CHAPTER TWELVE
They stayed hidden beneath Gareth Pike's garage floor while two senior police officers discussed murder above their heads.
Leah had experienced more dignified career moments.
Drew lay beside her in the narrow cavity, one hand braced against the joist and the other wrapped around Gareth's old phone.
Dust stuck to his cheek.
His mouth was close enough to her ear that when he whispered she felt the words against her skin.
"Can your phone record?"
Leah nodded.
She had started the moment Hale entered.
Above them, Venn paced.
"The terminal was a mess."
"You brought armed police into a room full of Redmile," Hale said. "What did you expect?"
"I expected Sayer dead."
Leah felt Drew become very still.
Hale swore.
"Michael specifically said alive."
"Michael says a lot from Rotterdam. He isn't the one cleaning bodies out of warehouses."
"You wouldn't have a career without him."
"Neither would you."
Silence.
Then Hale said, "Where is Gareth?"
"Transfer site."
"And Harker?"
"Same."
"Before midnight. Michael's plane lands at nine."
Leah's pulse jumped.
Her father was coming to England.
Venn said, "He hasn't been back in sixteen years."
"Then try not to shoot his daughter before he gets here."
Footsteps moved toward the garage.
Drew's hand found Leah's wrist.
The door opened.
Light sliced through cracks in the floorboards.
Venn entered.
Leah could see the toes of his shoes above her.
He stopped directly over the hidden compartment.
For one terrible second, nobody breathed.
Then his phone rang.
"Yeah."
A pause.
"No. Keep Gareth conscious. If Daniel wants to talk to him, that's Daniel's problem."
Drew's fingers tightened around Leah's wrist.
Venn walked out.
The garage door closed.
They waited another three minutes.
Drew pushed the panel up.
"Transfer site," he said.
Leah climbed out.
"Could mean anything."
"Gareth's phone may know."
She searched the messages again.
One location had been sent repeatedly without description.
A set of coordinates near Driffield.
Leah recognised the area.
"Old RAF storage land. Private now. Hangars, farm units, workshops."
Drew looked at her.
"Daniel wanted to be a pilot."
"Could be coincidence."
"Don't ruin this one."
They left through the gardens before the uniformed constable finished his flask.
By four in the afternoon, North End had become a club without a president.
Drew did not claim the title.
Owen wanted him to.
Sam told him not to.
"Bad time to crown yourself," the older man said. "Looks like ambition."
"I don't want the fucking chair."
"That's why you'll probably end up in it."
They planned the raid at the farmhouse kitchen table.
Leah hated calling it a raid because there would be no warrant, no tactical team she could trust, and no lawful chain of command.
It was four bikers, one compromised undercover officer who had not technically been suspended yet, and Amy Pike drawing the layout of a place she had once visited with her father.
"Dad called it the strip," Amy said. "He took me there two summers ago. There are three big sheds. One concrete office. Old runway behind."
"Redmile?" Owen asked.
"I never saw patches."
Leah marked access points.
"We go for information first. Gareth and Ben if we can get them. Nobody starts a war unless we have to."
Owen stared at her.
"You understand what club you're talking to?"
"The one that has lost men because somebody else keeps choosing the battlefield. Try something different."
Drew nodded.
"She's right."
Owen threw his hands up. "Of course she is. She sleeps with you once and suddenly she's Sun Tzu."
Amy's eyes widened.
Sam looked at the ceiling.
Leah slowly turned toward Drew.
"Did you tell him?"
"No."
Owen pointed at Sam. "He did."
Sam looked offended. "I said I walked in at a bad time."
"You said she was wearing his shirt."
"That was factual."
Drew rubbed both hands over his face.
For one absurd second, Leah forgot her father was alive and a corrupt chief superintendent wanted her captured.
"Can we return to the hostage rescue?" she asked.
"Please," Amy said.
They moved at dusk.
Two cars, no bikes. Leah and Drew in front. Sam and Owen behind.
The old airfield appeared as a black line beyond fields striped with winter stubble.
No streetlights.
No nearby houses.
Perfect place to make people disappear.
They parked half a mile away and went on foot.
Leah carried binoculars, a pistol and the small body armour plate Sam had somehow produced from a cupboard.
Drew carried two spare magazines and a crowbar.
"Subtle," she whispered.
"It opens doors."
"So does a key."
"Didn't bring one."
The first hangar was empty.
The second contained three cars with false plates, boxes of police evidence bags and stacks of sealed cash bundles.
Leah photographed everything.
Owen opened one crate.
Inside were handguns wrapped in official property plastic.
"Police evidence," Leah said.
"Your lot really need better staff checks."
"I'll put it in the suggestion box."
Sam found the drugs.
Not one shipment.
Dozens.
Bricks packed into sports bags and commercial produce boxes.
Drew looked across the hangar.
"This isn't Redmile stealing our routes."
Leah understood.
"It's a distribution hub."
"For everybody."
North End. Redmile. Police seizures. Port consignments.
One machine feeding all sides and letting them kill each other over pieces of it.
A sound came from the office block.
Metal on concrete.
They moved.
Drew reached the door first.
Locked.
He looked at Leah and lifted the crowbar.
"Key?"
"Fine."
One strike popped the frame.
Inside, a corridor ran between three rooms.
The first held surveillance equipment.
The second held Gareth Pike.
He was tied to a chair, shirt dark with blood around the gunshot wound.
Still alive.
Amy's father raised his head.
"Drew."
Drew stopped in the doorway.
Every promise of revenge seemed to arrive at once.
Gareth saw it.
"I deserve it."
"Later," Drew said.
Leah looked at him.
He cut Gareth's restraints.
"Ben?" she asked.
Gareth pointed weakly toward the last room.
Leah ran.
Ben Harker lay on the floor with one wrist cuffed to a radiator.
His eyes opened.
"Violet umbrella."
Leah dropped beside him.
"Still using that one?"
He laughed, then winced.
"Good to see you too."
She unlocked the cuff with keys hanging from the desk.
"My father."
Ben's expression changed.
"Alive."
"I gathered."
"It's not what you think."
"Nobody has said anything today that made me feel better after that sentence."
He gripped her sleeve.
"Michael isn't running Venn."
"Then who is?"
"Hale."
"Hale said Michael was giving orders."
"Because they think he still has the original ledger. Daniel made copies. Michael stole the original years ago and used it to keep Hale from killing him."
Leah stared.
"My father has been blackmailing a chief superintendent for sixteen years?"
"Among other things."
"Why fake his death?"
"Because Hale ordered it. Michael survived the attempt and disappeared before Hale could try again."
A gunshot sounded outside.
Then another.
Sam shouted.
Drew yelled, "Move!"
Leah hauled Ben upright.
The hangar doors were closing.
Heavy motors dragged both steel panels inward.
Owen fired toward the control booth.
A bullet hit the concrete beside him.
Men appeared on the gantry above.
Not Redmile.
Police tactical clothing with no insignia.
Hale's private crew.
Drew dragged Gareth behind a car.
"Back exit?"
Gareth coughed. "Runway door. Manual bar."
Owen and Sam moved toward it.
Leah pushed Ben behind an engine block.
"Can you shoot?"
"Offended you asked."
She gave him her spare pistol.
Drew fired upward.
One masked man dropped behind the rail.
Then the lights came on.
All of them.
The hangar flooded white.
A voice came through the speaker system.
"Enough."
Leah froze.
Not Venn.
Not Hale.
She knew the voice.
Sixteen years did not matter.
A daughter knew her father's voice.
A door opened on the upper office level.
Michael Quinn stepped onto the gantry.
Grey hair. Dark coat. Scar beside his left ear.
Older.
Alive.
Leah forgot the gun in her hand.
He looked down at her.
His face broke for one second.
"Hello, love."
Drew moved closer to Leah.
Michael's eyes shifted to him.
The softness vanished.
"Drew Sayer."
Drew raised his pistol.
"Where's my brother?"
Michael looked toward the closed hangar doors.
"Behind you."
Drew turned.
A man had stepped from the shadows beside the runway entrance.
Older than the photograph. Thinner. A white scar cutting through his eyebrow.
Daniel Sayer.
Alive.
He held a gun against Sam Ridley's head.
"Drop it, little brother."