Chapter 63
Chapter Sixty-Three
PRESENT DAY
G az drew a gun from beneath his jacket. Stark fear rooted me in place as he waggled it in my direction. My vision tunnelled. I couldn’t tear my gaze from the dark eye of the barrel. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I should have been rescued by now. What was taking so long? Had the plan failed? Why wasn’t Hannah doing anything to get us out of this?
“Go on then,” Gaz said. “Start begging.”
I pictured Neil seeing this footage, forced to bargain for my life. Ice spread through my veins.
Gaz moved closer, shoving the gun under my chin. The metal burned cold against my skin. Behind him, Jono watched, beefy arms crossed, a smug grin on his face. My heart battered my ribs. I focused on keeping my breathing steady. In and out. Don’t lose hope now. Help will come.
“I said, beg!” Gaz jabbed the gun harder against me.
I faced the camera lens through a blur of tears. Summoning my voice took every scrap of courage. “P-please.” The word scraped my dry throat.
A metallic rumble reverberated through the warehouse as the roller door jerked into motion, rattling open. I flinched in surprise. Gaz lowered the gun, brow furrowed as he turned on Jono. “The hell? What’d you do that for?”
Jono threw his hands up. “I didn’t do nothin’!”
“Where’s the remote?” Gaz’s eyes were wild, spittle flying from his stained teeth.
Jono patted his pockets. “I dunno.”
“What d’you mean, you don’t know?” Gaz went up to Jono and grabbed him by the lapels, his face turning a deep crimson.
“I had it a minute ago!”
The door continued grinding open at a crawl, but there was nothing outside except darkness. Even if I screamed with everything in me, no one would hear.
Gaz released Jono and shoved him away. “Fuck’s sake. Get that door back down. Now!” He jerked his gun towards the switch on the far wall.
As Jono lumbered away, Gaz rounded on me again, his eyes holding a crazed glint. “Now, where were we?”
I shrank away, ready to choke out another plea, but a flash of motion over Gaz’s shoulder caught my eye.
Hannah.
She was creeping up behind Gaz, her restraints nowhere to be seen. How did she get free? No time to wonder. This was our chance!
Gaz noticed me looking past him. He spun around just as Hannah grabbed his wrist. With a deft twist, she pointed the weapon away from us. Before Gaz could react, she struck his thumb with a sharp elbow blow. His hand spasmed open, and she snatched the gun, flipping it to aim at his chest in one smooth motion. “Don’t move.”
Gaz froze, eyes bulging. “Who the hell are you?”
I sagged against my bonds, dizzy with delayed panic and relief. Hannah had seized back control of the situation. But we still had to get out of this alive.
As the roller door descended, Jono spun around by the wall, confusion twisting his features. “What the?”
As understanding dawned on his face, his hand flew to his hip. But Hannah was faster. She swung her aim towards him, blocking his draw. “Don’t,” she warned.
My peripheral vision picked up a movement from Gaz. “Watch out!” I yelled, just as he lunged at Hannah.
She side-stepped him in the nick of time, and his own momentum sent him stumbling past. A backhanded blow from Hannah was all it took to make him fall over. He smacked his head against the concrete and lay still. Hannah pinned him down with her boot on his neck, all the while keeping the gun trained on Jono.
“Okay, okay! Don’t shoot me!” Jono said, hands in the air.
With that, Hannah slipped the remote control out of her pocket and pressed the button with her spare hand. The door ascended again. This time, a bar of light shone through. Tyres crunched outside on the cracked concrete. Car doors slammed, and voices called back and forth. The widening gap revealed several police cars and other vehicles surrounding the building. Then the warehouse flooded with uniformed officers.
Bone-deep exhaustion weighed on me as Dixon drove Hannah and me away from the police station. Over twenty-four hours had passed since our rescue, and I was running on fumes. The previous night at the private hospital being treated for shock and mild hypothermia had afforded little rest. Today was consumed by police statements as I recounted my capture and everything leading up to it, forced to relive the experience over and over. My mind was ready to shut down. Questions could wait. All I wanted was the oblivion of sleep.
Dixon navigated the evening traffic while Hannah typed away on her phone in the seat beside him. I yawned. The passing city lights became blurs across my vision, and I let my temple rest against the chilled glass of the car window. I began to drift off.
Dixon turned down a ramp into an underground parking garage, jolting me alert.
“Where are we?” I asked, looking around at the cars and concrete pillars. I thought we had been heading back to the safe house, but this was somewhere totally different.
“We’re on our way to operations headquarters. You won’t be staying at the safe house anymore,” Dixon replied over his shoulder.
I straightened. “Operations…? What’s that?”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
“What about all my stuff? It’s still?—”
“Don’t worry. All your belongings have already been moved to the new location.”
We pulled into a space and stepped out into the concrete stillness. Dixon led the way through a door into a brightly lit stairwell. At the top of the stairs, we entered the main lobby, and I realised we were back in the Canary Wharf office building where Avenex was located, only now, it was a little after hours, the former buzz of energy now a subdued hum.
A security guard took one look at Dixon and opened a gate for us. In the lift, Dixon pressed the button for the tenth floor. I leaned against the handrail, confused. Was the Avenex office the operations headquarters?
When the doors slid open, we bypassed the dark, empty reception area and entered a room which looked like a supply closet. Metal shelves laden with boxes of copier paper and various office supplies filled the space. Dust tickled my nose. Dixon walked past the clutter to a section of wall that appeared seamless. He opened an electrical circuit breaker box, inside of which was a hidden keypad behind a false back. He typed a code. The wall emitted a gentle clunk. It swung inwards with a firm push. A secret door.
“This way,” Dixon said, motioning for us to follow him into the room beyond.
I shot a questioning glance at Hannah, but she just nodded, smiling calmly. We stepped across the threshold together, into a dark and dank passage. Through a second locked door, we emerged in a room that looked like some kind of control centre. Along the left wall, a mosaic of screens displayed surveillance footage of various locations. Along the right wall stood whiteboards scrawled with notes and complex flow charts, alongside pinboards cluttered with newspaper clippings, printed articles, and glossy photographs. Red string connected items in elaborate spiderwebs.
I turned to Dixon. “What is this place?”
“Welcome to headquarters. This is the nerve centre of our operation to bring down Daniel Ling and seize control of Zelthia Group.”
Dixon wasted no time, steering me through a nondescript door on the back wall into a small attached suite. The windowless bedroom contained a neatly made single bed, a wooden desk and chair, and a navy armchair. My suitcase and backpack waited next to the bed.
“This will be your room now,” Dixon said.
I stood there awkwardly, taking it all in. This was meant to be the place I disappeared to, I realised. The alternative to the bait plan. Despite everything, I had still ended up here.
Dixon gave me a sympathetic look. “I know it’s not much, but try to make yourself comfortable.”
“How long will I have to stay here?”
“Until we’ve deemed the threat level low enough. We don’t expect Ling to be a free man for much longer, so just hold tight. This is the safest place for you in the meantime.”
I chewed my lip, contemplating my new reality. A tense silence stretched between us until Dixon shifted his weight between his feet. “Get some rest. I expect you need it. I’ll be back with food later. We can debrief over dinner.”
My stomach rumbled at the promise of a hot meal, but my eyelids drooped. “If I fall asleep, I’m not sure I’ll be able to wake up in time for dinner.”
“If that happens, I’ll leave leftovers for you in the kitchen, and I’ll come back tomorrow. Any food preferences?”
I thought of the bland soup and sandwiches from the hospital. “Honestly, I’ll eat anything.”
“Noted.”
With that, Dixon stepped out and closed the door behind him. I switched off the bedside light and collapsed onto the mattress without even taking my shoes off. Sleep hit me hard and fast.
I awoke after an unknown passage of time, the savoury smell of takeaway curry drifting under the door, making my stomach cramp with hunger. I was still tired, but I was also hungry as hell. With the resolution to eat, then come back to bed straight after, I forced myself up and out of the room.
“Ah, you decided to join us, after all,” Dixon said.
He sat with Hannah at the central table, food piled up on plates in front of them. I slid into the empty seat beside Hannah. “The smell was too tempting.”
“You’re just in time to hear the good news,” Hannah said. “We’ve had word of Daniel’s arrest in Singapore.”
I blinked, taking a second to process the new development through my brain fog. “They’ve got him?”
“That’s right,” Dixon said.
“So, the plan worked?”
“Indeed. Because of your courage, the police were able to extract concrete proof from those criminals, linking Daniel to an organised crime outfit here in the UK, leading to his arrest.”
I slumped forward, relief hitting me on top of the hunger and exhaustion. “Thank God.”
Hannah served me a heaped plate of food, along with a tall glass of water. I wasted no time tucking in, the flavours bursting on my dry tongue. Dixon debriefed me on the situation while I ate, the food and drink reviving me enough to grasp the significance of what we had accomplished.
I sat up straight. “So what happens now?”
“Now?” Dixon’s smile held a hint of menace. “With the UK and Singapore cooperating in this case, we will be able to bury Daniel Ling beneath the mountain of evidence we’ve accumulated against him. With him behind bars, contesting his father’s will becomes exponentially more difficult for him. Checkmate.”
I exhaled, picturing Daniel finally getting his due after years of evading consequences. One chapter was ending, but the rest of the story remained unwritten. I still had no idea what the coming days and weeks held. But for now, I took comfort in this victory, even at the huge personal cost.
Just then, a cell phone buzzed to life, breaking the pensive spell. Dixon answered the call, looking uneasy. “Yes? … Understood. Thank you.” He hung up. “Brace yourselves. We’re about to have an unexpected guest.”