Simon Kernick - Ultimatum

‘Understood.’

‘But if you hear either me or Jones shout the words “This whole thing’s wrong”, you come in straight away with your finger on the trigger because that means we’re in trouble. And you take out anyone who gets in your way.’

Cecil repeated the phrase and grinned. Those were just the kind of instructions he liked. ‘Got it.’

The way Cain was talking left me in no doubt that I was about to cross a major line. If this meeting turned violent and I ended up pulling the trigger, I knew Mike Bolt wouldn’t be able to protect me.

To be honest, I was sorely tempted to jump out of the car then and there, but there were way too many things stopping me, not least the fact that I might end up getting a bullet in the back of the head the moment I opened the door.

Behind me, Cecil finished checking the MP5 before replacing it in the holdall, and slinging it over one shoulder. He gave Cain and me a nod, then disappeared into the night.

We watched him jog down to the end of the road and disappear into the scrub. Above the trees and the flat roofs of the buildings, the tower at Canary Wharf rose up like a glowing finger in the distance, probably not much more than a mile away.

‘You know,’ said Cain after a couple of minutes, ‘the biggest robbers in the country work in there.’ He pointed at the tower. ‘Every day they steal thousands of times what you took from those crack dealers today. And they get away with it. Just like the MPs who fiddle their expenses and line their pockets. Or the pond scum like Alfonse Webber who laugh at the law and the justice system, and get stronger every day because no one’s able to stop them.’ He looked at me, something in his expression asking me for understanding. ‘All I want to do is create a fairer society. One that promotes hard work and decent values. Where the bad guys get punished and the good guys get rewarded. And you’ve got to fight for that. Sometimes it’s a lonely battle, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting. Remember that.’

The frightening thing was, he was right. If you wanted to change the world, you had to stand up and be counted. But that didn’t mean you had to kill civilians. Cain was a twisted individual — a typical extremist, who believed totally in the rightness of his cause, even if it meant killing hundreds of innocent people.

Right then, he sickened me. But I didn’t show it. Instead, I just nodded and told him I agreed.

A phone made an annoying doorbell sound somewhere on Cain’s person. He didn’t even bother taking it out to check it. Instead, he turned on the engine and put the car into gear.

‘You ready?’

I could feel the warm metal of the gun pushing against the small of my back.

‘Always,’ I told him.

17.35

Gina Burnham-Jones didn’t like the position she’d found herself in.

For a long time, she’d truly loved her husband. The fact that he was a soldier had never been ideal. Gina had never fancied herself as an army wife. She’d grown up in a loving family home within the same small Bedfordshire town, with both parents present, and had wanted the same for herself. But you can’t choose who you fall in love with. It just happens. And Jones had just happened. She’d met him in a wine bar in the West End while he’d been on leave and out with friends, and things had just clicked. He was tall and rangy, with model good looks, and eyes that were alive with promise. Even her mum, who’d never been keen on her previous boyfriends, announced that Jones had a really positive aura about him.

In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered what her mother had said. Gina had been besotted, and she and Jones were married within six months. That had been back in 2002, in the summer before the Allied invasion of Iraq. Gina had known that her husband would have to serve away from home sometimes, but at that time it never occurred to her that he’d end up fighting two wars, and that the tall, handsome, laughing man from her wedding day would change irreversibly.

The change had begun after his tour in Iraq, where he’d lost a friend to an IED. After the first tour of Afghanistan, it became even more marked. He stopped laughing. Occasionally Gina would come into a room and find him staring off into space, as if he was on drugs. He had bad dreams where he’d wake up either screaming in fear or shouting with rage. She tried to get him to leave the army, but he’d said it was his life, and that he couldn’t imagine doing any other job. Gina had reluctantly accepted his decision but had also decided she wanted a child to fill the void that was opening up in her life.

Maddie had been born just before Jones went off to Afghanistan on his second tour. It had been a hard time for Gina. She’d suffered from post-natal depression, and her own mum, who would have helped lighten the load, was diagnosed with breast cancer. And with the TV news filled with reports of young soldiers dying in the dusty killing fields of Helmand Province, Gina was in constant fear that her own husband might not be coming back.

When he did, she gave him an ultimatum. Leave the army or lose her.

He left, but things were never the same between them, and their marriage had begun its steady disintegration, shattering completely when he’d been sent to prison.

Even after she’d told Jones it was over, Gina hadn’t dated for a long time. She’d felt too guilty. After all, it wasn’t his fault that he’d become the dark, violent man he now was.

But the fact remained that she no longer loved him, and as a healthy thirty-five-year-old woman she longed for companionship, and a chance to start again.

She’d met Matt on the internet. He was a solid, serious man, ten years older, and very different in personality from how Jones had been in the good old days. But he cared for her, and he made her feel wanted, and she suspected she was beginning to fall in love with him. They’d been seeing each other for six months now, and had kept things very low-key, but Gina knew that soon she was going to have to tell Jones, because she wanted to make things official and have Matt meet Maddie. She’d almost said something to him when she’d seen him earlier, but it hadn’t felt like the right moment. It would have to happen soon, though.

Gina looked at herself in the mirror. The face that looked back at her was still pretty. There were a few lines round the eyes, and crossing her forehead, but nothing that a little foundation couldn’t cure, and she wore the toughness of the last few years well. She wondered whether or not to put on lipstick. She was seeing Matt tonight. He was taking her out to a surprise destination for dinner and had asked her to dress up. She had no idea where it was, but it had been in the diary for weeks and Matt had begged her to keep the night free, and had promised that she’d enjoy it. Thankfully Maddie was feeling better now, and downstairs watching TV, otherwise Gina would have had to cancel it.

In truth, she’d rather not go out, especially if it was into central London, what with the terrorists threatening another bomb attack, but she felt foolish, and maybe even a little cowardly, saying that to Matt. Gina knew how important tonight was for him and, not for the first time, she wondered if he was planning to propose. They’d talked more than once about living together, and the previous week when they’d been lying in each other’s arms in his bed, he’d told her he loved her, and she’d smiled and said ‘I love you’ back. It had felt good saying it too.

She reached for her red lipstick, wondering whether she’d say yes if he asked her to marry him tonight, and smiled to herself, because she knew that she would.