Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set) by Blake Banner (read a book .TXT) 📗

He hit the gas and we crossed the Grand Union Canal doing seventy. We crossed the Harrow Road against the lights and climbed at speed through Kilburn, past the Station and onto Chamberlain Road. Ten minutes later, he slowed as we eased onto Willesden Lane and he pulled up at the corner.

“Stay here, please.”

He got out and crossed the sidewalk, moving along Villiers road. Three cars in, he hunkered down and the driver’s window slid down. Dehan leaned over my right shoulder so we could both look down the street. It was straight for about three hundred yards, then turned left at somewhat less than a right angle. Where it made the bend, on the right, there was a large iron gate that I guessed gave onto a courtyard.

Harry stood and peered down the road. I knew what he was looking for because I had already found it while he was talking. He came back, climbed in and slammed the door.

“He drove into a courtyard, on the bend. It seems there are a couple of warehouses there. The idea of being a consultant, John, is that you share and cooperate, you know.”

“You sacked me, remember? You sent me home.”

“Whatever.”

He fired up the engine and we cruised gently down the road to an empty parking space twenty yards from the gate on the opposite side. There he stopped and killed the engine.

“Now we wait, and pray to God that you’re right.”

We were quiet for a bit, then Dehan asked suddenly, “Since when have British socialists been anti-Semitic? I would never have thought of the British as anti-Semitic, least of all the socialists!”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure they are, but there has been a growing faction in the Labour Party, over the last few decades. It all started at more or less the same time: we joined the EU, EEC as it was back then, there was the big petrol crisis—you’re too young to remember that, but basically OPEC cut off the supply of oil to the U.K., and next thing there were thousands of oil billionaires buying up Britain, everything from Harrods to half the property in Kensington.” He looked in the mirror at her. “I’m not a political animal. I think anyone who wants to be a politician should be automatically disqualified. But barroom politicians, and there are plenty in this country, suspect that they bought up a bit more than just Harrods and Kensington real estate. I couldn’t say, but roughly around that time, there began to be an anti-Israeli feeling in the country; not so much in the pubs, as on the BBC and among certain politicians. Whether they were right or wrong, I couldn’t say, but the consensus at the King’s Arms, my local, is that more than one politician, on both sides of the House, mind, gets his or her orders, and his paycheck, from Riyadh.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “That is dangerous talk for a cop, Harry.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t know anything about politics. I’m just telling you what the lads down the pub think.”

Half to myself, I asked, “How many uprisings and revolutions started in pubs, I wonder.”

His reply was immediate. “All of them.”

Then he raised his hand and we went silent. Headlamps were approaching down the road. They slowed as they approached the corner, then turned in at the iron gates. I could now make out it was a dark Mercedes A Class saloon. Nobody got out, but after a moment, the gates began to open, and the car slipped in, parked and killed the lights. Then a figure climbed out and walked to a darkened door, where it knocked and waited.

I suddenly went cold and my skin crawled. Harry was frowning. He grabbed the radio. “Bravo team, what is the status of your subject? Over.”

“He’s still in the club, sir. We have clear eyes on his car and the door, and he hasn’t come out…”

“What was he driving?”

“Audi A8, sir. Over.”

“Who the fuck’s that?”

“Whoever it is, is going to kill Sadiq in the next ten minutes if we don’t do something.”

He stared at me a moment. “A hit man? Called from the club?”

I frowned. “What’s he got, a damned army?”

He grabbed the radio. “Alpha One, move in up to the gates. No lights. Alpha Two, hold your position. Both of you, be prepared to intercept fugitives.”

“Roger!”

“Let’s go.”

We scrambled out of the car. I noticed Dehan had dumped her shoes and was barefoot. I grinned. “When I told you dress for the evening, this isn’t what I meant.”

“I know that now.”

Harry was already loping across the road. Dehan was close behind him. He turned to me. “Now how do we get through the damned gate?”

I was half way across the road, walking. “I know a technique. It’s pretty smart, but I need your permission to try it.”

“Be my guest, only hurry, will you?”

“Give me your car keys.”

He tossed them to me and I ran a couple of steps back to the car. I fired up the engine, put it in reverse and gave the steering wheel full lock. The car whined backward into the middle of the road. I tried not to laugh when I saw Harry’s face. I lined up the trunk with the gate and floored the pedal. The crash and scream of twisted steel was horrific. It made a real mess of the trunk, but it opened the gate and I like to think it may have saved Sadiq’s life.

As I climbed out of the cab and threw him his keys, Harry was shouting at me, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Sue me. No time for this now. Let’s go!”

We ran for the door. I noticed absently in was the Al-Fakiha Import Company, which struck me