Simon Kernick - Ultimatum

17.37

The place we were meeting was as deserted as anywhere you were going to get in London. You reached it down a winding side road right at the end of the industrial estate, which finished at a pair of heavily padlocked high-mesh gates with a large CLOSED sign stuck on one of them. A light glowed dimly in a Portakabin just inside the entrance but that was the only sign of life.

We waited for a few seconds, and then a shifty-looking, unshaven guy smoking a cigarette appeared in the headlights on the other side of the gate as he checked out the car. He wore a heavy donkey jacket with bright green illumination strips that may or may not have concealed a gun.

‘Recognize him?’ I asked Cain.

‘Never seen him before. He’ll just be muscle.’ Cain got out and went to speak to the guy, leaving the engine running.

I knew this was my last chance. I could jump in the driver’s seat and drive off before either of them had a chance to react.

But I didn’t. I just sat there waiting as the guy silently unlocked the gates and Cain came back to the car.

We drove slowly inside and I watched in the wing mirror as the gates were shut and locked again, effectively trapping us inside. A potholed track led through a graveyard of burnt-out vehicles and huge tangled heaps of crushed metal, rising up on each side of us.

‘Have you been here before?’ I asked Cain, my words breaking the silence.

‘No,’ he answered, without looking at me, and I could see that, although he was trying to hide it, he was uneasy too.

The track stopped in front of a large single-storey building with its double doors open and light flooding out from inside. Cain parked next to a Ford Transit van, which looked to be the only driveable vehicle in the whole yard, and we got out. There was a strong odour of acetylene, engine oil, and something else too — similar to chip-shop fat — that made me want to gag. I looked around, searching for a glimpse of Cecil and his MP5 amid all the crap, but there was no sign of him. In fact there was no sign of anyone. Somewhere off in the distance I could hear the rhythmic rumble of a commuter train as it gathered speed, and once again I had this uneasy feeling that this could all be a trap, and that the whole point of bringing me here was to kill me.

I pulled my jacket down to conceal the gun, and joined Cain at the front of the car.

‘OK, let’s go,’ he said. ‘And remember, I do the talking. You just do the strong, silent routine.’

We walked side by side through the building’s double doors, moving carefully as if we were back on patrol in the wilds of Afghanistan, and stopped just inside. The room was big and window less, one side lined with floor-to-ceiling shelving containing everything from copper piping to car radios, the other side dotted with newly arrived cars, some up on raised platforms, and various bits of machinery. An ancient-looking desk and chairs sat at the far end of the room, beyond which was an open door; and it was through this door that two men now emerged, both dressed in leather jackets and jeans — one small, the other large and powerfully built.

‘Hey, Mr Cain, glad you could make it,’ the small one called out as he and his friend started towards us. His accent was eastern European.

‘Good to see you, Dav,’ said Cain. ‘Have you got what we’ve come for?’

‘I have,’ answered Dav. ‘Have you got our payment?’

Cain grinned. ‘Course I have. You know me. I’m a man of my word.’

The two men, both Albanians by the look of them, stopped in front of us. Dav was somewhere in his forties, with a pinched, heavily lined face and long, straggly hair that had been dyed black by someone who didn’t care much about the quality of his work. He was grinning, showing teeth that looked like they needed some serious investment, and there was the malevolent gleam of the sadist in his eyes. Straight away I was on my guard. The other man, who looked like he was about to burst out of his leather jacket, was a lot younger, and by the way he was standing back, he was Dav’s bodyguard.

Dav and Cain shook hands.

‘If you’re holding two hundred K, you’re hiding it well,’ said Dav, still grinning.

‘It’s near here. You can have it as soon as I’ve checked out the goods.’

Dav nodded. ‘Sure. Come this way then, guys.’

He motioned for us to follow him, and I’d just started to relax a little when a mobile phone started ringing. It was Dav’s, and he pulled it out of his leather jacket, frowning down at the screen. ‘Excuse me for a second, Mr Cain. I need to take this.’ He walked away from us, talking quietly on the phone in Albanian, while the rest of us stood in vaguely uncomfortable silence.

‘Everything all right?’ asked Cain when Dav had ended the call.

‘Sure,’ said Dav, but something in his tone didn’t ring true. ‘Business problems. I just need to make one more call.’

I exchanged glances with Cain as Dav walked further away, his back to us. Cain shrugged, as if there was nothing to worry about. And maybe there wasn’t, but I could feel a tingling in the base of my spine that reminded me of the feeling I used to get out on patrol in Helmand, where danger lurked round every corner.

Dav finished the call and replaced the phone in his leather jacket. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, coming back over. This time he was staring at me. ‘So who’s your friend, Mr Cain? I’ve never seen him before.’

‘He’s one of my people. He’s good.’

‘Yeah? Is that right? How long you known him?’

I saw that Cain was frowning, and the tingling in my spine suddenly got a whole lot worse. ‘Long enough. Why?’

‘Look, what the hell is this?’ I demanded. ‘If you’ve got a problem with me, you ask me about it. Not him.’

Dav’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yeah, I got a problem. A real problem.’

‘What’s happened?’ asked Cain, sounding confused.

But before Dav could answer, I heard movement to my left. I swung round, instinctively going for my gun, as a guy holding a pump-action shotgun appeared in the gap between two of the shelf units, while at the same time the guy who’d let us in at the gates appeared at the double doors behind us. He too was holding a shotgun.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Dav told me, taking a step back so he was out of the shotguns’ line of fire.

My fingers were touching the pistol in my waistband, but right away I knew I was never going to be able to hit both gunmen before one of them blew a very large hole in me. Even if they were crap shots, they’d be hard pushed to miss from the range they were at, and I couldn’t rely on Cain, a man I’d only known for a few hours. I moved my hand away from the gun.

‘What the hell’s going on, Dav?’ demanded Cain, who’d also made the sensible decision not to go for his own gun.

‘That call I just had was from a good friend of mine,’ said Dav, bringing out a pistol from under his jacket, which he pointed at us. ‘The man we deal with over here, a guy called Brozi, has been arrested. You know anything about that?’

Cain looked completely caught out by this revelation. ‘Of course not. We’re here to buy the merchandise we talked about.’

‘Brozi’s a careful guy. The only way he gets caught is if someone set him up.’

‘Look, I only ever deal with him by phone. I couldn’t even tell you what he looks like. And I only spoke to him to confirm this meeting a couple of hours ago.’ There was a long silence as both men sized each other up. Then Cain spoke again. ‘We’ve done business before. You know you can trust me.’

‘We have. But him.’ Dav flicked his head dismissively in my direction. ‘Him I don’t fucking trust.’