The Danger Game

  It took me quite a while, but eventually I worked out what I thought was a good enough story. At least, I hoped it was good enough.

  The next thing to think about was how to avoid whatever else Dee Dee might have planned for me. The difficulty with that was that I didn’t know what or where I was going to have to escape from, and I wouldn’t know until we got to the safe house, by which time it might be too late.

  But as it turned out, there wasn’t much I could do about that either, because before I had a chance to give it any more thought, I heard Bull say, That’s it, just over there, and I felt the car slowing down.

  Nice-looking place, Dee Dee said.

  The car slowed even more, then turned sharply to the right into what sounded like a gravel driveway. We crunched along the driveway for about twenty seconds or so, then finally rolled to a halt.

  Here we are then, Bull said, turning off the engine and putting on the handbrake.

  Must have cost a bit, Dee Dee commented.

  It used to belong to an investment banker. The guy got busted for bankrolling a massive drug deal, and his assets were seized and handed over to us. We traded in most of them, but this place was perfect for a safe house – private, secluded, easy to guard – so we decided to keep it.

  Yeah, I think I remember the guy, Dee Dee said, opening the rear door. This was about five years ago?

  Something like that.

  I remember Joss telling me about some guy with more money than sense who was trying to set up a big deal. Said the guy was an idiot.

  Bull laughed, and I heard him getting out of the car, followed by Dee Dee.

  Come on, kid, Dee Dee said, grabbing hold of my shoulder. Time to move your—

  I rolled away from him and quickly lashed out with both feet, but I was fighting blind, and my kicks were futile. I felt Dee Dee take hold of my feet, and then he just yanked me out of the car and started dragging me across the gravel driveway. I struggled for a while, wriggling and writhing around, and when that didn’t do any good, I started yelling and screaming as loud as I could.

  ‘HELP! HELP ME! I’M BEING KIDNAPP—’

  That was as far as I got before something smashed into my face, and once again I was out cold.

  48

  When I woke up this time, the hood had been taken off my head and I could see exactly where I was. I was in a large, stone-floored kitchen, sitting on a chair at a big wooden table, with my hands tied behind my back and fastened to the chair. There was a window straight ahead of me, but the blinds were closed, so I couldn’t see outside. Dee Dee was sitting opposite me, smoking a cigarette, and Ronnie Bull was standing over by the sink. Dee Dee had my mobile in his hands, and from the sound of it he was watching the video I’d made of his meeting with Bull in the car park.

  The back of my head was still throbbing, and now my face was hurting too. Dee Dee’s punch or kick – or whatever he’d hit me with – had caught me on the cheek under my right eye. It felt bruised and swollen, and it hurt like anything, but I was fairly sure nothing was broken.

  Dee Dee looked up at me. ‘All right?’

  ‘Never felt better,’ I told him.

  He grinned, then glanced down at the mobile screen and turned off the video. ‘What were you going to do with this then?’ he asked me.

  I shrugged. ‘Post it on YouTube . . . let everyone know you’re a grass.’

  He nodded. ‘That would have made things difficult for me, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Who’s to say it still won’t?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I emailed the video to my grandad when I was in the car park.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘So if anything happens to me—’

  ‘You didn’t email it to anyone.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Well, for a start, the only place you can get a signal in the car park is on the top floor, and you never went there. And secondly . . .’ He smirked. ‘I’ve already checked your phone. You haven’t emailed the video to anyone.’

  There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I didn’t say anything. I was trying to weigh up my situation now, trying to work out if it really was as bad as it seemed. It certainly didn’t look very promising. The only person who knew I’d been to the car park was Jaydie, but she didn’t know what had happened there, and she couldn’t know where I was now. I didn’t even know where I was myself. So even if Grandad knew I was missing – and there was no guarantee that he did – and even if he managed to get in touch with Jaydie, or she got in touch with him, all she’d be able to tell him was that I’d been at the car park spying on Dee Dee and Bull.

  But then I suddenly realised something – Jaydie knew about the tracker. She knew that Jazz had put the tracker in Dee Dee’s pocket. So if she was in contact with Grandad, and she told him about the tracker—

  ‘How did you find out about me and Ronnie?’ Dee Dee said, interrupting my thoughts.

  I knew what he was doing. He was trying to find out if anyone else knew about him and Bull. I’d already decided that he wasn’t going to get any names from me, but the problem was that the story I’d come up with to put him off the scent involved telling him about the tracker. And I’d just realised that the tracker was quite possibly my only chance of getting out of here alive.

  ‘I asked you a question, kid,’ Dee Dee said coldly. ‘If you don’t want to get hurt, I suggest you answer it.’

  ‘Look in the top pocket of your jacket,’ I told him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your top pocket.’

  He frowned, then reached into his top pocket and pulled out the tracker.

  ‘What the hell’s this?’ he said, studying it closely.

  ‘It’s a surveillance device,’ I explained. ‘It tracks your location and records everything you say. I slipped it into your pocket when you came to our office the other day.’

  He stared at the tracker, deep in thought, and I knew he was thinking back to when he was in the office, trying to remember if I’d got close enough to him to put the tracker in his pocket.

  ‘I did it when I gave you the micro memory card,’ I told him. ‘Remember? It was in an envelope. I got it from my grandad’s office and gave it to you. When I handed you the envelope, you took your eyes off me for a second. That’s when I put the tracker in your pocket.’

  He didn’t say anything for a while, he just sat there, thinking hard, trying to picture the moment I gave him the envelope. While he thought about that, I wondered if I’d just given up my only hope of being rescued. Whether Dee Dee believed me or not, he was bound to destroy the tracker, and once it was gone, that was it. No tracker, no way to find me. But at least Jaydie and Jazz should be safe.

  ‘So this records what I’m saying and tells you where I am?’ Dee Dee said, still examining the tracker.

  I nodded. ‘I heard you arranging the meeting with Bull, and I tracked you to the car park.’

  ‘How does it work?’

  ‘It’s connected to my mobile. If you untie my hands and pass it to me, I’ll show you.’

  He smiled. ‘You think I’m stupid? Just tell me how it works.’

  As I told him how to access the tracker screen, I hoped he wasn’t going to ask to hear the recording I told him I’d made of his phone call with Bull.

  ‘So this green dot shows where the tracker is, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Who else has access to this screen?’

  ‘My grandad,’ I lied. ‘It’s linked up to his laptop. So right now, he’ll know exactly where I am.’

  Dee Dee looked at me, trying to work out if I was telling the truth or not. ‘Call Delaney’s office, Ron,’ he said to Bull.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  ‘What’s the number?’ Bull asked me, taking out his mobile.

  There wasn’t much point in lying, so I told him. He keyed in the number, then turned to Dee Dee. ‘What do you want me to
say?’

  ‘Just ask to speak to the old man.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Dee Dee sighed. ‘I just want to know if he’s there or not, OK? Put it on speaker.’

  Bull called the number and put the phone on speaker. I heard the phone ringing, then the sound of it being answered. ‘Delaney & Co, can I help you?’

  It was Grandad’s voice.

  ‘Is Joseph Delaney there?’ Bull said.

  ‘Speaking.’

  Bull ended the call.

  Dee Dee grinned at me. ‘If he knows you’re here, he doesn’t seem too bothered about it, does he?’

  ‘He probably hasn’t checked the tracker screen on his laptop yet,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe . . .’ Dee Dee said. ‘Or it could be that you’re lying through your teeth and he doesn’t actually have the tracker screen on his laptop.’

  ‘That’s a possibility,’ I admitted. ‘But are you willing to take the risk?’

  ‘What risk? The risk that a grouchy old man might turn up here and give me a nasty look?’ Dee Dee laughed. ‘I think I could just about handle that. Not that it’s going to happen anyway. You know why not? I’ll tell you why not. Because you’re one of those know-it-all kids who think they can do everything on their own, and my guess is that you haven’t told anyone else about tracking me and Ronnie. You’re keeping it all to your smart-arse little self.’

  ‘I’d have to be pretty stupid to do that, wouldn’t I?’ I said.

  ‘You’d also have to be pretty stupid to end up tied to a chair, miles from anywhere, with no one knowing where you are. But you seem to have managed that without any trouble. The truth is, kid, you’re way out of your league here.’

  I hated to admit it, but I couldn’t help wondering if he was right. Maybe I was completely out of my depth. And maybe if I hadn’t been so stupid, I wouldn’t be sitting here tied to a chair, miles from anywhere, with no one knowing where I was . . . and not much hope of leaving here alive.

  I wasn’t going to share my doubts with Dee Dee though, so I forced myself to look him confidently in the eye and let him think that maybe, just maybe, I did know what I was doing.

  He stared back at me, long and hard, then glanced down at the tracker in his hand. He tossed it in the air a couple of times, thinking things over, then he got up and started looking through the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen. Eventually he found what he was looking for – a big old cast-iron frying pan. He pulled it out of the cupboard, put the tracker on the stone floor, raised the frying pan over his head, then smashed it down on the tracker, completely destroying it with a single blow. All that was left of it was a small slab of flattened metal and countless tiny fragments of broken plastic and circuitry scattered all over the floor. Dee Dee wasn’t finished yet though. He came over to the table, picked up my mobile, and took the back off it. He removed the SIM card and the memory card, put them in his pocket, then dropped the phone to the floor and proceeded to smash it to smithereens with the frying pan. He didn’t just hit it once this time, he kept on hammering it over and over again, until he was satisfied that the phone – and everything stored in it – was totally beyond repair.

  ‘Right,’ he said, dropping the pan on the floor, ‘that should do it. Now I need to make a phone call.’ He turned to Bull. ‘Where’s the nearest phone box?’

  ‘You can use this,’ Bull said, offering him his mobile.

  ‘I don’t use mobiles. Even if I did, you wouldn’t want the number I’m calling listed in your call log.’

  A look passed between them then, and it wasn’t hard to guess what Dee Dee meant.

  ‘There’s a phone box at the end of the street,’ Bull said. ‘Just turn left at the bottom of the drive and keep going. You can’t miss it.’

  Dee Dee glanced at me, then turned back to Bull. ‘I’m relying on you, Ron. Do you understand?’

  ‘I’ve got it, OK? Don’t worry.’

  Dee Dee stared at him for a moment or two, silently reminding him that they were in this together, and that if anything went wrong they’d both probably end up dead, then he turned away and headed for the door. ‘I’ll be five minutes,’ he said. ‘Lock the door after me.’

  He went out, and Bull followed him to lock the door, leaving me alone for a few moments. I flexed my arms as hard as I could, twisting my wrists and trying to pull my hands free, but it was useless. From the feel of it, my wrists were bound with police-issue plastic handcuffs, and my tethered hands were securely tied to the back of the chair. I tried to get to my feet, but with my hands fixed to the back of the chair I couldn’t straighten up properly.

  When the kitchen door opened and Bull came back in, I was kind of half standing up, bent over the table at a right angle, with the chair jammed into my back. Bull didn’t say anything, he just came over to me and forcibly sat me back down again.

  As he went over and stood beside the sink again, I could see the doubts and concerns in his eyes, and I knew that I had to work on them. He was the weak link. And now that I was alone with him, I had just under five minutes to try and break him.

  49

  ‘You know who he’s calling, don’t you?’ I said to Bull.

  He didn’t answer, didn’t even look at me.

  ‘He’s calling his hitman,’ I went on, ‘the guy he uses whenever he needs to dispose of somebody. He’s telling him he’s got a job for him. You know that, don’t you?’

  Bull remained silent, just standing at the sink with his back to me, staring blindly at nothing.

  ‘You can’t just ignore it,’ I told him. ‘You’re part of it. The very least you’ll be guilty of is accessory to murder, but the way I see it—’

  ‘Hey, kid,’ he said. ‘Just shut up, will you?’

  ‘I know you don’t want to be part of all this—’

  ‘You don’t know anything.’

  ‘He’s going to kill me, for God’s sake. Are you really going to just look the other way and pretend it’s nothing to do with you? I mean, I know you’re a bad cop, and you’ve got yourself into a bad situation, but underneath it all you’re still a police officer. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

  Bull sighed. ‘Look,’ he said, turning to face me, ‘even if I wanted to help you, there’s nothing I can do, so you might as well save your breath.’

  ‘All you’ve got to do is let me go. By the time Dee Dee gets back, we can both be out of here.’

  ‘Yeah? And what good will that do us? What do you think Dee Dee’s going to do when he finds us gone? Just forget about us? You think he’s going to say to himself, “Oh, well, never mind, I suppose I might as leave them alone now”?’ Bull looked at me, slowly shaking his head. ‘He’ll hunt us and down and kill us both, that’s what he’ll do.’

  ‘Not if you get him arrested.’

  Bull laughed. ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea. Get him arrested.’ He shook his head again, as if it was the most ludicrous suggestion he’d ever heard. ‘Do you mind telling me how I’m going to explain my involvement in all this if I get Dee Dee arrested?’

  ‘You could try telling the truth.’

  ‘The truth would put me behind bars. I’m a cop, a dirty cop at that. Do you know what happens to cops in prison? I’d be lucky if I made it through the first night.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘so why not just disappear instead? You must have plenty of money stashed away. If we both leave now, you could be out of the country by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘And then I’d be a fugitive for the rest of my life. Even if Dee Dee didn’t find me – and believe me, he’d never stop looking – every police force in the world would be on the lookout for me. I’m not going to live the rest of my life on the run.’ He paused, looking away from me. ‘I’m sorry, kid, but I’ve already been through all the possible options, and basically it boils down to a choice between my life or yours.’ He sighed again. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t help you.’

  ‘You mean you won’t help me.’

  ‘Whatever.’ br />
  ‘You must be really proud of yourself.’

  ‘I lost all pride in myself a long time ago,’ he said emptily. ‘I know I’m not a good man.’

  ‘And you can live with that?’

  You can learn to live with anything. In the end it’s all about survival. That’s all there is. You do what you have to do to stay alive. And then you die.’ He smiled humourlessly. ‘It’s not much of a life, is it?’

  ‘You seem pretty keen to keep hold of it.’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know why I bother sometimes.’

  ‘You’re pathetic,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe so,’ he said, glancing at his watch, ‘but I’d rather be pathetic than dead.’

  It was clear that I was wasting my time with him. He might not have liked what Dee Dee had planned for me, but despite the fact that he thought it was wrong, he’d already made up his mind that the cost to him of making it right was too high a price to pay. Like he’d said, it’s all about survival, and the only thing he had left in his life was the primitive desire to hold on to it. In his case, it seemed to be a pretty pointless desire, but that didn’t make it any less powerful.

  ‘If I’m going to die,’ I said to him, ‘you could at least put my mind at rest about my mum and dad.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I know you work for Omega, and I know you put them in touch with Dee Dee—’

  ‘Omega?’ he said, looking genuinely puzzled. ‘Who, or what, is Omega?’

  I studied his eyes. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

  ‘The only Omega I know is the one that makes expensive watches.’

  ‘Omega is the name of the organisation you put in touch with Dee Dee about the riot in North Walk.’

  ‘Oh, them,’ he said, suddenly realising what I was talking about. ‘So they do have a name after all.’ He nodded to himself, mildly interested. ‘Omega, eh? Well, well. . .’