CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Drew found Daniel's blood before he found Daniel.
Three drops on the concrete slipway.
Two more on the weeds beside the river.
Then nothing.
"Daniel!"
The Humber answered with wind.
Behind him, the maintenance shed filled with armed officers, shouted commands and Redmile members discovering that surrender was less glamorous when performed face-down in dirty water.
Drew kept moving along the bank.
Leah caught up ten seconds later.
"Michael's alive. Calder has him."
"Daniel's hit."
"How bad?"
"Don't know."
They reached the end of the slipway.
Tyre marks cut through the mud.
Fresh.
A torn strip of black fabric hung from a fence post.
Daniel's coat.
Leah crouched.
"Vehicle came close to the water, turned here, left north."
Drew stared at the road.
"Renn took him."
"Maybe."
"He took him."
A phone rang behind them.
Not Drew's.
Not Leah's.
They turned.
A cheap burner lay in the grass beneath the fence.
Drew picked it up.
One incoming call.
He answered.
"Where is he?"
David Renn laughed softly.
"Straight to business."
"Where is Daniel?"
"Alive. For the moment. Shoulder wound. Painful, not fatal."
Leah moved closer so she could hear.
Drew said, "What do you want?"
"The same thing everyone wants. Original Rotterdam pages. Every digital copy."
"Can't give you every copy."
"Then your brother dies."
Drew closed his eyes.
Nine years ago, Daniel had disappeared and Drew had spent nearly a decade punishing the wrong people for it.
Now somebody had taken him again while Drew watched.
Leah touched his hand.
Not comfort.
Anchor.
Renn continued.
"Mason Rigg is under arrest. Hale is dead. Venn will spend the rest of his life explaining himself. I am the last person who can make this stop."
Leah said, "You're finished."
"Leah. Still collecting microphones?"
"Still kidnapping people?"
"Michael survived, I hear. Shame."
Drew's hand tightened around the phone.
"Place."
"You'll get one when I know you have the originals."
"How?"
"Gareth will verify them."
Silence.
Leah and Drew looked at each other.
"What did you say?" Drew asked.
Renn sounded almost amused.
"You really don't know."
The line went dead.
Drew called Gareth.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Leah called Calder.
"Check the farmhouse. Now."
Calder answered immediately.
"Already trying. The protection team stopped responding four minutes ago."
Drew started running before she finished.
They reached the farmhouse twenty-six minutes later.
The front door stood open.
One NCA officer sat against the hallway wall, conscious but bleeding from the scalp.
Another was outside vomiting beside a car.
No gunfight.
No bodies.
Sedative in the tea, according to the first officer.
Inside, Amy stood in the kitchen with Owen.
Sam was on the floor, breathing but unconscious.
Gareth was gone.
Drew stared at the empty chair where he had been sitting two hours earlier.
Amy looked at him.
"Dad did it."
"Did what?"
"Drugged them."
Her voice broke.
"He made the tea. Sam realised something was wrong and Dad hit him with the kettle. Then he took one of the cars."
Owen looked murderous.
"He took my gun."
Leah found a sheet of paper on the kitchen table.
Gareth's handwriting.
Drew read over her shoulder.
DREW - I CAN END THIS. DON'T FOLLOW ME. KEEP AMY OUT OF IT. IF RENN GETS THE PAGES, THE CLUB SURVIVES. IF HE DOESN'T, NONE OF US DO.
Underneath, a second line.
DANIEL SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD.
Drew read it again.
Then folded the paper once.
Very carefully.
Amy whispered, "He doesn't mean that."
Daniel's photograph from six months earlier came back to him.
Gareth meeting Rigg.
The routes.
Venn.
Every compromise explained as protection.
Every betrayal made reasonable by fear.
Leah said, "He means it enough to act on it."
Owen punched the wall.
"Where would he go?"
Nobody answered.
Then Sam groaned from the floor.
Leah crouched beside him.
"Sam. Can you hear me?"
His eyes opened.
"Bastard hit me with my own kettle."
"Gareth. Where?"
Sam swallowed.
"He asked me earlier... the old dry dock. Said if North End ever had to disappear, where would we move the bikes."
Drew knelt.
"Which dry dock?"
Sam looked at him.
"Paull. Old repair yard by the flood bank. Mick used it before the Yard."
Amy grabbed her coat.
Drew caught it from her.
"No."
She turned on him.
"That's my dad."
"Exactly."
"You don't get to decide--"
"Tonight I do."
She looked ready to hit him.
Leah stepped between them.
"Amy. If Gareth has gone willingly to Renn, you walking in gives Renn the one thing Gareth will trade everything for. You."
Amy stopped.
Tears filled her eyes again.
"Bring him back."
Drew looked at her.
He wanted to promise.
He did not.
"I'll bring Daniel back."
Amy understood what he had not said.
She nodded anyway.
Outside, dawn was beginning to grey the horizon.
Drew stood beside the car while Leah called Calder.
"You know what Gareth is doing," she said after ending the call.
"Trading the pages for the club."
"More than that."
Drew looked at her.
"Renn doesn't need Gareth to verify paper. He needs Gareth because Gareth knows North End routes, storage, money, people. Hale is dead. Venn's network is exposed. Rigg's arrested. Renn is rebuilding again."
"With Gareth."
"Or using him until he isn't useful."
Drew stared toward the east.
The first pale light caught the wet road.
"Gareth thinks he can make a deal."
"He always thinks that."
"And Daniel?"
Leah's expression hardened.
"Proof of loyalty."
Drew understood.
Renn had not asked Gareth to help verify evidence.
He had asked Gareth to choose.
The club or Daniel.
Again.
A message arrived on Drew's phone.
Video.
He opened it.
Daniel sat tied to a steel chair inside a dark industrial building. Blood soaked his left shoulder. His face was bruised but his eyes were clear.
Gareth stood behind him.
No restraints.
North End cut on.
President patch visible.
Daniel looked at the camera.
"Drew. Don't bring the pages."
Gareth stepped forward and hit him across the face with the pistol.
Drew's vision narrowed.
Then Gareth looked directly into the lens.
"I'm sorry."
The video ended.
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
Leah reached for Drew's hand.
He did not notice until her fingers closed around his.
"Paull," she said.
Drew looked at the road.
At the place where a club president had just chosen survival over his own dead man's brother.
"No," he said.
Leah frowned.
"No?"
Drew took Gareth's note from his pocket and tore it in half.
"Not Paull first."
"Then where?"
He looked at her.
"North End."
"The clubhouse is burned."
"I know."
"Why go back?"
Drew opened the car door.
"Because Gareth thinks the club is a building, routes and a patch."
He looked toward the black smoke still faintly visible over Hull from the previous day's fire.
"Before I take Daniel back, I'm going to take the club away from him."