Broken Silence. Liz Mistry
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mentally cursed Archie. Why the hell the secrecy? She wasn’t used to not sharing things with Saj. He was her partner and she trusted him, but Archie was her boss and she trusted him too. Feeling like a shit, she shrugged. ‘Don’t know what you mean. You know what I know.’
‘Okay. If that’s how you’re playing it. Nothing else for us to do here and it’s bloody freezing. Let’s head back … see if we’ve been lucky. Maybe someone else saw something odd. Maybe a van with a dented rear end has been spotted on one of the feeder roads.’
Sighing, Nikki nodded and did a slow circle of the scene. How the hell would Springer survive this? They just had to hope she’d been alive when they took her, but who knew what condition she would be in now. ‘Yep, right, let’s go.’
As they walked together to their vehicles the faint sounds of a helicopter approaching got louder and both Nikki and Sajid placed their hands on their foreheads and followed its progress. ‘Hope they have some luck.’ Her tone betrayed her lack of conviction and once she’d shrugged out of her overalls and got into the car, Nikki waved bye to Sajid, who was already driving down the snowy lane. She flicked her key in the ignition, only to hear a grating sound. Great! Damn battery was dead. She slammed the heel of her hands on the steering wheel and screeched. If there was one thing Nikki hated, it was to ask for help with her car. Stepping back out onto the wet road, she glared at the young PC who approached carrying a set of jump leads and a huge smile. She glowered at him. ‘Just get it started and if this gets round Trafalgar House, I’ll know whose guts to add to my garters, right?’
Running along parallel to the industrial estate, the only sounds Stefan could hear were the wind, the sound of his own breathing and the occasional swoosh of cars as they passed him, their beams lighting up the path in front of him. After the third car passed him, stirring up a flurry of slush and drenched his thin trackie bottoms in the process, Stefan realized he was too visible on the main road. He should have stuck to the periphery of the estate where shadows and bushes offered some cover from any would-be pursuers. He’d just changed direction to head back into the estate via a gap in some bushes when he heard the sound of a larger vehicle approaching. The hairs on the back of his neck sprung up and he dived flat onto his belly. He had no idea if they were after him or not yet, but he couldn’t help feeling on edge. From his prone position on the grass he eyed the van as it neared. It was a white transit and it was driving more slowly than the weather conditions necessitated. Stefan held his breath, praying they wouldn’t see him and, when they continued past the spot where he lay, he exhaled slowly. He was sure it was Bullet and he was equally sure he was looking for him, so it was just as well he’d decided to head back into the estate. How the hell had they been alerted to his absence so quickly? Then he puzzled it out. One of the men he worked beside, slept beside, was a snitch.
He’d just decided that he could risk moving when he heard the sound of a vehicle revving up and sure enough the white transit was revving backwards. In a panic, Stefan crawled over to the gap in the bushes and slid through. He’d just re-entered the estate when he heard the van doors open, followed by frenetic barking and Bullet’s guttural tone breaking through the night.
‘Go get him, boys.’
Shit, they’d brought the bloody dogs. Legs pounding, Stefan tore between buildings looking for some way to escape, the barks and growls growing nearer as he ran. Finally, he saw a huge industrial bin and, wondering if he was sealing his fate, but having no other choice, he pulled himself up, slid the rolling lid back and dropped in on top of a pile of cardboard boxes. After closing the lid, he burrowed to the bottom of the bin, covering himself with layers of cardboard and once more prayed the dogs would lose his scent.
Sounds from outside were muffled and it was difficult to decide if his pursuers were coming any closer or not. He could hear barking and yelling, but it was distorted. The heat generated by the cardboard warmed Stefan up slowly and he began to think that his safest bet was to remain here till the dead of night and then make another bid for freedom. He could catch some sleep and he’d be dry and warm. He smiled. The mere thought of not having to move for a few hours, not having to listen to other peoples’ bodily functions, not having to smell the great unwashed, was like a gift to him. He sighed, reassured by the silence that had descended outside.
A sharp rat-a-tat-tat somewhere near his head shattered his reassurance. Someone was out there banging on the side of the bin. Stefan held his breath and his body stiffened. Maybe it was one of the workers out for a smoke. He strained his ears. He couldn’t hear anything else – no dogs, no voices. Maybe whoever it was had gone.
Then it came – a coarse singsong whisper penetrating the plastic bin – taunting and at the same time chilling him. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are.’
This was followed by ferocious yelping and Stefan knew the game was up. The lid was thrown back and a bright torch shone into the inside. In a last-ditch attempt, Stefan remained still and silent, but it was no good. Whoever shone the torch followed that by pushing a long prod through the layers of cardboard. When it connected with his body, Stefan braced himself not to react, then the electric current from the Taser had him yelping in pain as his entire body shook for a moment and then became numb. Seconds later, two of Bullet’s henchmen dragged him from the bin and flung him in a heap on the wet ground. The dogs salivating and over-excited pranced and jumped close to him, taking the odd nipping bite before they were yanked back by their owners.
‘Oh dear. This makes me very sad, you know. It also makes my boss very sad.’ Bullet tilted his head to one side and laughed. ‘Actually, it doesn’t make him sad so much as angry.’
He waved his phone in the air. ‘He told me to hit you where it hurts and boy, am I going to enjoy doing that.’ He gestured to his thugs who dragged Stefan, feet trailing through the deserted industrial estate to where the transit van waited. As they flung him in and slammed the door shut, Stefan was glad that he was the only one to be punished. He couldn’t bear it if Maria had to suffer any more at the hands of these brutes.
It had taken Xavier over an hour to drive to the old farmhouse in the middle of the moors and it was only courtesy of his police scanner that he’d been able to avoid the patrol cars and the crime scene itself. He took a moment to get in character. His code name, Xavier, made him feel quite sophisticated. Xavier in the X-Men was a visionary … an intellectual … a leader – all the qualities he himself rated highly. He allowed himself a grin as he acknowledged that his aims were more in line with Magneto’s than Xavier’s. It amused him to subvert the idea of a superhero; after all, heroes were all in the eyes of their beholders, weren’t they?
Looking through the windscreen at the snow-covered yard, Xavier’s good humour dissipated a little. The weekend had started off fine … in fact, until this morning, it had been great. The Community Liaison Conference had been amusing. He’d been asked to speak at the session on modern-day slavery and that had given him a buzz. All those people from social services, policing, education, local government, politicians and the like hanging onto his every word. Then there was his down time … that had been satisfying, or rather she’d been satisfying.
When the phone call came, his rage had clouded his mind for a moment. Bloody Stefan Marcovici! Xavier made a point of not knowing their names – too bloody many of them to remember anyway – but Stefan Marcovici had become a risk to the entire operation and so Xavier had to sanction drastic action. That in itself didn’t bother him. No, what bothered him was that he’d not been there to witness it, but Cyclops, his right-hand man was right. Bullet and his cronies could deal with it. In fact, they’d enjoy it. Besides which, he needed to distance himself from this and just as well, because now he had these two fools and their mess to deal with and that was on top of the existing problem of Adam Glass’s betrayal. Seemed like trouble did come in threes, but by the end of the night his minions would have cleaned it all up and it would be back to business