Brim down, collar up, Thurston walks east toward the West End.
Six minutes after exiting Paddington Green, he’s in the wind.
Chapter 13
Old habits die hard.
Thank Christ.
From Hyde Park, Thurston makes his way on foot to the rear of a gym at the side of St. Pancras station. He counts nine bricks up and nine along from the western corner, puts a finger in a crack in the mortar, and levers out a small plastic bag. Inside is the key to a locker stationed next to the Eurostar terminal.
Even though he’s been out of the game for a decade, Thurston’s kept a go-bag in the locker for the past two years. The bag contains a passport in the name of Michael Flanagan, a smartphone and charger, two thousand in cash, and a clean credit card, also under the name of Flanagan. The account the credit card charges back to has better than two hundred grand sitting there: the payoff for some security work Thurston did in Mozambique after leaving the forces. He hadn’t done anything illegal but the payment and the client had left a bad taste in his mouth. He’d stowed the cash in the Flanagan account and told himself he’d only touch it on a rainy day.
Right now it’s pouring down.
Thurston takes the bag from the locker and walks south from St. Pancras, stopping on Tottenham Court Road to buy a laptop and a holdall bag. He fills the holdall with clothes bought at the first department store he finds. He also buys a navy business suit, a pair of black brogues, and tops the purchases with a heavy overcoat and scarf, dumping the clothes he’d been wearing in the store dressing room. At a walk-in hair salon in Soho he gets his collar-length blond hair dyed black and cut short. The stubble he usually wears is shaved clean. At a large chain pharmacy he buys a pair of glasses with plain lenses. By four p.m., the Cody Thurston who escaped from Paddington Green earlier is almost unrecognizable.
Thurston takes a train to Heathrow and books into a chain hotel in sight of the runway. Airport hotels are the perfect place to hide. Too many people coming and going for anyone to get suspicious. In his room, Thurston charges his phone and laptop, orders some food from room service, and settles back on the bed to examine DS Hall’s phone. One message in particular gets Thurston’s attention, as does Hall’s calendar. He opens his new laptop and spends three hours researching the information on Hall’s phone. Around ten he turns off the lights and tries to sleep.
The next few days are going to be busy.
Chapter 14
Friday morning. The end of a nightmare week.
Four days after Thurston’s escape and Steve Hall has got precisely nowhere in tracing the Australian. Hall’s superior officer, Detective Chief Inspector Venn, flays him alive and tells him in no uncertain terms to get a result, or else get ready for a long stint down in Records.
“This is a departmental embarrassment, Hall. A man under your watch—a killer, no less—waltzes out of Paddington Green in broad daylight. Have you any idea of the mountain of shit I’m having to wade through because of this? Get him found and make it quick or I’ll bury your pathetic fucking career so deep you’ll need an archaeologist to find traces.”
It’s enough to drive a man to drink. Or, in the case of DS Steve Hall, to 22 Logandale Lane.
From the outside, 22 Logandale Lane looks like any other semi-detached in a quiet street off Fulham Road. To those in the know, the house is one of West London’s wildest knocking shops, with specialties in rent boys, pain, and coke, all of which tick Hall’s recreational boxes. And, since Hall’s patch covers the area, he can come and go as he pleases, his admission costs taken care of by ensuring what goes on inside number 22 doesn’t come to the attention of the police.
By eleven fifteen, Hall, wearing only a blindfold, a gag in his mouth, is tied facedown on a bed. Work, DCI fucking Venn, and the entire debacle of Thurston’s escape is forgotten. Hall’s treated himself to Raul and Ricky, two of his favorites, and between the three of them they’ve made serious inroads into a baggie of top-class blow. Life, temporarily, is sweet.
Thurston comes into the room carrying a short-handled metal baseball bat. He puts a finger to his lips and indicates to the two naked rent boys that they should remain where they are. Thurston takes out Hall’s mobile and shoots a short video, making sure he includes both boys and Hall. When he’s finished he jerks a thumb at the door. Neither boy hesitates. They recognize real trouble when they see it. Gathering their clothes from an armchair, they slip noiselessly into the corridor.
Thurston clicks the lock shut behind them, although, after the forthright conversation he’s had downstairs with Mrs. Murgatroyd, the owner of number 22, he doubts anyone will be riding in to rescue DS Hall anytime soon. Somehow, Mrs. Murgatroyd has been left with the distinct impression that Thurston works for the O’Learys—a legendary South London outfit, the mere mention of whom causes even hardened criminals to reassess their priorities.
Thurston pulls off Hall’s blindfold and the cop twists his head to one side. His eyes widen as he sees Thurston.
“Hi,” says Thurston. “Remember me?”
Thurston shoots some more footage of Hall’s panicked face and pans across to the cocaine paraphernalia on the bedside table. Replacing the mobile in his pocket, Thurston picks up the baseball bat and, without preamble, cracks it down hard across Hall’s shoulder, breaking his collarbone. Hall’s anguished cries are mostly muffled by the gag in his mouth. Thurston waits patiently for the man to regain some composure.
“Just a taster, Hall,” says Thurston. “To get you focused. I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer them.”
Hall responds angrily, spittle foaming around the sides of the gag.
Thurston hits him again on the same spot and Hall sobs.
“Wrong response. You need to concentrate. My offer isn’t all warm and fuzzy. There are no gray areas. You tell me what I want to know and you live. You don’t tell me and I’ll kill you right here. You can tell I mean this, right?”
“Yeah,” grunts Hall. “Jesus!”
“Mrs. Murgatroyd has been persuaded to give us some time,” says Thurston. “So, when I take the gag out of your mouth, keep quiet.”
Thurston removes the gag and Hall whimpers.
“How did you find me?” Hall croaks.
“Your phone. And some research. It wasn’t difficult. Now, concentrate on the matter in hand. Think of your kids, Hall. Little Timmy and baby Natalie. And your wife, Sarah. You don’t want news of this filth getting out there, do you?”
Hall shakes his head.
“Who framed me?” says Thurston.
“They’ll kill me if I tell you,” says Hall.
“I’ll kill you if you don’t. Your choice. Was it Miller?”
“Who?” says Hall.
“Don’t,” warns Thurston and shows Hall the end of the baseball bat.
“Yeah, okay,” says Hall. “It was Miller.”
“Tell me why.”
“The girl. She knew him back in Iceland. Knew what he does. She was a loose end.”
“What does he do?”
“Miller and the Russians run a syndicate. Both sides use a joint Miller’s got in Iceland as a…as a kind of staging post.”
“For what?”
“Pseudoephedrine. Big quantities. Like, industrial. Pseudoephedrine is—”
“I know what it is. Why me?”
For the first time since Thurston came into the room, Hall shows something other than pain and panic on his face. He smiles, or tries to.
“You weren’t supposed to survive. So when you did, Miller moved quick to make sure you were the perfect patsy. Foreigner. A drifter. Who gives a shit?”
“I do,” says Thurston. He stands and replaces Hall’s gag. Hall tenses.
Thurston produces Hall’s mobile and shows it to the cop. He types a short message containing Hall’s name and rank and the location of number 22 and puts in three numbers—Hall’s boss, Hall’s wife, and the news desk of a particularly vicious tabloid—attac
hes the video clips of Hall and presses Send.
“So long,” says Thurston and, leaving Hall thrashing impotently on the bed, steps out of the room.
Next stop, Reykjavik.
Chapter 15
As Michael Flanagan, Cody Thurston has no problem getting into Iceland, although he is mildly surprised not to see any of Nate Miller’s people on the plane or at Keflavík Airport.
Leaving Hall alive was a deliberate ploy. Thurston assumes the cop would inform Miller of the encounter. From the absence of a tail, either that hadn’t happened or Miller’s people were better at surveillance than Thurston gave them credit for.
On the whole, he is coming to the conclusion Hall might have kept quiet, at least as far as Nate Miller is concerned. Perhaps he’d overestimated Hall’s ties to the American. It’s disappointing: flushing out surveillance was the only thing stopping Thurston killing Hall. Now it looks like he’ll have to track Miller the hard way.
At Keflavík Airport, Thurston picks up a specialist, winter-equipped Land Cruiser he’d rented online the night before using the Flanagan credit card. If the drive into Reykjavik is anything to go by he’s going to need it. The exposed highway heading west into the city runs along a peninsula bounded by the Atlantic on both sides. Today is darker and colder than a bailiff’s heart and blowing a gale.
Or, in Icelandic terms, a stiff breeze.
Thurston battles the ice and wind into Reykjavik, stopping at a sporting goods store on the outskirts of the city to plug some holes in his gear. It’s when he’s coming out of the store off Reykjanesbraut Road that he picks up the tail: a black Mercedes four-wheel-drive parked outside a closed office block on the opposite side of the parking lot. A thin cough of white exhaust betrays the idling engine, the car angled so Thurston’s vehicle is visible in the rearview mirror. It could be coincidence but Thurston assumes that’s not the case.
Thurston is impressed Miller’s guys have remained undetected for so long but it’s a timely reminder for him to up his game. He gets into the Land Cruiser and pulls back onto the main road keeping the Merc in his peripheral vision.
In the city, Thurston puts the Land Cruiser into an underground parking lot and heads on foot to his accommodation, an apartment near the city center. He picks up the keys from a lockbox and lets himself into the block. It’s a bland one-bedroom flat with a small kitchenette and all the charm of a dentist’s waiting room, but Thurston doesn’t plan to stay. This apartment is window dressing.
Locking the apartment behind him Thurston exits through a side door leading to a back alley. Dropping to one knee, he levers a wooden board out from the side of a set of small steps leading from the door. He stows his backpack in the crawl space underneath and replaces the board. He walks into the alley and takes a wide circle through the quiet white streets until he comes back to the underground parking lot where he’d left the Land Cruiser. Five minutes later he’s parked unobtrusively in a line of cars watching the black Merc.
Chapter 16
They make their move around midnight.
Three big guys, bulky in winter coats and boots, step out of the Merc. Their rising breath is caught in the light from a streetlamp as they walk calmly toward the apartment block.
They’re earlier than Thurston had figured but he guesses, in Iceland, the hour is late enough. It won’t get much quieter if they left it until two or three and it won’t get light until eleven. That’s one thing about Iceland in winter: they got plenty of night to play with.
When the men reach the apartments, Thurston loses sight of them in the shadows. He sits back and waits for them to realize he’s not inside.
Sure enough, less than sixty seconds after breaking in, the three men come back into the deserted street. They don’t waste any time talking—the temperature outside must be somewhere around minus twelve. Thurston, sitting in the darkened Land Cruiser with the engine cold, is glad he’d stocked up at the sports store. Even so, it’s difficult to resist turning the ignition. The men clamber back into the Merc and there’s a pause as, Thurston guesses, they discuss what to do next. His hope is they’ll call it a day and head back to wherever Nate Miller might be.
The Merc pulls out and takes a right. Thurston starts the engine and follows.
The Merc heads north out of Reykjavik before swinging right and taking an inland highway east. With the roads almost empty, and snow falling only lightly, Thurston’s pursuit is relatively easy. Once out of the city he keeps his headlight use to a minimum, and stays as far back as he dares. He is confident he has not been tagged but there’s no point in taking risks. They pass few cars, which makes the tail harder.
Despite the ice and snow the road is a good one. It’s been recently cleared and the Land Cruiser feels secure on the surface. Thurston eats an energy bar and sips from a bottle of water as he drives. He has the feeling this will be a long night.
The road curves around the top of a big lake and then meanders across a wide white plain. The snow stops and the sky clears to reveal a low moon strong enough to pick out deep shadows in the surrounding fields. A kilometer or so ahead, Thurston watches the lights of the Merc. They’ve been driving for ninety minutes when he sees the headlights pull a sharp left. From the rise and fall of the beam Thurston guesses the road they’re on now is unpaved. He pulls the darkened Land Cruiser cautiously closer and checks the GPS. As he suspects, the road is little more than a farm track. In the distance Thurston sees lights.
Thurston’s not a gambler, but if he was, he’d bet heavy he’s found Nate Miller.
Chapter 17
Miller’s place is smaller than Thurston had envisaged: a cluster of low industrial sheds huddled around a central farmhouse about three hundred meters from the Hvítá River, about a kilometer upstream of the thundering Gullfoss Falls. When Thurston gets out of the Land Cruiser the rumble of millions of tons of water tearing through the canyons over to his right sends a low vibration through the ground under his feet. Iceland has that feeling: that the island itself is alive.
Thurston can see why Miller’s chosen this place.
It’s far enough from Reykjavik to be remote yet is on a good road that, thanks to the proximity of the popular Falls, is seldom closed. Miller can be at the airport inside two hours. The geography means the farmhouse can’t be approached easily without being observed. Bigger picture: Iceland’s geographical position and low-key policing make it an ideal staging post for bringing pseudoephedrine into Europe from the US and Russia. Lastly, and this is something right at the forefront of Thurston’s mind, is the phenomenal amount of guns in the country. For all its low crime rates, Iceland has six times more weapons per head than Britain. Nate Miller is going to be armed to the teeth.
Thurston gets back into the Land Cruiser and drives slowly back toward the parking lot for the Falls. He puts the car hard up against a maintenance shed in a thicket of shadow. In the back of the car Thurston strips down and hurries into a nine-millimeter-thick drysuit made of neoprene rubber. Over this he dresses in the rest of the high-grade cold-weather gear he’d picked up in Reykjavik.
He locks the Land Cruiser and sets out for Nate Miller.
Chapter 18
Sofi’s voice comes back to him as he moves across the moonlit snowfield toward the river.
Miller is bad news.
It reminds him to stay alert.
At the river he turns upstream, keeping as close to the surging water for as long as he can. Four hundred meters from the farm he spots a fold in the contours of the land that passes close to the farm and uses it to conceal his approach. Thurston hunches low, thankful the snow has, once more, begun to fall.
He checks his watch. Three a.m. He’s been on the move since early morning but bats the fatigue away as a distraction he can’t afford.
The fold takes Thurston to within fifty meters of the nearest structure. There are no fences around the property, which he reads as a sign of Miller’s confidence.
Or, perhaps, his arrogance.
There’s no craft now in getting closer so Thurston simply walks quietly across the snow, banking the late hour and remote location means most inside will be asleep.
He reaches the corner of the steel shed without incident and hears a noise coming from somewhere inside. The dull throb of music echoes from somewhere in the farmhouse. Thurston turns the corner of the shed and finds his way to the door. Inside are four rows of large, spotless, stainless steel silos. The air reeks of chemicals.
Thurston quickly inspects the other two sheds and finds the setup replicated in each. He’s no expert but he assumes the silos contain part of the ingredients required for the production of pseudoephedrine. An outline of Miller’s operation is forming. Import high quantities of the ingredients for pseudoephedrine from Russia to the east and the US to the west. Mix in Iceland and pour into Europe via the UK. The sheer quantities mean it is a product best concealed in plain sight. Guys like Miller, they always have a plausible cover story for their chemicals. The police would need to dig hard to prove criminality at this point in the chain.
It doesn’t matter.
Thurston has no plans to bring in the police.
Closer to the main farmhouse the music is louder. Lights dance behind the curtains. A party is in progress. Thurston is about to try and find a better-placed window when a door opens and orange light spills out across the courtyard.
Thurston slips into a patch of deep shadow and watches as the giant he’d last seen unconscious in the alley behind The V emerges, buttoning his jacket as he moves. The guy heads for one of the vehicles parked under a sheltering roof. Thurston had done some research on his new laptop on the plane over here. This associate of Miller’s is Axel “The Axe” Anders.