He didn't take his eyes off Leo, who stared right back. But he heard one of the tins being opened, then a whoop, and laughter, and someone else said, "No fucking way." Leo put out a hand, not even looking, like some surgeon for a scalpel. A slimy bag of white powder was slapped into his hand and he took his eyes away from Jimmy for a second. He jabbed a finger into the bag, right through, and extracted the white digit and sniffed it. His eyes turned surprised after that. His men were now going giddy, fighting over who got the tin opener next. Jimmy and Leo continued to stare at each other against a background soundtrack of whooping men and clattering tins. One tin even bounced off Jimmy's chest and fell through the hole.
"Jesus, look at all this," someone said when it was all over. Jimmy flicked his eyes and saw the men kneeling around a big pile of bags of white power. "Hey, white boy, this cocaine or heroin? This fake, I'll cut you."
"I don't know which one it is," Jimmy said, which got him a laugh and an insult.
"It's coke," Leo said. "Where did you get forty-eight bags of coke and why have you brought it here. Bo, check outside, make sure this guy isn't up to some entrapment lark."
A guy ran off for the stairs to do his leader's bidding. Two others rushed to windows to peer out. That left one other with the bags, the two pressing on Jimmy's legs, and Leo standing over him.
"It isn't forty-eight," Jimmy said. "It's more like four hundred and fifty six. The rest is in the boot of a car outside."
Leo put aside the bag and knelt. He grabbed Jimmy's shoulder and yanked him into a sitting position. The two guys took their feet off his legs and he scuttled away from the edge. Leo pointed to a chair and he took one. Leo sat back in his padded seat, facing him across the hole.
"Can't see any cops," called one of the guys at the windows.
"No trick. I came here to help you, like I said," Jimmy said. "You guys got guns?"
"Now why would we want guns? And what makes you think we need help?"
"You can have that coke. Send a guy to my car. You can have it all. I'm fine with my cup of caffeine in the morning. But some men are going to want that back, and they're going to come here to get it tomorrow morning. They might bring guns. If you want to keep it, you'll needs guns as well."
"And how do these people know where to come? Seems they would have already if they knew. Are you going to tell them?" The last sentence was said with a smirk that Jimmy killed with his next utterance.
"Yes, tomorrow morning."
Leo laughed now. "Can you do that from a hole in the ground? Tell me why I should let you go just so you can send guys with shooters here?"
"There's a very good reason why you should want these men to come here."
Leo digested this in silence. "Sounds like you might want these guys out the picture," he said finally. "So it would be you who needs the help, not me. Why should I help you? For the coke? Maybe that coke's mine now anyway. Maybe you gave up ownership the moment you stepped in my place. You know who I am, right?"
Jimmy did know. Davey had told him all about these people a few days ago. "I know you have some street rank. Triple O.G, double O.G, something like that. Not too clued up on gangs and things. Your people are the Midnight Corps. A big London gang. You run various parts. Drugs, women, hot cars, the usual portfolio of underworld bad boys. You're known for coming to life at night, like bats. Hence the name. You spread yourselves over derelict London, turning places like this into your turf. You're Leo, number four in the hierarchy, if I understand right. Although you recently got promoted to number two, because the two leaders just got killed. But you didn't get a high position in the gang through exploits. Your brother-in-law was the kingpin. But now he's dead."
Leo nodded slowly, but Jimmy couldn't tell if he angry or happy that someone knew so much.
"How do you know all this?"
"Those drugs were smuggled into a supermarket where I work. I was a threat to the operation, and so the guy who runs it tried to kill me. He sent a hitman called Chopper."
Leo's grin faltered. Jimmy saw his lips mouth the word CHOPPER.
"Chopper, so I heard, was the guy who killed you brother-in-law. The guy who ran things. Alfo The Destroyer. And his number two, a guy called Baz. Baz is missing, right?"
Leo gaze him a hard stare and Jimmy knew he was trying to decide whether or not this was a trick. If he decided it was, then Jimmy was going to be in a whole lot of trouble.
"Since you don't know about the drugs, I'm guessing this was some side-line Alfo had. Something he might have kept from the rest of the gang. Maybe he got greedy, or maybe he wanted to pull out and told the smugglers he would no longer let their cocaine into his territory. Or no longer help them sell it. Or wanted to stop them. Whatever it was, the smugglers didn't like it, so they hired Chopper to kill him, and then I found out and they sent the same guy after me."
"And yet you still breathe," Leo said, breathing deeply, visibly angry. At the smugglers Jimmy spoke of, or Jimmy himself, he did not know. One was good. The other was bad.
"Chopper tried to set me up. Made it look like I was helping him. He wanted your people to kill me."
Realisation hit him then. "James Marsh. Now I remember. Yeah, we heard that. I heard you were involved. The men who were sent to get you never got back."
"They were killed, but not by Chopper. The smugglers killed Chopper using another hitman. This man killed your people. This man is currently after me."
Just then the guy who'd run downstairs came rushing back, out of breath. He reported that he could see nobody else around. This guy - a finger pointed at Jimmy - is alone.
Leo sent him to the car to fetch the rest of the drugs. Then Leo got up and paced. Jimmy knew his fate would be decided in the next few seconds.
"So you came here because you think I'll want revenge for my brother-in-law. You want me to go up against some drugs kingpin, just for you?"
Jimmy shook his head. "He's a powerful man because has money and contacts, but he's not in your league and he doesn't have the clout here. His drugs people are thousands of miles away, in the Philippines. Here, he's nobody. I mean, he hired Chopper. Some two-bit hitman only good for killing local scumbags. The main threat is the other hitman, who is called Einar. But I know where he's going to be tomorrow morning. He likes to kill from afar. I stole their drugs and they want to meet me to get it back. I've seen the location where they want to meet. There's only one place where he'll be. One place where he can watch from afar. You put a couple of guys there to take him out, and the rest of them will be easy. Nightclub bouncers given overtime. No match for your guys." Jimmy told him the time and location of the meet planned for tomorrow morning. He described the fire drill tower.
Leo thought about this. "You think I'll set my men on the men who killed my brother-in-law and that will put you free and clear? Take all the problems from your life and make everything rosy, so you can just walk away with a smile and a skip? But you know about the drugs. You know where I hide out. You know enough to make the cops pull in SOCO and the SAS and every other shadowy team of ass-kickers in this country. And you think I'll just let you walk?"
Jimmy stood up. Someone grabbed his arm, but he left it there and stared at Leo, two feet apart. "What I could tell the cops is just one of two problems you have. The second is there other people, and that's the bigger problem. They're selling drugs on your turf. They killed your brother-in-law to get him out of the way, and maybe they want all of you out of the way now. You could kill me right now, but problem number two will still exist, whatever happens to me. These men are out there, and they might be planning to hit your gang. And the only way you'll stop them getting you all when you least expect it is to get them when they least expect it. I just want to go home and life my life with my family. You give me that, I'll give you these guys. Delivered right here, onto your turf. I'll say nothing to the cops and you'll never hear from me again. You get the drugs, and you get to stay alive."
Leo just stared at him.
&
nbsp; Jimmy said, "I'm going to walk out of here right now. If I get through the door, I'll be back tomorrow morning, and that'll give you time to prepare. If you don't like that idea, or you don't trust me, then opt to take your chances against these guys on your own and don't let me get anywhere near that door."
Jimmy turned and walked. He was tense, expecting a gunshot in the back, or a cry of STOP. The footsoldiers piped up, clearly not liking what they were seeing. But nobody moved after him. He went down the stairs, under the aperture - where he tensed even more so as the men leered down at him.
He got out of the door and all the way to his car, and only when the door was shut did he finally relax. Slightly. He started the engine and was just about to drive away when one of the Midnight Corps boys appeared at the window, driving a fist towards it. He saw four of them, three more behind the man about to bust the window. He tensed, waiting for the glass to smash, a knife to pierce his neck.
But the man only rapped the window and said, "You forgetting something, white boy?"
They moved away. In the door mirror, he watched them congregate at the rear. Someone popped the boot and they started start unloading the cases of tins. Twenty seconds later, they were gone.
Jimmy drove away.
***
All the blinds came down at once, flooding the room with light. The men in suits yelled and flew apart as if an explosive device had detonated in the middle of their cluster. Another gunshot noise bounced around the room and another man screamed.
Jimmy rushed after one of the suits, who darted behind a pillar and froze. Jimmy thundered right into him, and like a cue ball given a touch of backspin stopped dead behind the pillar as the guy went sailing out into the open. The guy scrambled to his feet and stumbled towards another pillar.
It seemed like everyone was firing now. Jimmy heard bullets ping off the floor, off pillars, off the walls, and others that made no connection sounds, as if they had exited through the smashed windows. The noise was deafening.
He looked around. The room had eight pillars in two rows of four. All of Hartbauer's men were behind the row nearest the stairs, while twenty metres away the other row hid Leo's men. Like pawns in a line, facing each other across the emptiness of a chessboard. Leo's men had no stairs to run to, but the Hartbauer's guys did. He could see two guys pressed up behind one pillar like lovers in the spoons position. The guy at the back had his head turned and Jimmy knew he was contemplating the run to the stairs. If they made the run together, they'd probably make it.
He couldn't see the slim guy he had heard referred to as Jeremy. The guy who, of all of them, might just know what he was doing in a firefight.
He peeked out from the pillar, glancing at the other row. He saw the odd shoulder and foot peeking out from some other pillar. Men lurking. He saw the downed man under the window, laying still, blood pooling around him.
It went deathly quiet then.
Then there was a shout: "Cutter's dead. Dead over at the window. You fucking cunts."
"You'll all join him," called back a voice that Jimmy recognised as Leo's.
"Who the fuck are you guys?" one of Hartbauer's men yelled.
"You fucked on right up coming here, white boys!" came the yelled return.
As he watched, one of the Midnight guys stuck out an arm and fired blindly. One of Hartbauer's men returned a shot, and there was a scream of pain. The man in the suit stayed hugged to the pillar, but he yelled, "I got one of the bastards."
Then there was laughter. "No you didn't, bleach-face. But I'm gonna get your mother later."
The insulted man in the suit fired again, twice this time. Shots were returned, there was more shouting, and once more the room throbbed with noise. Jimmy turned his back on the pillar and started sawing his binds along the rough edge. He was free eight seconds later, and that was when the noise died down again. He turned to hug the pillar again. There was a pillar to his right, two to his left. Four other men, all looking scared, all trying to communicate with each other by hand signals and lip movements. He saw one pointing at him. The guy to his right then pointed his gun and jerked it as if to say, Go. Jimmy knew they wanted him to break cover. He shook his head. The guy aimed the gun right at him. Just five metres between them. If he fired, he might miss, but he might not. He was holding the gun up close to his chest, like a man with a microphone, so he didn't stick out an arm someone could blast a hole in.
He peeked out. Leo's men were shouting more insults, but nobody was firing, and nobody was looking.
Jimmy ran.
He rushed forward, into the centre of the room. His plan had been to scream who he was and hope Leo's men let him get to their side, where he could join their fight. But the moment he started running, one of Hartbauer's men, some guy who'd probably recently watched a war film, fired a cover shot. It didn't work. It propelled Leo's men into returning fire. Jimmy veered slightly as bullets flew all around him. He saw a number of gun barrels aimed in his direction as he dove, and slid, knocking aside chairs a moment before he slipped over the aperture and fell.
He scrambled in the air as he fell and managed a good impression of a cat trying to get its feet under it. He landed on the table below on his hands and knees and felt the legs snap. That lessened some of the impact, as did the trash he felt the wood under him crash into. He rolled and got to his feet quickly, unhurt except for pain in his wrists.
The shooting had stopped. All went silent again for a few seconds. Jimmy moved through the trash and got to the path cleared through it.
That was when he heard more shots, and screaming, and yells of pain. Footsteps as men ran, breaking cover. He looked at the aperture, sure the noise was coming through there, but peripheral hearing picked up a series of bangs from the raised shutter. From outside. He ran that way.
He reached the shutter and ducked to go under. He saw a ladder just two feet in front of his face, a ladder that hadn't been there before, and his brain filled in the missing pieces of the jigsaw. He sat on his ass, threaded out a leg, and kicked the ladder. It slid away from him and clattered to the ground, followed a fraction of a second later by the thin man in the suit as he landed hard. He had tried to land on his feet, and he did, but he was angled and one leg took the brunt of his weight and snapped right under him. He screamed. Jimmy scrambled out and grabbed the arm holding the gun. He wrested it from the man's hand and stood over him.
Jeremy soon forgot his pain. His leg was bent as no leg should be, but he just looked embarrassed as he stared up at Jimmy.
"Maybe I shouldn't be too upset, you're Chopper after all," he said.
"That's right. Hitman and murderer," Jimmy said, aiming the gun right at his face. "So forget being upset and just think how lucky you were that you got to live." He lifted a foot and drove it into the man's head, cracking bone hard against concrete. It took a second stamp to put the guy unconscious.
Jimmy rushed back through the warehouse and up the stairs. He ran hard, no care for the noise he made. He stopped three quarters of the way up, just his arms and head visible to anyone watching from the upper floor. But nobody was watching. The four men in suits, their backs to him, were in the open, aiming their guns at Leo's men, all four of whom were laid out, two badly injured and bleeding, one moaning but not moving, and another on his knees, head bowed.
The story was obvious. Jeremy had escaped the room, gotten outside, climbed a ladder, fired through the first floor windows, right behind Leo's men, forcing them out into the open, where they were sitting ducks.
Someone booted the kneeling man in the shoulder, knocking him onto his side. The kneeling man was Leo.
"Freeze," Jimmy yelled. The suited men turned, scanned the room, not seeing him at first. He was just a head and a gun. Then they did. Someone stepped towards him, and he fired into the pillar just behind the guy. After that they froze as ordered. Leo, seemingly uninjured, leaped up and grabbed a gun from the floor. He quickly disarmed Hartbauer's men. Jimmy moved forward. By the time he
reached the gathering, Hartbauer's men were on their faces in a line. Leo gave one of his men, a guy with a thigh wound, a gun to hold on them. Two of the others started searching them and tossing wallets, keys and other items across the floor.
"What happens now?" Jimmy asked.
Leo grabbed a toppled seat, righted it and sat. Now Jimmy saw that the man's right hand was busted, bleeding badly. Leo pulled the sleeve of his jacket over it with a wince.
"I'll think about that after you're gone. Which one's the boss, then? Whose teeth to I have to pull out?"
Jimmy lowered his gun but didn't release his finger from the trigger. He wasn't sure he was done using it yet. Leo might still be a problem.
"None. He didn't come in. He probably drove off when the shooting started. But he's an old man and he won't be a worry for you. I'm about to go and turn his day bad, as long as you don't mean to turn your gun on me now."
Leo laughed. "Go get your bad guy."
Jimmy searched the floor for a set of keys to one of the Volkswagens. Found one. "These men are just hired help. Maybe they don't deserve to be shot."
"We're not in the killing business. But these guys might soon wish we were. By the way, I sent two guys to wait for the man you said would be in the tower. Heard nothing from them. Is your guy good enough that I should assume they won't be back?"
Einar. So he was probably still out there. He might have suspected a trap here after he realised two guys had been sent to finish him. He might even have watched from afar, and would have seen Hartbauer clear out in a hurry. If so, he would be thinking what Jimmy was thinking about Hartbauer's next course of action.
"Probably not. But don't worry about him anymore, either. He's about to have a bad day, too."
***
Einar sat in the dark, blinds closed, relaxing in a comfortable leather chair, feet up on the table. He closed his eyes and his mind went back to the events of earlier.
High atop the drill tower, he had watched Marsh being loaded into a car, and then Hartbauer had sent him a text consisting of just a postcode. Marsh was being taken somewhere and Hartbauer wanted Einar to join them. Curiosity prevented Einar from being angry that the plan was changed. That and the fact that the new plan might allow Einar to kill Marsh up close and personal.