This was where his need to know the truth and his sense of duty had brought him: her in the hospital, him off to meet Chechens. Jesus .

He started the car.

CHAPTER 56

GRANDFATHER’S CAR PULLED into the car park of the MOT & Service Center, where his driver knew better than to attempt to offer a hand, waiting patiently for Grandfather to climb out.

The driver unlocked the service center door. Lights inside the reception area flicked on as Grandfather led the way through reception, through the office area and then into the workshop. Here the lights were already on, the place empty of its usual clinking-clanking industry, the machine shop door at the end closed with its chain and padlock fastening hanging loose.

Grandfather stood slightly to one side in order to allow his chaperone to open the door, and then together they entered the room.

His face fell. He had rather hoped the woman would already be in place, but although the chair was in situ there was no sign of a subject. At least his instruments were there, laid out on the table: scalpel, surgical saw, pliers.

He was about to make his way over to the table and take a seat when he felt arms grasp him roughly from behind. “Hey—” he started to say as the first man was joined by a second and he was lifted bodily, dragged to the chair, and shoved down. In a routine that he himself had witnessed many times before, the men fastened him to the chair.

“What are you doing?” he said with no hint of fear or surprise in his voice, because he had always half expected that something like this might happen. “Who is behind this?”

His answer came as one of the men dragged across a second chair and set it up in front of him. A silver laptop was placed on the chair and opened. The man fiddled for a while before an image resolved.

“Full screen, make it full screen,” said another. Now Grandfather could see who was behind this role reversal.

It was Sergei. At the other end of the link he sat and dispassionately surveyed a scene that he had presumably masterminded. More than ever now, Grandfather was pleased that he had made Ivan Vinitsky suffer. Now he understood it was Sergei’s intention to make him suffer in return, to avenge his brother, but—and here Grandfather smiled—they would not have the stomach to inflict the kind of pain that was his specialty. They were too weak for that.

“Hello, Ded ,” said his grandson’s second in command over the link. “All has gone according to my plan, I see.”

“Your brother begged,” snarled Grandfather. A grin split his lips despite himself, despite his situation.

“As will you, Ded , as will you,” Sergei assured him. “Now, where shall we start? Is everything ready?”

“Yes, boss,” said one of the men.

“Tell us, Ded , where should we begin?” asked Sergei politely.

“The nipples,” croaked Grandfather. “I always start with the nipples.”

He looked into the eyes of the man who had betrayed him as they cut off his sweater and then sliced his nipples away. And when that was over, he told them, “Next . . . next, the ears.”

Sergei shook his head in disgust and closed his laptop, leaving a black screen to watch the rest of the old man’s torture.

CHAPTER 57

RIGHT, THOUGHT SHELLEY. He had just enough time to get to Millharbour across the river, a journey he had to make quickly, but without attracting attention from the cops. In his favor: he had an hour. Points against? This was London and you never went anywhere fast.

As he drove he watched Canary Wharf Tower grow in his windshield, steam rising from its pyramid roof, the aircraft-warning light blinking on and off hypnotically. Soon enough he had passed it, and he knew he was close to Millharbour. Now it was as though he were in its shadow.

Funny, he thought as he traveled, he had been brought up not far from here, in Limehouse, but it might as well have been another country for all he recognized it. In his time it was abandoned dockyards. There were no towers, just neglected cranes. He’d gone away, joined the army at seventeen, and when he returned the London he knew had gone.

As he left Canary Wharf behind, the elevated tracks of the railway line—the Docklands Light Railway—rose to his left, tracing his journey as the gleaming office blocks eventually gave way to the more modest units at the far end of Millharbour, all of which backed onto a less picturesque and therefore less expensive section of the River Thames.

Here there was little to no traffic. The main reason anybody had to be in this area was to work at one of the office blocks or factory units, and most of those were shut for the night, workers tucked up in bed.

And then he came to it, the road he needed. He hadn’t realized the last time he’d come—something to do with being cooped up in the back of a van—but it was a cul-de-sac. On one side was a row of office units, on the other a patch of land fenced off, signs promising more office units to come.

Further down the road he saw that three of the units were burned-out shells, and parked close to them, in the middle of the road facing toward him, was a black Jeep Cherokee, headlights on half beam. Shelley stopped. A stretch of road lay between his Mini and the Cherokee.

Taking a look around, it struck him that with the undeveloped site on one side and the cover of the burned-out buildings on the other, they were shielded from view. Anybody coming down here would be doing so by accident. The other units were vacant, so with Foxy Kittenz and the building next door out of commission, there was literally no reason for anyone to use this road.

He switched off the engine and then reached into his trousers to drag out his phone, about to dial Dmitry when it rang in his hand.

“Hello?” he said, raising it to his ear.

“Hello? Is that Captain Shelley?”

“It is.”

Pause. “I mean to say, is that Captain Shelley whose car I am looking at?”

Shelley flashed his lights twice.

“One, two, three in a row, please, just to satisfy me.”

Shelley did as he was asked.

“And you have come alone?”

“It’s in our interests to keep up our end of the bargain, Dmitry. I only hope you feel the same.”

In the rearview mirror he saw the shape of a black Transit van about a hundred yards at his six. They were boxing him in.

“Who’s that behind?” he said sharply. “Is that your men?”

“Why, yes, of course. There is a need to prevent anybody accidentally using the road, no? We do not want to be disturbed.”

Okay , thought Shelley. Stay frosty. He’s making sense.

On the other hand, they could be blocking the road to stop Shelley and Susie leaving.

But no. Everything so far pointed to Dmitry wanting a smooth exchange. Shelley had to go with his gut on this one.

“Well then, Captain, would I be right in assuming you have brought the necessary details you need to make the transfer?”

“I need to know something first,” said Shelley.

Dmitry sighed. “Really?”

“Just humor me.”

“Go on.”

“Emma’s death,” said Shelley. “You said you weren’t involved . . .”

“And I wasn’t.”

“. . . but what about someone else in your organization?”

“You see,” said Dmitry, “this is what I am trying to tell you, Captain Shelley. This is what you don’t understand. There are two types of people in this world. There are the bosses, and there are those who have bosses.

“The bosses, there are very few of them, and they’re people like Mr. Drake, who answer to no one and nothing, not even the law. And it is their attacks of pride, their whims, to which we must attend. They are the reason we find ourselves in positions such as this one.