The Danger Game

  ‘What have you done with Raisa?’ Grandad said.

  ‘Done with her?’ Dee Dee said innocently. ‘We haven’t done anything with her. She’s been made aware of her mistake and she’s rectified it. She’s withdrawn her compensation claim, the case is closed. Simple as that.’

  ‘And what about Courtney?’ Grandad asked, glaring at the two bruisers who were standing by the door. ‘Did you tell these two pig-ignorant thugs to make Courtney “aware of her mistake”?’

  ‘Don’t push it, old man,’ Dee Dee said. ‘I’m doing my best to be reasonable here.’ He looked over at Gloria, glanced at me, then turned back to Grandad. ‘It’s up to you how this goes,’ he said calmly. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying? If you listen to me and do as I say, we can all walk out of here tonight in one piece. But if you start making things awkward . . . well, you know what’s going to happen, don’t you?’

  Grandad just stared at him. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘That’s better.’ He dropped his cigarette to the floor and stepped on it. The carpet smouldered. He ground his foot into the blackened patch of carpet and the smouldering stopped. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘this is what I want. Number one, I want the original surveillance video that your girl recorded in Tanga Tans.’ He paused, looking at Grandad.

  ‘You want it right now?’ Grandad asked.

  ‘No, there’s no hurry,’ Dee Dee said sarcastically. ‘I’ll come round and pick it up sometime next week.’ He shook his head. ‘Of course I want it now.’

  Grandad turned to me. ‘It’s in a small white envelope in the top right-hand drawer of my desk.’

  ‘I know where it is,’ Gloria said, getting to her feet. ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘You stay where you are,’ Dee Dee told her. He looked at me. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  I went into Grandad’s office, opened his desk drawer, and took out the envelope he’d described. I looked inside and made sure the micro memory card was there, and I was just about to go back into the main office when I noticed that Grandad’s laptop was open, and when I saw what was on the screen, I realised why Gloria had been so keen to come in here and get the memory card. The picture on the laptop was the photograph of Lance Borstlap that Grandad had shown me a few days ago. Lance Borstlap, one of the Omega men. The menu strip at the bottom of the screen showed two more open files. I clicked on one of them and the grainy old photograph of the three special forces operatives in Kuwait came up, the one that showed Sergeant Andrew W. Carson, who we thought might be Winston, the man in charge of Omega.

  ‘Hey, kid,’ I heard Dee Dee call out. ‘What the hell are you doing in there?’

  I quickly opened the other file. It was a copy of the traffic accident report into my parents’ car crash.

  There was no way that Grandad would have left these files open, and the only other person who’d been in here was Gloria. She’d lied to me. She hadn’t been in here to retrieve her report into Dee Dee, she’d been in here looking through Grandad’s files on Omega.

  I was suddenly so furious with her, and so angry with myself for being taken in by her lies – and for not listening to what my instincts were telling me – that for a moment or two I just had to close my eyes and breathe slowly in an effort to calm myself down.

  Once my heart had stopped pounding, I opened my eyes again, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Then I closed the files on the laptop and went back into the main office.

  I could see Gloria watching me, trying to work out if I’d seen the open files or not, but I didn’t look back at her. I just went over to Dee Dee and handed him the envelope. He glanced inside it, then put the envelope in his pocket.

  ‘How many copies of the video are there?’ he said to Grandad.

  ‘I gave one to Jakes and Mortimer, and there’s one on my laptop.’

  ‘Delete it,’ Dee Dee told him. ‘Jakes and Mortimer’s copy no longer exists, and the original’s going to be burnt. So if I do ever see or hear of the video again, I’ll know it came from you. Understand?’

  ‘I’ll delete it,’ Grandad assured him.

  ‘You’ll also get rid of everything you’ve got on Tanga Tans. Computer files, written reports, whatever. Delete it, shred it, destroy it.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Grandad said.

  Dee Dee stared hard at him. ‘You forget all about Tanga Tans, OK? It’s nothing to do with you. You forget you ever had anything to do with it. If anyone asks you about the salon or Raisa Ferris, or anything at all about me or my business, you keep your mouth shut.’ He looked round at Gloria and me. ‘That goes for all of you. You keep out of my business.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’ Grandad said.

  Dee Dee smiled. ‘I’m a reasonable man, Mr Delaney. I’m sure you find that hard to believe, and I’ve no doubt you think I’m just a worthless piece of scum. A drug dealer, a gangster, a mindless thug with a total absence of morality.’ He shrugged. ‘Of course, you’re perfectly entitled to think whatever you like. Your opinion of me – however misguided it may be – is of no interest to me whatsoever. The fact is, I’m a businessman, just like you. I provide a service, just like you. The only real difference between us is that we operate in different worlds. Yours is governed by the laws of the state, mine is governed by the laws of the estate.’ He grinned, pleased again with his clever use of words. ‘In your world, conflicts and wrongdoing are resolved by mostly peaceful means. The police, the courts, the judicial system. But these forces of law simply don’t exist in my world. The only justice available in my world is the threat and use of violence. It’s not ideal, by any means, but it’s all we have.’ He stared at Grandad. ‘And it is very effective, as I’m sure you’ll agree.’

  ‘Is there a point to all this?’ Grandad said wearily.

  Dee Dee’s eyes darkened. ‘I’ve told you what I want you to do. If you do it, that’s fine. No problem. You won’t see or hear from me again. However, if you don’t do exactly what you’ve been told, I guarantee that you’ll suffer the consequences.’ He glanced around the office. ‘This place will be burned to the ground, for a start, and I’ll do whatever else is necessary to ensure that your business is wiped out. On a personal level, the least the three of you can expect is to be very badly hurt, and on top of that I’ll bring pain and suffering to your families too.’ He stepped closer to Grandad. ‘You wouldn’t want anything to happen to Nancy and Nora, would you?’

  Grandad said nothing, just stared at him.

  Dee Dee turned to Gloria. ‘I haven’t had you checked out yet, but I’m sure there’s someone very special in your life – husband, son, daughter. Whoever they are, we’ll find them.’ He lit another cigarette and turned back to Grandad. ‘Oh, and I’ll let my two “pig-ignorant thugs” here finish off what they started with the lovely Miss Lane. They’ll be only too happy to live up to your insult.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Grandad said calmly. ‘Are we done now?’

  ‘Yeah, I think that just about covers it. I’ve made my position quite clear, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Right, well, unless you’ve got any questions, or there’s anything you’d like to say before we go . . . ?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve got a question,’ Grandad said, taking a step towards Dee Dee.

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. How old are you?’

  It wasn’t the kind of question Dee Dee was expecting, and I could tell that it threw him off balance a bit.

  ‘I’m twenty-six,’ he said, looking and sounding slightly bewildered. ‘What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Your little lecture about the difference between your world and mine,’ Grandad said.

  ‘Yeah? What about it?’

  ‘You were right. They are different worlds. But what you need to understand is that I was living in a world like yours before you were even born. I spent over twenty yea
rs fighting in real wars, and I’ve seen and done things that you couldn’t imagine in your worst nightmares.’

  ‘Right,’ Dee Dee said dismissively, ‘and I’m supposed to be impressed by that, am I?’

  Grandad shrugged. ‘You might want to bear it in mind, that’s all.’

  Dee Dee grinned. ‘Anything else you’d like me to bear in mind?’

  ‘Just this. If you or your thugs so much as lay a finger on any of my family or colleagues, I will hunt you down and kill you.’

  ‘Is that a threat, Mr Delaney?’

  ‘It’s a stone-cold fact.’

  29

  After Dee Dee and his two goons had left, the three of us convened in Grandad’s office to try to work out what we should do. I kept my eye on Gloria as we went into the office, and although she didn’t make it obvious, she definitely glanced at Grandad’s laptop. When she saw that the Omega files were closed, a momentary look of realisation crossed her face. She knew that I knew.

  As we all sat down – Grandad at his desk, me sitting opposite him, and Gloria at Courtney’s desk across the room – the situation between Gloria and me felt really strange. It was as if there was this big mysterious secret hanging over us, but we were both pretending it wasn’t there. Also, now that Dee Dee had gone and I’d had a chance to think about it, I didn’t understand why Gloria had lied to me in the first place. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t supposed to know about our investigation into Omega. In fact, as Grandad had told me, it was Gloria herself who’d managed to identify Lance Borstlap. So why didn’t she want me to know that she’d been looking at Borstlap’s file on Grandad’s laptop? It didn’t make sense.

  For now though, there were more important things to think about, and as Grandad started talking, I turned my mind to the question in hand: what were we going to do about Dee Dee?

  ‘The way I see it,’ Grandad said, ‘we’ve got two options. The only sensible course of action is to do exactly what Dee Dee says. We simply wash our hands of the whole case, forget we had anything to do with it, and get on with our lives. The compensation case has been dropped, so Delaney & Co have no responsibility to carry on with the investigation anyway, and whatever we think about the rights and wrongs of how Dee Dee runs his “business”, it’s not our job to do anything about it.’

  ‘Can we trust him to keep his word?’ Gloria said. ‘Do you think he really will leave us alone if we do what he says?’

  Grandad nodded. ‘Whatever he is, he’s not stupid. I don’t doubt for a second that if we don’t do what he says he will carry out his threats, but as he said, he’s a businessman, and he won’t want to draw attention to himself if he doesn’t have to. I think it’s safe to assume he’ll stick to his word.’

  ‘What about Courtney?’ I said, unable to keep the anger from my voice. ‘Are we just going to forget what he did to her as well? Wash our hands of that and get on with our lives?’

  ‘I didn’t say we’re going to do what Dee Dee wants us to do,’ Grandad said calmly. ‘All I said was that it’s the only sensible course of action.’

  ‘Do you mean we don’t have to be sensible?’

  Grandad smiled. ‘It’s up to us what we do. The sensible option isn’t always the right one. Sometimes you have to follow your heart.’

  ‘And what’s your heart telling you?’

  Grandad’s smile faded. ‘Dee Dee has to pay for what he did to Courtney. It’s almost certain that he didn’t actually do it himself, but there’s no doubt that he was behind it. He ordered his thugs to beat the living daylights out of her, and that makes him just as responsible – if not more so – than the individuals who actually did it. They all have to pay. They’re all going to pay.’

  ‘Now, hold on a minute,’ Gloria said. ‘I know how much Courtney means to both of you, and I agree that Dee Dee and his goons shouldn’t be allowed to get away with what they did to her. I mean, you know what I’m like, Joe – you know I don’t have any qualms about punishing those who deserve it. If I was twenty years younger and I was given five minutes alone with Drew Devon, I’d happily make sure he was incapable of ever hurting anyone again. But we have to be practical about this. Neither of us are twenty years younger, are we? I don’t know how many men Dee Dee has at his disposal, but it’s bound to be at least a few dozen, probably a whole lot more, and they’re all going to be young and strong and ready to fight at the drop of a hat. What chance would we have against them? I mean, two old codgers and a fourteen-year-old kid against a small army of streetwise gangsters. It’d all be over in five seconds flat.’ She looked into Grandad’s eyes. ‘And don’t forget what Dee Dee said about “bringing pain and suffering” to our families too.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ Grandad asked her. ‘We just let him get away with it?’

  ‘I’m saying that if we go up against him and fail – and it’s a virtual certainty that we would – all three of us are going to end up in hospital, or worse, and you’re going to lose your business. And, if that’s not enough, your wife and your mother, and Courtney, are all going to be in danger of getting seriously hurt as well.’

  ‘Maybe there’s another option,’ I said.

  Grandad and Gloria looked at me.

  ‘Dad always told me that when you’re in a fight you have to play to your strengths,’ I explained. ‘As far as I can tell, the only advantage we’ve got over Dee Dee and his crew is that we’re smarter than them.’

  ‘Right . . .’ Grandad said, not sounding very confident. ‘But even if that’s true, and I’m not entirely sure that it is, how exactly is being smart going to help us?’

  ‘We work out a way to get back at Dee Dee without putting ourselves or anyone else in danger.’

  ‘We just “work it out”?’ Grandad said.

  ‘Why not? I mean, you two know all about spying and being sneaky and stuff, don’t you? You must have been in really tricky positions before when you’ve had to think your way out of trouble. So that’s what we do now. We don’t fight with our fists, we fight with our brains.’

  Grandad nodded slowly and looked over at Gloria. ‘What do you think?’ he asked her.

  She shrugged. ‘Well, there’s certainly no harm in trying. Although I have to admit that at the moment I can’t see how it can be done.’

  ‘Nothing’s impossible if you really put your mind to it,’ I said.

  She looked at Grandad. ‘The optimism of youth.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but as someone once said, you’ll never find a rainbow if you keep looking down.’

  Good one, Grandad, I thought, smiling at him.

  ‘All right, look,’ he went on, ‘there’s no rush to decide if we’re going to do anything or not, so I think it’s best if we all put our thinking caps on and see what we can come up with. And in the meantime, we don’t do anything, OK?’ He gave me a stern look. ‘Is that understood, Travis? We don’t do anything at all about Drew Devon or Tanga Tans or anything remotely connected to the case. Agreed?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, standing up, ‘well, I’m going back to the hospital now to see how Courtney’s getting on. Do you want to come with me, Gloria?’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘I can’t, I’m afraid. Not tonight. But I’ll definitely go and see her tomorrow.’

  ‘Just me and you then, Trav,’ he said.

  I hesitated for a moment, thinking quickly about something, then I looked at my watch, got to my feet and went over to the cupboard. ‘I’ve got to meet Kendal Price at eight o’clock,’ I lied, opening the cupboard and taking out Grandad’s gadget case. ‘We had a problem with one of the motion sensors at the game today. I was going to replace it myself, but Kendal’s got to do something at school tonight anyway, so I’m going to give him another sensor and he’s going to install it himself I opened the case, making sure no one could see what I was doing, and took out the tracking device that Grandad had shown me the other day. ‘I won’t be long,’ I said, checking the code on the tracker to ma
ke sure it was the one he’d linked up to my mobile. ‘Once I’ve seen Kendal, I’ll get a taxi to the hospital. I should be there by half eight at the latest.’

  ‘Why don’t I just give you a lift to wherever you’re meeting Kendal?’ Grandad suggested. ‘I’ll wait while you see him, then we can go on to the hospital together.’

  I glanced over at Gloria as she got up and went into the main office. I heard her crossing the room and heading towards the little bathroom at the back.

  ‘It’s OK, thanks, Grandad,’ I said, heading for the main office, ‘I’m meeting Kendal at McDonald’s in the High Street. There’s nowhere to park round there. It’s easier if I walk.’

  ‘Well, OK, if you say so,’ I heard him say as I went through the door.

  I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was slightly puzzled by my behaviour, but I didn’t have time to worry about that at the moment. Gloria wouldn’t be in the bathroom much longer, and if I was going to plant the tracking device on her, I had to do it now.

  To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, or why I was doing it. The idea of planting the tracking device on Gloria to see where she went when she left the office had only just occurred to me. I hadn’t been planning it or anything – not consciously anyway – it had just suddenly popped into my head. I think it was when Grandad had asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital with him, and she’d looked at her watch and said, ‘I can’t, I’m afraid. Not tonight.’ I don’t know why that had aroused my suspicion, there was just something about the way she’d said it that had sparked off an idea in the back of my mind, and the next thing I’d known I was getting the tracker out of the cupboard.