To Kill Or Be Killed (20 page)

“Get that
David. I’m going to log on.” Beaumont sat at the standard hotel
room writing desk, his laptop on the blotter. The start up sequence
began and he plugged the cell phone in. At the door David took the
tray and thanked the porter.

“Do you ever
stop eating?”

“No, but what
worries me at the moment is that I’ve not been working out.”

David put the
coffee and cake on the table and walked to the window.

“They’re out
there somewhere.”

“Hopefully
we’ll have a sighting in a minute.” Beaumont said, logged onto the
system and sipped his coffee. With no hand free he eyed the cake
with anticipation.

“My father
lives in Motherwell. I told my wife I might drop by. If we have a
moment could we take a drive out there?”

Beaumont
slammed the laptop shut and pulled his Sig out and checked the
status; he cocked it and put the safety on.

“We’re taking a
ride now. Wheeler’s been spotted at the Buchanon Bus station, it
was around eight am, but Lawton the spotter said he’d keep
watching.”

David pulled
out his phone and tried to call the armed police on the way to the
lifts, but he lost signal as the phone rang and they entered the
lift.

In the lift
Beaumont looked at him.

“I’m driving.”
Beaumont said flatly.

“Okay.”

“My God David I
can’t see why you got so flustered over driving.”

“It’s my weak
spot. Everyone’s got a weak spot.”

“I haven’t.”
Beaumont replied.

“Yes you have.
It’s food. I bet you’re thinking of that cake in the room.”

“Okay, but
being constantly hungry is manly. Being a crap driver that’s… well
it’s …”

“What?” The
lift opened onto the lobby.

“Bizarre in a
man like you that’s all.” Beaumont replied.

They were
quickly in the car and on their way to the bus station. David rang
the police again and finally got through. It was hard making
himself understood. The conversation halted when he was finally put
on hold waiting to talk to armed response.

“You know where
it is?” David asked.

“Yes I do. Five
minutes away. I checked.”

“Do you think
he’s still there?” David asked.

“The e-mail was
after nine this morning and Lawton the local DIC spotter said
Wheeler got there after eight fifteen, then left; he says the next
London bus is eleven. You could check your laptop for an update see
if he’s come back.”

“I didn’t bring
it.”

“Damn it David.
Are you awake today?” Beaumont said angrily.

“I’m okay, a
little shaken by last night that’s all.”

“It’s not
amateur night David. We’re after hired killers now focus.”

Armed response
answered the phone and Beaumont turned onto Killermont Street, the
bus station was mere yards away.

David got out
of the car first. The Bus station was busy and they were illegally
parked. Beaumont joined him.

“Did you check
your gun this morning?”

David shook his
head.

“Well you had
better find a quiet spot to do it, don’t want to scare the natives.
Nip into the toilet and use a cubicle.”

They began
walking for the toilets together they were nearly there when
Beaumont stopped and looked over at the National Express coach.

“That’ll be his
target vehicle. I’ll wait here and watch.”

David walked
into the toilet, pushing back the heavy door to find all the
cubicles busy. Suddenly there was a man just coming out of a
cubicle. David took in the lines of the face as the man passed him,
it didn’t quite look like Wheeler. He thought himself edgy,
shrugged and pushed the door open on the cubicle that the man had
just left. He saw the white bag with the abandoned clothes, but
straight away it was the glasses, dimly visible, but pressed
against the plastic, that did it for him. Anyone might change
clothes, buts no-one left their glasses behind. He rushed back to
the door and outside drawing his Sig as he came out.

Wheeler was
walking towards the National Express coach and was just level with
Beaumont.

“Stay where you
are Wheeler! Beaumont it’s Wheeler!” David shouted.

Beaumont spun
round trying to draw his weapon, but Wheeler was too close. Wheeler
gripped the gun hand just as the Sig cleared the holster and
pressed it to Beaumont’s chest. David daren’t shoot with them both
in such a tangle and daren’t get close to help as he wanted to back
Beaumont up with a clear shot if needed.

There was a
muffled crack and Beaumont’s face creased in pain, legs giving way
and folding under him he dropped to the floor, Wheeler pulling the
gun from his grip as he did so. There were screams and shouts from
bus passengers and in the noise David heard sirens approaching.

David stood
pointing his weapon like a duellist, side on for a smaller
target.

“Drop it
Wheeler!” David shouted, suppressing the fear inside and trying not
to look at Beaumont stricken on the ground. McKie steeled
himself.

Wheeler’s arm
came arcing up away from Beaumont and in a back hand, but before
the muzzle was on target McKie squeezed the trigger. He aimed for
the head and his round struck Wheeler dead centre of the forehead
knocking him back, eyes blinded by the smashing of the brain as the
bullet ripped through and came out the other side; he fell
backwards, no arms out, and smacked flat backed onto the course way
in front of the coach, head two feet from the passenger doors.

The Sig 220
rail had clattered to the floor right by its owner. Beaumont lay on
the tarmac hand to his chest air rasping in and out quickly his
face bearing the concentration it was taking to do the simple task
of breathing.

McKie stepped
over Wheeler and checked his pulse. He couldn’t help but see the
ragged hole in the head the bullet had rent. Wheeler twitched, eyes
glazed and the pulse was weak. McKie picked up the pistol and put
it in his jacket pocket as he squatted down by Beaumont.

“Jack! Jack!
Can you hear me?” Beaumont looked up and nodded. McKie called out
to no-one in particular. “Is there an ambulance on the way?”

“Armed police
drop the weapon stand up and step away facing me hands in the air.
Do it now!” was the answer he got to his question.

David looked
into Beaumont’s eyes “You’ll be alright no?”

Beaumont’s eyes
in a pain and fear filled place of their own gave him no answer and
David felt the danger of the police weapons pointed at him. He took
a last look in Beaumont’s eyes and then did exactly as he was
told.

Once up he
noted the three police vehicles and with relief the arrival of an
ambulance, pre called by the armed response team. Officers made
their way to Beaumont and another checked Wheeler. David allowed
himself to be manhandled and he was made to lie on the ground. He
was frisked, the two Sig’s taken and his pass pulled out. The pass
was handed to a senior officer who looked very closely at his
pass.

David looked
up, neck only able to move, his hands cuffed tightly behind his
back.

“I’m a civil
servant! I have diplomatic immunity; check the pass. My friend the
black guy he has the same.” Beaumont was being loaded into an
ambulance and the police man wasn’t going to hold up his rapid
journey to Stobhill.

“We’ll see
about that. I don’t know if you or the dead man over there called
us. So you’re going to have to come with me.”

“For God’s
sake!” David shouted.

The policeman
leaned down.

“I had that
Wheeler in the bag at Stobhill yesterday, but he knocked out my
constable and got away. I’m going to be very sure of who I let go
and give a weapon to today I can tell you laddie.”

McKie nodded it
made sense. He was helped up and put in the back of the police car.
Forensic teams arrived and that part of the bus station was sealed
off, including, unfortunately for the bus passengers, the
toilets.

Ten minutes
later David was sat in a cell, no shoes, his belongings in a sealed
bag at reception, staring at a cell door thinking of Beaumont and
of Wheeler’s face as he fell to the ground. He hadn’t said a word.
He knew it made sense for them to make sure. The Police Inspector
had made it clear that he was personally going to make sure that no
assassin got past him on his watch, not after Liverpool and
certainly not after Perth last night.

David looked
around. He’d sat in customs holding cells with suspected smugglers,
but this was the first time he’d been locked in a cell. It was
small square and yet high. Fifteen feet from the ground there were
opaque glass windows in the ceiling, thick oblong slabs in grill
pattern. They let in a grey washed light. The thick steel door had
a drop down flap about chest height. A policeman had checked on him
through it. The floor was stone and the bed he sat on was a board.
There were brown blankets and a rolled up thin blue mattress. It
was a holding cell. There was a half walled area with a metal
toilet and a flush button. Opposite the bowl was a spy hole similar
to that of a domestic door. No privacy and no chance of escape;
he’d felt that when the door locked. He had to wait whilst they
checked his credentials. He wanted to know how Beaumont was.

He sat there
thinking over the incident and each flash of memory brought
butterflies to the stomach. After twenty minutes in the cell, the
memory repeating itself over and over he made for the metal bowl,
noting briefly an eye at the viewing hole in the wall opposite and
big man as he was he bent over and was violently sick retching up
porridge and coffee.

The time passed
with David seeing Beaumont folding to the floor and his fingers
twitching as he recalled the single shot opening the hole in
Wheeler’s head. With an empty stomach he retched each time the
memory of the dead man’s fall popped into his head.

Monty Lawton
parked his dark green Mondeo in the visitor’s car park of the
police station at Port Dundas Place half an hour after David’s
arrival there. He’d had a busy morning. First he’d seen Wheeler,
whom he’d been watching for all the previous day. He had also been
told to look for Stanton. It was just before he’d been called out
today that he’d got through the train station CCTV. His sharp eyes
and quick mind had noted the man at Motherwell station, right where
he lived. A CCTV backtrack within a ten mile radius had flagged up
the lorry at the race track and he was about to call the police
when the window inset live stream had shown Wheeler back at the bus
station. He’d tried to call McKie, but the phone was engaged.
Beaumont’s phone had just asked for messages, since it was still
attached to the laptop in the Thistle Hotel. He’d watched with
horror the unfolding drama at Buchanon and made a call to Jack.
He’d rushed out jumped in the car and driven into the city.

In reception he
told them who he was and they’d asked him to wait and whilst
waiting his phone rang. The desk sergeant gave him a frown.

“Hi Monty
here.. Yes Jack…I’m waiting…You called them yourself … Good…No… Is
he? Good. Good… That’s two dead then… Stanton… No idea…but I’ve to
get the police here to check a lorry at Hamilton Race Course… I
think Stanton’s in the area… Okay… yes, “ he looked over at the
desk guiltily “… Yes I am and ready at that. Okay I’ll have him out
in a moment. Alright…” The inspector appeared at the desk then the
door opened. “Right I’ve to go now. I’ll call back.”

“Mr
Lawton?”

“That’s me
right enough.”

“Inspector
Searle.” They shook hands. “You boss identified this man as one of
your own. He’s got some pull your boss. He came off the phone and
then the Home Secretary called. Sorry we had to hold him, but we
weren’t sure who was who at the bus station.”

“Doesn’t he
have a pass like this?” He handed the inspector his pass.

“Yes, but we
couldn’t be sure, not after Perth.”

“Sure
enough.”

The inspector
handed the pass back.

“This pass
gives you diplomatic immunity. I’m therefore not able to hold him
for the shooting of that man at the bus station. In fact right from
the top it says to let him go even though he shot that man, who
your organisation are saying is Wheeler, a man picked up after a
road accident and found to be armed. He escaped yesterday.”

“Sure enough
the man killed by McKie is Wheeler one of the illegal immigrants
and according to our organisation a hired assassin.”

“Is that so?
I’m not exactly sure who or what your organisation is?”

“You’re not
meant to, but take it from us the country’s a better place for that
man being dead. I do commend your thinking on holding David until
you were sure. Our communications network shows that the Mersey
marina murderer managed to get onto a flight this morning using one
of our passes and a disguise, so good thinking.”

At that point
David came out and was handed his shoes, bag with watch and money
in, his pass and his Sig and holster. He was handed a third bag
with Beaumont's Sig in it.

“David. I’m
Monty Lawton. Glasgow branch.” They shook hands. “Jack Beaumont’s
stable, shot through the lung. He had a tricky half hour, but he’s
looking good for it right now. I’ve to take you over there.”

“Thanks. Did
Wheeler die?”

“Yes he did.”
Monty patted his shoulder. “It’s not easy killing a man, it was
kill or be killed, plain and simple; it was you or him and he had
shot your partner.” David nodded silently.

Lawton took
David to the hospital from the police station. The room had been
quiet and Beaumont was asleep, wearing a respirator over his face
and wired up to a heart monitor. Yellow sunlight brightened the
room through angled blinds and hospital noises were distantly
muffled by the door. It was a cocoon of quiet, even the heart
monitor was set to silent in the room. It crossed David’s mind that
it could have been him. He felt a wave of guilt and shame flush
through him. He should have taken his laptop. He should have
checked his Sig before he left. He should have checked with Lawton
by satellite phone. He felt that he had lost the edge he had
started out with. He wondered if he had the capacity to do the
work. Spencer’s death, the fear of Stanton at the station and a
lack of sleep had eroded his mental and physical edge. If it
happened once it could happen again. He watched Beaumont breathing
for a while as a new father watches the baby and dare not look away
for fear it may cease. Lawton gently called him away.