The Pulsar Files, page 26
part #1 of Matt Flynn Series
She walked over and switched off the light and closed the door as if leaving the room. Instead, she walked to the kitchen window and listened. The sound of movement outside was clearer now; people were out there. She lifted the side of the blind a little and looked out. Two figures were making their way to the back of the house.
Louise left the kitchen and searched the hall table for her phone. She found it moments before it started to ring.
‘Hello.’
‘Louise it’s Matt. Don’t talk, listen. Men, I don’t know how many, have been sent by Dragon to recover Chris’s laptop.’
‘I know,’ Louise said, ‘I’ve just seen them outside.’
‘What? Damn. I’m tempted to tell you to leave the bloody thing on the doorstep but no, I won’t give them the satisfaction; they’ve got Chris.’
‘What! We thought he was down in the Orangery.’
‘Where?’
‘A place in the grounds; it doesn’t matter. Did you see him? Is he all right?’
‘Daniel Leppo, the Dragon Security guy, had been interrogating him and beat him up before we arrived. He drove off with Chris before we could stop him.’
‘That’s terrible.’
‘Two of my team are on their way to Windsor and will be with you in about fifteen to twenty minutes. In the meantime, I want everyone to hide in the cellar.’
‘I will. I need to go and find Lisa. Bye Matt, thanks for warning us.’
She was about to run upstairs when she saw Lisa walking down.
‘Chris isn’t in his room but his laptop’s still there, so he must have gone out for a walk. What’s wrong with you, Louise? There aren’t any ghosts in this house but you look like you’ve seen one.’
‘Bad men are here; they’re outside.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’ve just been speaking to Matt. Dragon have sent two armed men to grab Chris’s laptop. They’re outside; I saw them sneaking around the back.’
David, Sir Raymond’s personal assistant, appeared wiping his hands on a towel and looking flustered. ‘What’s going on? Did I hear you say something about armed men?’
‘We’ve got to move into the cellar, Matt says. He’s sent a couple of his agents to help us but they won’t be here for another twenty minutes.’
‘If Matt says we need to move to the cellar then move there we must. My wife’s away at her sister’s and the rest of the staff aren’t here until the morning, so there’s only we three and Chris. Where’s Chris?’
‘He’s been kidnapped.’
‘He’s been what?’ Lisa exclaimed. ‘When?’
‘I’ll tell you later. We all need to get down to the cellar now.’
They moved to a door in the hall which David opened with a key hanging nearby. Once opened, David bent down and picked up a torch. He handed it to Lisa.
‘You two go on down and use the torch, not the main light. I’ll be down in a second. I want to make sure all the main doors are locked.’
Using only the light of the torch they descended the stairs. Once at the bottom, Lisa walked towards the only window and covered it up. In some ways it was a futile gesture as the glass was grimy with years of dirt and Louise doubted if any light could escape. They sat on packing cases and waited.
‘What’s happened to Chris?’ Lisa asked in a hushed voice. ‘How did they kidnap him?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps he went down to the Orangery and men were waiting for him. Matt said he’d been kidnapped and questioned by Daniel Leppo.’
‘Oh my God!’
‘Keep calm Lisa,’ Louise said taking her hand. ‘We’ll get through this.’
Louise rubbed Lisa’s hand for several moments although she felt just as scared as her companion.
‘Who’s Daniel Leppo?’ Lisa asked.
‘The security guy at Dragon.’
‘This is terrible. Why didn’t Chris take the laptop down to the Orangery with him? They could have taken it and left him alone.’
‘I don’t know. They must have caught him walking through the grounds.’
They sat without speaking for a couple of minutes, their ears straining for any unusual sound. The door to the cellar creaked making both girls jump, followed by the noise of the door being locked. David’s feet then his legs appeared. When he reached the bottom, they could see he carried a shotgun.
He lifted it to show them. ‘If they come anywhere near us, I’ll give them a piece of this.’
Louise had grown up in a pacifist household, her father a member of CND, her mother a fund-raiser for Greenpeace, but even though she didn’t like guns, she felt strangely comforted by its presence.
‘We’re pretty safe down here,’ David said when he at last sat down. ‘The staircase is the only way in and if the door at the top is locked, which it is now, it would take the strength of a bull to break it down.’
‘That’s reassuring,’ Louise said.
‘What’s that noise?’ Lisa hissed.
Louise listened and could hear an odd gurgling and tapping sound.
‘Oh, it’s only the water moving in the pipes,’ David said, his face cheery and confident in contrast to the solemn faces of the two women. ‘Don’t worry about noises outside, you won’t hear any. The walls are too thick.’
‘So, how will we hear their approach?’
‘We won’t, unless they try to shoot out the lock or knock down the door. If they do, then they’ll get this,’ he said tapping the shotgun cradled in his lap.
‘I hope it doesn’t come to that,’ Louise said. ‘I want them to go upstairs and pick up Chris’s laptop and go away.’
‘Maybe they won’t be able to find it,’ Lisa said.
‘Someone needs to go out and tell them,’ Louise said,
‘Take it easy, Louise,’ David said. ‘None of us are moving from this cellar. Let’s just deal with the situation in front of us one step at a time.’
‘I understand, David, but I’d rather it didn’t end in bloodshed.’
‘I don’t mind as long as it’s their blood we’re shedding.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Lisa said.
They said little for the next ten to fifteen minutes, the silence only punctuated by hushed snippets of conversation and the gurgling of water pipes as they fed the dishwasher operating upstairs. They all jumped at the sound of a loud knocking on the cellar door. Voices on the other side were saying something but Louise couldn’t make out the words.
‘What do they want?’ Louise asked.
‘I don’t know, I can’t make it out,’ David said.
‘Couldn’t you walk up to the door and listen.’
‘No way. What if they start shooting at the door? They might blow my ear off. If they want to speak to us, they need to come down here.’
Seconds later, they heard a key turning in the lock and the staircase became illuminated by the soft light of the hallway.
‘Damn!’ David said. ‘They must have found the spare in the hallway sideboard.’ He stood and pointed the gun at the empty staircase. ‘Cover your ears, girls if you don’t want to be deafened. This thing makes one hell of a racket.’
‘Is there anyone down there?’ a voice said. It didn’t sound American, nor was the tone aggressive. David repositioned the shotgun in his hand and Louise didn’t know if he’d fired such a weapon before, although she knew he’d once served in Northern Ireland, but his hold looked solid and unflinching.
They heard fumbling and moments later the cellar filled with the light of several bare bulbs. If Louise didn’t feel so scared she would marvel at the huge space and let her imagination run riot at what it could be used for, but all her efforts were focussed on stopping her hands shaking and her knees trembling.
‘Don’t come any closer!’ David shouted. ‘I’m armed and I’ll shoot!’
‘Christ not bloody vigilantes!’ a voice said. ‘Is this what we get for trying to save you? It’s Joseph and Jess from HSA. We’ve chased off the two guys outside. You can come out now if you like.’
Chapter 48
Matt drove Rosie’s replacement Seat hatchback around tight bends to the sound of squealing tyres and something rolling around in the boot. To his surprise, Rosie didn’t protest.
The injured copper outside the cellar at Daniel Leppo’s house didn’t see the blow that felled him, but seconds before, he noted down the car’s registration number. Using ANPR, they knew Daniel Leppo’s Lexus GS was several miles further ahead. Rosie looked at the map, not an easy task for a confirmed satnav user, trying to find a straight bit of road for the police car in front of Leppo to lay a Stinger across the road or use their vehicle and block his path.
They were travelling along the Leighton Buzzard Road; Leppo had left the built-up areas behind and they were now headed into the countryside. This was better all round as there would be fewer pedestrians to be mown down by speeding cars and no one would have to take their lives in their hands as they overtook stationary traffic or rocketed through a succession of red lights.
‘How are you feeling, Rosie?’
‘About what?’
‘Being back in the field again. Chasing a fugitive at high speed.’
‘I told everybody, including the psychologist who picked my head apart, I feel fine. There’s no need to treat me with kid gloves. Look, I’m not even holding on as you fling my lovely new car around these tight bends. I’m over it, all right?’
‘No sleepless nights or flashbacks?’
‘I’m not sleeping well, to be truthful, more a feature of the red wine I’m drinking than any fallout from the kidnap.’
Matt shot past a car that appeared to be stationary but was more likely taking it easy following a visit to a local pub or restaurant.
‘So, you’re drinking more?’ he said.
‘Yes, Mr bloody settee-psychiatrist, I’m drinking more. I needed help from somewhere and the booze did the trick. Now, concentrate on the road and not on me.’
Rosie’s radio beeped.
‘Agent Fox.’
‘This is Tango Bravo. We can see the target vehicle coming towards us. Can’t use the Stinger as there’s other vehicles around. What do you want us to do?’
‘When you see him, pull into his path to try and slow him down.’
‘Roger, will do. Over and out.’
She put the radio down.
‘If they can see the car,’ Matt said, ‘they can put the Stinger down.’
‘You heard, there are ‘other vehicles around’, or maybe it’s a euphemism for couldn’t be bothered. It’s probably not much fun for the boys in blue doing our bidding.’
‘To be honest, I don’t have much faith in the Stinger. It’s fine in a quiet country lane in the West Country or Yorkshire, but out here you’re more likely to shred the tyres of half a dozen cars before the target vehicle gets there.’
‘Do you think we’re gaining on him?’
‘You’re the one with the map.’
‘I’m useless with maps as you know.’
‘Call the patrol car, ask them where they are.’
Rosie did as Matt suggested and a few minutes later laid the radio back in her lap. ‘It sounds like the two cars are playing silly buggers. The police have Leppo right behind them and he’s refusing all requests to stop. The cars are zigzagging down the road, the police car trying to block Leppo’s car and him looking for a gap to overtake.’
‘Shame the road isn’t busier,’ Matt said. ‘With a few more cars coming the opposite way, the cops could bring Leppo to a stop and he wouldn’t be able to overtake.’
‘It’ll get busier as we move closer to Leighton Buzzard.’
‘Do you know their location?’
‘I’m just checking it on the map.’ A minute or so later she said, ‘Hey, I reckon we’re only about two miles behind.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah,’ Rosie said. ‘The cops must have slowed him down. In which case, we’ll see his car in a few minutes. Maybe then we’ll get a chance to box him in from the rear.’
‘Would you like me doing this in your nice new motor? He might try and ram his way out.’
‘I didn’t think of that. The deal’s off, okay?’
A few minutes later, Matt screeched around a bend and up ahead saw the dancing rear lights and bright glow of two pairs of frequently stabbed brake lights.
‘Oh, ho,’ Matt said. ‘Do you see what I see?’
‘I told you they weren’t far off, you non-believer.’
Matt gritted his teeth. ‘This time, no matter what happens, we stop him. He’s not getting away. Agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
‘Check your weapon.’
They were a quarter of a mile distant when Leppo’s car braked hard before turning off to a road on the left barely visible in the dark. It took the cop car a few seconds to notice they’d lost their follower and Matt made the turn towards a place called Ringshall before they did. The car they were chasing was large and couldn’t do the corners as fast as Rosie’s nimble Seat and, in a matter of minutes, Matt was right behind him. The road twisted and turned and gave them little room for mistakes with high hedgerows on either side of the narrow carriageway.
‘When we reach a straight, take a shot. You know the drill, aim low at a tyre. If you miss you might put a hole in the fuel tank or the hydraulics.’
‘No problem.’ Rosie pushed the radio and map away and pulled out her gun, recovered from the floor of Leppo’s cellar.
They soon reached a straight section of road and Matt edged the car towards the middle of the narrow carriageway to give Rosie a better view of the Lexus’s left flank. She leaned out and let off three shots in rapid succession. The effect was immediate and dramatic. Before the upcoming bend, Leppo’s car swerved from side to side before crashing into the hedgerow, missing a telegraph pole by centimetres.
When Matt reached the spot, he brought the car to a halt. The Lexus wasn’t bouncing across the field as he expected but had stopped after smacking into something solid, maybe a thick tree stump or some abandoned farming equipment, as steam was pouring from the crumpled bonnet.
The HSA agents got out of the car, their guns held in a double grip on outstretched arms. He nodded for Rosie to approach the left side of the vehicle while he did the same on the right. When he reached touching distance of the car, he approached it slowly, his senses on the lookout for anything anomalous. Through the window he could see Chris slumped in the rear, but neither he nor Rosie would stop to open the door and attend to him. Leppo was the target and he needed to be neutralised first, either with a bullet or the application of handcuffs.
The driver’s door lay open, the spent airbags hanging limp and useless from the console. Matt peered into the gloom of the car’s interior, no longer lit by a working light. He turned to walk to the front of the car when a gunshot split the silence of the night.
Instead of a delighted whoop from Rosie in triumph, a hammer blow struck him on the shoulder, throwing him backward. He turned and slumped down in the open door of the Lexus, his vision clouded and his brain not registering the sights and sounds it had processed with ease earlier.
A heavy footstep crunched over damp grass and fallen twigs.
‘You think someone like you can get the better of me, eh?’ an American voice said.
Matt tried to focus and saw a figure standing over him, framed by weak moonlight at his back; Daniel Leppo.
‘If this is the best you Brits can come up with, you boys need to spend more time with my buddies at the FBI.’
‘You’re a smug bastard, Leppo.’
‘I am too. Well, I guess I better be off, can’t stand talking here all day.’
Leppo raised his gun. Matt heard two shots before his mind went blank.
Chapter 49
Emma left the Spice laboratory alone. If anyone took notice of Jacko not being with her, they didn’t say, and if they had they would have given her ready-made excuse that he went back in one of the squad cars. If they weren’t convinced, they would assume a colleague’s tiff, or from the more twisted, a lover’s quarrel, but they wouldn’t enquire any more for fear of receiving a tongue lashing from her.
It didn’t matter that everyone knew she loved Matt Flynn and he loved her, and that she would never let anyone, including her best friend in the force, Jacko, come between them. Police officers liked their conspiracy theories more than television script writers; it gave them something to talk about on late-night patrols around bleak council estates, or hours spent on surveillance in a car with an individual who didn’t bathe as often as they should.
She knew what she was about to do didn’t make sense for a supposedly smart copper like herself. Lamar had given her strict instructions to come alone and not to mention this to anyone else. With her rational hat on, she knew she needed to turn back and hand the whole kidnapping thing over to the specialist teams set up for such a situation, but she believed Lamar. If she didn’t do what he said, Jacko would die. She told herself she would do the same thing for any other colleague, but deep inside she knew it to be a lie.
She and Jacko had worked together for over three years. In the claustrophobic world of the drugs squad, weekends spent holed up in a house or van watching a suspect, and holidays spent observing crowds at pop festivals and large outdoor markets looking for known faces, it was more like ten years in a normal friendship. Jacko had become more than a colleague to her, more like a brother, but no way was there any sexual element or longing in their relationship.
She arrived in Romford, a place not unfamiliar to her as her aunt used to live in the town and Emma used to visit her two, sometimes three times a month before she died. The directions Lamar gave led her to the north of the town, a place of large 1930s villas, most updated with doubled-glazed windows, paved driveways and garages.
In a road off Mashiters Walk, the familiar refrain of ‘You have reached your destination’ sounded from the car’s satnav. The house was a large detached place, brown-stained oak beams and leaded windows, but the giveaway for a nosey detective was the Audi A6 with black wheels, blackened windows and in-your-face murals on the bodywork. Look at me, it said, I’m a successful drug dealer.
